Economic Competition to Save Environment

Well, this raises some interesting questions:

China approved the construction of more than 100 million tonnes of new coal production capacity in 2013 – six times more than a year earlier and equal to 10 percent of U.S. annual usage – flying in the face of plans to tackle choking air pollution. The scale of the increase, which only includes major mines, reflects Beijing’s aim to put 860 million tonnes of new coal production capacity into operation over the five years to 2015, more than the entire annual output of India. While efforts to curb pollution mean coal’s share of the country’s energy mix is set to dip, the total amount of the cheap and plentiful fuel burned will still rise.

Just brainstorming, here, but it seems to me that the moral urgency of fighting global warming climate change should lead us to deregulate our industries and slash taxes in order kick-start a massive economic boom to enable the United States to better compete with China, thus leading to a shift of economic growth from Asia to the United States.

Then, our heavier reliance on natural gas and overall tendency to be more environmentally conscientious would reduce the amount of pollution from what it otherwise would have been.

At the same time, the smaller government coupled with economic growth would bring the federal budget into balance, and reduce our need to keep seeking loans from the Chinese government, reducing a source of regular revenue that it can use to bankroll dirty coal and military expansion.

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