Wednesday, September 30, 2009

China's Green Initiative

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times has a great piece on what is perhaps the biggest environmental news of the past few weeks.

7 comments:

Emily Rossi said...

To me this seems to be a really good example of how the developed world seems to always respond with new innovations VERY quickly as a response to some problem ( that we most likely caused), but never quickly as a form of initial prevention. For example we have been working on finding an alternative clean energy source for years, but I bet if all the worlds’ fossil fuels disappeared tomorrow we'd have an alternative fuel source by next Tuesday!! Seems we always wait till it’s a crisis before we really put work into fixing something, guess we work well under pressure ...good for us...bad for the environment

Tyler Nagelvoort said...

I think that China's "green movement" will ultimately be beneficial to the United States. Some of the greatest technological advances in history have come when a country is faced with a challenge. I agree with Friedman, that the Chinese green movement will be the Sputnik of the 21st century spurring the devotion of substation resources to its. Hopefully the concept of China developing superior methods of producing energy will spur the United States to contribute more time and resources to the research of clean energy, yielding great strides in the advancement of green technology.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Tyler, I think this is going to eventually be great for the United States. First of all, as pointed out by the article and Emily, people innovate when faced with a crisis. China is the country faced with the huge crisis at this point. They will innovate and they will reap the economic benefits of creating new energy sources at affordable prices. However, in the long run the U.S, and the world for that matter, will reap the benefits of cleaner energy without having to completely pollute our country. - Ryan D

Kyle Borgemeister said...

China’s implementation of greener technology is great news for everyone around the world. It means that before, when Americans practiced conservation and preservation it was only counter-acted across the world by destructive activity in China or other foreign trading partners. Now that China has started acting in greener ideas the environment should benefit, especially since most of our industrial processes occur in China. It is also beneficial to all because it will put more emphasis on green technology overall. More of the sustainable methods will eventually be spread to and utilized in other countries.

Anonymous said...

"The view of China in the U.S. Congress — that China is going to try to leapfrog us by out-polluting us — is out of date. It’s going to try to out-green us." Of course China is going to "out-green" us. Their government/political system will allow for quicker development of green technologies, but I don't see why this is a problem? Even though going green should be a collective and global effort, competition between nations usually advances and enhances outcomes (as already stated by several of my classmates.) I think it's kind of sad that our (U.S.) need to be #1 sometimes over-shadows the fact that another nation is working toward a common goal, like green energy. The advancement of green technologies, wherever it occurs, is a good thing.
- Jessica Patrick

Anonymous said...

It's good that China has the Green Initiative. Talk is cheap when it comes to inproving ways to alternative energy and I hope China keeps to its word. It will help improve air and water quality in which we need to work with China, so that we too get on board with Alternative Energy before 1 day all of the fossil fuel is gone.

Jerry M. Brown

Andy Myers said...

Wow. This is very exciting news. It also seems to come across as a piece of very obvious "common sense." I'm glad to see a country jump on board with practical approaches to developing green technology. Especially one that is now the largest source of CO2 emissions.
I agree with the belief that China is simply playing for the money. Its the smart thing to do, develop what sells, especially develop substitutes for things that are running out (and becoming expensive). There will be an added bonus of preventing global warming too but the real green here is on the dollar bill and I see no problem with that. I only hope that the US and the rest of the world also start playing ball so that green technology can become cheap and feasible.

-Andy Myers