This gives me hope. The US is the worlds greatest greenhouse gas emitter/polluter. I know that China was supposed to have surpassed us recently but what the US is doing is outsourcing our carbon pollution to China by selling them the raw materials to make our goods with their cheap labor and then having them ship the goods back to us so that you can buy them at the big box stores. How good is it to see that the Chinese know better than to make this their way forward. Here are the Chinese environmentalists protesting:
Looks like they are learning from the Occupy movement. As 30,000 angry citizens occupied a public highway to protest an incoming coal plant, as well as an exceptionally dirty one that has been fouling their environment for years. After holding the the highway for some time, the protesters were forcibly removed by tear gas-wielding police forces. Two people were reportedly killed in the clash.
This is amazing stuff. The stakes for such protests are so much higher in China, where civil liberties are a joke, and demonstrators are routinely thrown in jail and held as political prisoners. And yet, more and more people are turning out to fight back against industrial projects that sully their land, endanger their health, and choke their air with pollution.
And sometimes, it works: Chinese authorities announced they are scrapping the plans for the coal plant.
There is great controversy involving the suspicious death of one of the leaders of the environmental protest. The Chinese protesters were somehow able to get the word out to assemble and knowing the great risks involved still managed to communicate their displeasure to their leaders. The Occupy movement is begetting courage around the world. This shows great promise for the future. I don't think the polluting western nations will be able to use China as their scapegoat and excuse for their own environmental offences for much longer.
