Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Importing a way around green laws

The article I read was in regards to worldwide carbon emissions. Upon discovering the damaging effects that carbon can have on the atmosphere many of the larger developed countries got together and made an agreement to try and reduce carbon levels. One way they were able to accomplish this was to develop technology that produced less carbon, termed “greener” technology. This is all well enough and certainly important but this article focuses on the unseen effect of developed countries trying to lower their carbon emissions. Basically it goes on to describe that the developed countries import some carbon heavy products rather than producing them domestically in an attempt to keep their carbon footprint low. The obvious downside to this plan is that while it may be helping that particular country it is still having a negative effect on the global level. A chart in the article depicted this increase in developing countries carbon output, showing that from around 2003 it began to spike to the level that it is at now. To conclude the article the author argued that we could either increase the tariffs on these items in an attempt to promote domestic production, or we could try and help the developing countries further develop carbon friendly technology. While both solutions may help in reducing worldwide carbon emissions I would have to side with providing greener technology to the developing countries. The set back to this is that it is not necessarily the developed country's job to pay for and help developing countries, but with that being said the world is starting to run on a more global level everyday and sooner or later we need to look at having the whole world well settled and taken care of. This obviously sounds very idealistic but I would rather that than the alternative.
--Russell Hayman

1 comment:

  1. I agree that increasing the use of “green” technologies in developing nations is a better alternative than placing tariffs on goods imported from these nations. Although tariffs would probably result in a decrease in the total number of goods imported from developing nations, they would also have a negative effect on the economies of these developing areas of the world. In addition, these tariffs would also harm the economy in the United States by increasing the cost of imported goods significantly and causing consumers to pay higher prices. I therefore believe that time and money should be invested in helping developing nations “green” their industrial processes. These greener technologies would be beneficial to both the environment and the global economy.