There is a reason these kind of things are no longer possible in much of the western world and especially Europe-like US states like California:

After the deindustrialization people started to enjoy healthy air and clear water.

As always when it comes to "the good old times" or "make great again", your brain will remember very selectively.

I used to live next to a large river for about 35 years. As a kid, it was forbidden to swim in it, and if you did, you had weird oily chemicals on your skin that felt unhealthy (burn, itching etc).

Back then we had huge production industries upstream, employing thousands of people.

Today you can swim in the river without any problem at all. But the industry and the jobs have shrunken a lot, because not polluting the air and water simply is expensive.

You can sum this up with: Producing stuff without polluting the environment in most cases is impossible. Reducing the pollution costs a lot of money, and can make your product non-competitive.

This is why you outsource to other countries and let them do it, because you simply do not care about them living in a polluted environment. Poison Outsourcing.

So, if the US wants production industry again, and want it to be competitive, than have a look on how the environment in the countries you will be competing with looks like, and then to an informed decision if you really want that.

I'd pick the clean air and water, and have people poisoned far away that I don't know and can ignore.

What would be your choice?

Those are the incorrect choices. You CAN actually do these processes, and still keep the environment clean.

I believe in procedural symmetry: if you ACTUALLY care about people and the environment, then you wouldn't let other poorer do these thing. The USA being richer, can afford to do it right and safer, not through regulation, but through process. There is a difference.

So what would you do if you ACTUALLY cared about the people and environment? Put high tariffs on dangerous process products, reduce regulation (permits, etc), increase standardization and final safety measurements. Then the products we use, we make, safely.

But people don't actually care about the environment. They care about looking like they care about the environment, and sending industrial processes somewhere else. There is a difference.

When people can't afford homes, food and medicine, environment ceases to be a priority.

It's mostly a question of when, not if.

Saying California is Europe like is a serious insult to Europe.

Yea, this romantizing of a past is doing no good to us. For example, It's weird how people romantize back breaking work on farm as "simple life". But I guess this was here with us every time. Grass is greener somewhere else and was greener in good old times.

My choice would be, if banning a particular process, also ban imports of products made with this process.

Another facet is that not only we got to enjoy clean air and outsourced pollution, we also paid our strategic enemies enough for them to transcend us.

> What would be your choice?

Less stuff and less pollution everywhere.

> You can sum this up with: Producing stuff without polluting the environment in most cases is impossible. Reducing the pollution costs a lot of money, and can make your product non-competitive.

I mean, the true reason here seems to be that producing stuff without polluting is impossible if you have to compete with stuff produced with lesser pollution standards.

In theory, this could be an argument for heavy import tariffs from countries with lesser pollution standards. The downside, of course, is that at the end of the day this would still mean "stuff is more expensive, maybe a lot more", which is obviously unpopular as it means fewer people can get the stuff. (And of course, a US state's ability to restrict trade with other US states is extremely limited)

>But the industry and the jobs have shrunken a lot

And those people left jobless still have the right to vote. So you'll have to bribe them with welfare or invest in their upskilling otherwise they'll turn to crime to survive and vote the most extremist parties to power that will undo all your environmentalism.

It also leaves you economically and militarily vulnerable to the countries you outsourced all your manufacturing too, as you can't fight back an invading army with just your remaining HR and software departments.

>I'd pick the clean air and water, and have people poisoned far away that I don't know and can ignore.

Until they mass migrate as refugees out of their polluted hlleholes you helped create, and move into your clean country straining your resources, making it your problem once again. Or, they tool up and economically or militarily crush you, turning your country into one of their colonies.

You(the West) reap what you sow. There's no free lunch where you can have your cake and eat it too. In a highly globalized world, things tend to come back at you pretty quickly.

Wasn't there some magical thinking about how by outsourcing industries to those poor countries will bring them money and raise their standard of living to a point where they care just as much about their environment as us and it will all eventually equalize. Didn't quite pan out like that, did it.