07-06-2006, 08:40 AM
Quote:Even the air in the rural countryside in India gives me respiratory fits when the farmers burn the chaff, etc. And Delhi used to and perhaps still has one of the highest rates of respiratory ailments in the world. Hopefully the new Metro will help. At any rate there is no reason the industrialized countries can reasonably be expected to adhere to standards that China and India refuse to sign on to.
Yes they can be expected yo do so. The industrialized countries are rich enough to feed all their inhabitants (that some of them don't is another discussion) while countries like India and China are not. If you don't know if and when you have your next meal I can imagine you care less about teh environment. We should act because we can. Anyway, economically we can never compete with countries where the standard wage is 2 dollars per day.....
What is important that we oblige multinationals to pay their share wherever they build their factories. We cant let them first 'take their business elsewhere' because wages are lower...and on top of that start polluting a lot more.