Competition is Our Friend

In his piece, "Aren't We Clever," Thomas Friedman gives a shocking realization that America is losing the race on climate action to China and other countries. Shocking actually is not the right word, in the past year or so China has made enormous strides at becoming a greener country. Before Copenhagen in 2009, China released their plan to reduce their carbon emissions (or as they call it "carbon intensity") by 40-45% by 2020. Added to that is their creation of a green dam project and a green technology sector that has collected investors from around the world. All of these projects create jobs, jobs that are part of the green revolution and will be sustained in a green world. The United States on the other hand is having difficulties just passing simple legislation and creates a public uprising over the idea of banning offshore drilling. So why is it shocking that China is ahead of the United States in this race to be green? I don't think it's shocking, I think it's upfront and I think it's and article that needed to be published so the American people can realize the lack of progress that we have made.

Emily brings up a good point, Americans are motivated by competition, we have been historically and we will continue to be as long as we have a market based economy. So talking about action on climate change as a race between the US and other countries does make sense. It allows us to see what we have accomplished and what we need to improve, it creates a standard. Even more so, competition creates a drive to win. The United States is a world power, whether it be in the Olympics or on the world stage, American want to win. So if we look at the action in terms of a race we are currently losing, but this realization of failure could be the motivation we need to really enact change.

We cannot rely solely on technology, it's plain and simple. We do not know what technology will be in the next decade or even in the next few years. It could be our saving grace or it could be our destroyer. We must focus on other aspects of the I=PAT equation while simultaneously focusing on technology. Yet if that technology has the purpose of promoting and creating "green" manufacturing it is much more likely that it will be beneficial to our future. I think, currently, we need to focus on more "green" manufacturing, after all we are still a country dependent on oil and there is nothing green about that. Greener products could lead to less of an impact of affluence since consumers would be purchasing products that were made with limited environmental harm and could be operated and disposed of with limited harm. But all of this is speculation and we are not at the point where we can afford to leave anything up to speculation.