Sunday, December 7, 2008

Pollution

Since 1960, we in the U.S. have reduced the pollutants making it into our environment by over 90%, even though we have nearly doubled our industrial output. How? With higher technologies. High-tech doesn’t pollute nearly so much as low tech. The biggest remaining polluters are China, India, and Russia. Smaller third-world countries are polluting correspondingly. We must freely share our clean technologies with the new emerging industrial bases and insist through treaties that they responsibly enter the manufacturing world. The major portion of our foreign aid should go to this end.

We still have some problems: illegal dumping, new pollutants from the electronics industry, and farming runoff. One thing will stop rampant illegal dumping: heavy enforcement. Polluters must be fined more heavily and jailed longer—these are crimes against many people as well as against our plants and animals.

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