Two countries in Latin America, namely Argentina and Brazil were comparably as rich, on a per capita (and in the case of Brazil) and an absolute basis as the the United States in natural resources. Russia, which spans over 6 time zones, has a resource base second to none. Yet these countries managed the surprising achievement of both remaining poor and destroying their environments.
None of them practiced what we understand as capitalism under a constitutional and representative government. The rising tide of American pollution which you correctly describe as being curbed from about 40 years ago stems directly from the interplay of market forces -- and representative government. The market penalizes excessive pollution, once these costs are manifested, and strives to reduce them. Legal liabilities are a cost. Cleanup is a cost.
None of these costs are properly priced in command or corruption based economies like China or Brazil. Hence the despoilation will continue in these countries until their systems change. The sustainability of an ecosystem is based on the correct working of the markets -- including intergenerational transactions; but then we have a futures market and financial instruments which could, conceivably provide a trade in these cross-time events.
It is often pointed out by "environmentalists" that the US consumes 25 percent of the world's resources; what they don't say is that it produces over 30% of the world's output, or something like that. When you consider how much of that "average" is already skewed by America, Japan and the Europeans, you get a sense of how destructive Third World manufacture is. Where is the marginal car or ton of steel more cleanly produced? China or Australia? China or the United States? Which country is penalized for polluting? China or Australia? China or the United States. No wonder there's a brown cloud heading our way. May it stop in Johannesburg.
Two countries in Latin America, namely Argentina and Brazil were comparably as rich, on a per capita (and in the case of Brazil) and an absolute basis as the United States in natural resources.How about extractable energy resources? In the case of Brazil they're probably a lot harder to find than in the U.S.; I'm not so sure about Argentina. I think that American industrialization was enabled to a great extent by the "easy" availability of oil and coal. There's no doubt that the czars and then the Communists squandered Russia's natural resources.
The rising tide of American pollution which you correctly describe as being curbed from about 40 years ago stems directly from the interplay of market forces -- and representative government. The market penalizes excessive pollution, once these costs are manifested, and strives to reduce them. Legal liabilities are a cost. Cleanup is a cost.
Excellent point! Our representatives did act in accordance with public sentiment on these issues, and that changed the way that many industries could conduct business.
None of these costs are properly priced in command or corruption based economies like China or Brazil. Hence the despoilation will continue in these countries until their systems change.
In the case of China, it's a heavy Communist push for development; Brazil is still beset with a poor agricultural sector and limited developmental prospects.
China is in an interesting position; because of their population they are still "developing" (much lower per capita income than U.S.), but they are already heavy industrialized. The "brown cloud" you mention shows that. I've been to China once, and I think that the U.S. needs to offer cleaner technology on one hand, and disallow imports from polluting industries that are not penalized like U.S. industries on the other, to move China toward cleaner development. (However, this would probably mean that my toddlers would have a lot fewer cheap toys made in China.)