2/22/09: The world might turn out all right after all

Manufacturing is on the decline all around this globe. While it is advantageous for the environment to have humans manufacturing less stuff, it is wealth that brings environmental protection to urban areas. If a person is poor no coaxing will get them to put the environment before themselves. First comes wealth, then health, and manufacturing will need to be restored to create wealth and health.

During Hillary Clinton's first voyage out of the US as secretary general she visited China and started a movement with the Chinese to protect our environment. The USA and China are the largest polluters in the world, just our two countries making small changes is more powerful than any action from the rest of the world.


Governments of the world are waking up to environmental degradation and are now moving to regulate mercury on a global level. Mercury is one of the worst pollutants we emit in large amounts and is one of the main pollutants emitted by coal fired power plants. A move to regulate mercury on a global level is a move to regulate coal fired power plants, most of which are in China and the USA. With this movement in regulating mercury and the USA's EPA move to regulate CO2 via coal fired power plants they will hopefully only be a memory in 70 years.

Democrats in Congress are planning to present a climate change bill to Obama by the end of the summer.

In imagining the new economy of "green power" many forget the infrastructure that will need to accompany "green projects." To be sustainable and cost effective we need to act very carefully, the doctrine of "any action is good action" is dangerous at this point.

One of the greatest humanitarian efforts and economic efforts is underway in India. A company has created the 2,500 USdollar car. This will bring wealth and opportunity to millions and will bring millions of tons of pollutants to the environment. At 50mpg this little car does little damage for the amount of benefit it will bring the people of India. Wealth before health i say, let them build themselves up then let them sustainably develop. If the industrialized world wanted to address the issues of environmental degradation and poverty at the same time they would help industrialized countries develop sustainably. We talk about it in UN conferences but we do little of it.

The internet is cool, google is cool, but there is much more to come:
This is an article about the future of the internet.
And this is a video about the future of the internet.