> Also, both Europe and the US are happy to have China do the dirty jobs so that they stay clean in their countries

Can you give examples? What "dirty jobs" is China, and now apparently other countries, being purportedly forced to do? So is Trump really an environmentalist when he levied massive tariffs on countries in the region?

No, when countries devastate their environment they do it on their own volition. China was disastrously dirty mostly due to domestic reasons like the absolute lack of pollution controls, coal burning, and so on. China introspected and decided that they wanted to be better than that (the Olympics might legitimately have been a major turning point) and have done an amazing job cleaning the country up, and many areas are now truly Western. Air quality is infinitely better...at the same time that the country is making more than ever for the rest of the world.

Other countries haven't got there yet. India, the Philippines and so on have only themselves to blame for the state of their country, however self-comforting the delusion that it's really outsiders that are to blame might be.

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sampo 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> What "dirty jobs" is China, and now apparently other countries, being purportedly forced to do?

In past decades, we had this system that China manufactures goods, they are shipped in ships to US and Europe, and because US and Europe don't manufacture much anything, often the ships would travel back empty. Western countries started to legislate mandated plastic waste recycling, but didn't really have facilities to actually recycle. So we would ship our plastic waste to China, with a promise that it will be recycled. Legislators were happy. In practice, plastic waste is not so easy to recycle, and was often just dumped somewhere in Asia.

In 2017, China stopped accepting imports of plastic waste.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s_waste_import_ban

Some countries like Sweden, burn their household waste in combined heat and power generation plants. If you incinerate in sufficiently high temperatures, and have exhaust filters, you can do in cleanly without causing air pollution.

https://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/blog/turning-waste-energy-...

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altcognito 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There are no outsiders when it comes to pollution. We get one planet. That's it.

So, China is free to choose to pollute, as is Europe and the US free to choose production from a source that doesn't pollute as much.

Their electrical infrastructure that is built on coal (60% of current generation) even if they've made huge improvements. Rare earth mining and building of all those electrical batteries and solar panels is a pretty dirty business. Reality is China produces a colossal amount of stuff, and much of it is pretty dirty (it would probably be dirty anywhere as that's the nature of making things at an industrial scale)

Right now China seems headed in the right direction for pollution, moreso than the US. And probably the only way they end up reducing pollution completely is to grow wealthy enough to replace old methods.

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GuB-42 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The US literally dumped their trash in China for "recycling". China doesn't want to anymore and India and several southeast Asia countries took over (Indonesia, Vietnam, ...).

And sure the the western world wasn't forced to trash China, but when a country decides to buy Chinese production that we know was made with no regard for the environment because it is more competitive than doing it locally where one has no choice but to care, then you are effectively exporting pollution.

As for Trump being an environmentalist with his tariffs. A few decades ago, he would have been, not so much anymore. If he didn't insist on trashing his own country that is.

	▲	llm_nerd 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> The US literally dumped their trash in China for "recycling" No one "dumped" anything. There weren't random ships sneaking onto the coast and dumping their contents. No airdrops tossing out garbage bags. This was a pull industry and China had such a negligent position on their environment that people -- Chinese people, in China, allowed by China -- made money tendering for recycling contracts and then just stacking it into a giant pile, presumably awaiting some innovation that would make it worthwhile to process. That precisely speaks to exactly what I was saying, and externalizing that and blaming it on others is the sort of patronizing, laughably bigoted infantilizing that people do about developing nations, and it's extraordinarily unhelpful. China started caring, and regulated these exploiters out of business. > and India and several southeast Asia countries took over (Indonesia, Vietnam, ...) Vietnam is a surprisingly clean country. Like you can drop a Google Maps pin almost anywhere in Vietnam and while it might not be glitzy and rich, there is a sense of pride in environment and a care and a concern about the commons. India and Bangladesh, on the other hand... Yeah, this isn't covertly imported garbage, but instead is 100% domestic sourced, just as the vast majority of China's was before it became more enlightened. Countries that are cesspools overwhelmingly have themselves to blame. I just had to respond because this sort of infantilizing "every bad thing is caused by outsiders" angle isn't remotely helpful. Like almost all of the world's ocean plastics come from Southeast Asia, and it's amazing seeing people try to rationalize how in cultures where plastics are used for everything, and discarded thoughtlessly everywhere, actually it's somehow the West's fault.