I wrote:
> Per capita emissions are much higher in Mexico and China than they are in > the U.S. and Japan. Poverty causes pollution. Rich nations can afford > things like nuclear power, wind power, electric lighting and modern hybrid > automobiles. > To be a little more concrete, look at the recent photos of the catastrophic air pollution in Beijing. You can find similar pictures from Mexico city. Now look at photos of London in 1952, and Philadelphia, PA in 1950. You see the same thing: massive, uncontrolled air pollution caused by horribly inefficient industrial processes and lack of air pollution control equipment. In the 1990s before the Chinese began to modernize, they produced ~20 times less economic output per joule of energy than the U.S. or Japan did. (I think it was ~20.) They were throwing away vast amounts of coal and oil. Now they are building 30 nuclear power plants and the equivalent number of wind plants. They are fixing the problem, just as we fixed our problems in the 1950s and 60s. Our pollution is WAY down, and our efficiency is WAY up. Driving in 50 mpg Prius get you to your destination just as quickly as 12 mpg car did circa 1965. In the event of an accident you are far more likely to survive unhurt in a Prius than you would have been 1965. That means insurance costs are way down, and so is overall cost of ownership. Highway fatalities are way down. You pay more upfront, but much less overall. Go to Mexico city and you find a million cars using 1970s technology, wasting fuel and destroying the environment. The 10 most polluted cities in the world. They are all in the Third World: http://opishposh.com/most-polluted-cities-in-the-world/ I expect you would find ~90 of the top 100 most polluted cities are in the Third World. The ones in the U.S. and Japan are the poorest. As I said before, our power companies still kill ~20,000 people per year with impunity, because these are poor people living downwind of coal fired plants. If they killed off that many middle class people they would be shut down in no time. Poor people have to live with pollution and filth because they have no money and no political influence. In the U.S., if they would vote, we would clean up their communities and we have far less pollution than we now have. The air pollution in London in 1952 killed ~4,000 people and this -- finally -- triggered public outrage and reform. Many of the technical solutions had been sitting on the shelf for 200 years. Even in Elizabethan times they knew how to reduce smoke and improve efficiency. Pollution is misplaced resources. It is useful material in the wrong place. It is money flushed down the sewer for no reason. It is caused by stupidity, and foolish self-destructive greed. There is no need for pollution, and no need for global warming either. It would not cost any money to fix these problems even with present-day technology, never mind cold fusion. We could fix them and save money doing it. - Jed
