The oil industry has powerful lobbyists and big finanical contribution and connections in the gov't in the US, therefore it's always a uphill battle to push industries into vast use of solar and wind and electric cars. China doesn't have this problem, and their infrstructure can't handle every household having a car, and every household having a yard or garden. Same thing with India.
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In reply to KaWai:
....wishful thinking... but , arguably ,the fact is that every household in both countries do want to have a car...do want to have all the unnecessary luxuries we now have in our part of the world ....if you read the forecasts about the increasing purchasing power of China and India...they want nothing less but to emulate or excel the West...that is indeed a 'HORROR' scenario...and they will not hear "NO' for an answer...but indeed the fact that new clean energy resources are being developed out of sheer necessity is indeed a ' comfort'....and that might be the window of opportunity for us all....
yeah but it's not going to happen. The people who live in cities in China live in high rises and not townhouses and they have no place to park cars, there was a developer in China that built a community reministing US type of suburb and the interests of people buying the homes there to their surprise weren't big, because Chinese people have gotten so used to their soical lifes structured in a urban cities, with convienences of walking to local shops and able to take public transpotations to places. I am not against Chinese and Indians to have the same necessacities and purchasing power as the West, they work hard to improve their lives and they should have TVs and stereos and computers and be able to have as many cars as they want, but the gov't the city planning people have to grow their cities and countries that would benefit the people, their cultures, and their needs, and their environment.
It's not really right for us who are living with the stuff that some people in the world still don't have to say that it's scary if everybody wants what we have. I believe people in general have good common sense and they would do what's sensible for their needs. If they do get blinded by becoming "westernized", I really think that's a phase a country must go through to modernize, and in time they would learn the mistake and make changes to adjust.
I think it's inevitable at this point that China and India make many of the same mistakes the United States did while modernizing, such as polluting the environment and depleting their resources. But don't forget, they are very different cultures, and we'll be surprised at how much turns out differently.
In reply to st. valentine:
..as far as the environment goes ( not to mentioning other 'areas ') they haven't done a very good job in HK after the British left !.....and the infrastructure was already there.....Westerners are as a matter of fact fleeing Hong Kong in great numbers...because it has become absolutely unbearable to live with the high levels of pollution going on....
In reply to Galileo's Universe:
There's not enough land in HK, so all the highrises are concentrated, you have to know, for a territory the size of a small dot in the world map, there are 6 million people living there, HK was very polluted when the Britsh were in charge too, it's been like that for years and years, started in the 70's when the economy took off. Manhatten is just as polluted, but they have more land. HK has so many people, so many buildings, lots of cars, but lots are buses and taxis and trucks, lots of air conditioners. The highrises are going out of control since they moved the airport, now the height restrictions in the area was removed, the developers just do whatever and the skyline is just crazy. Sometimes I can't bare the thought of going there to visit and seeing all the changes, not so much the cars and pollution, I am familiar with that, I grew up there so it's not new, but the changing of the street scenes, all the memories I used to have erased in front of my eyes and that's the hardest part for me.
For those who live in Northern Europe, it's hard to imagine living in places like HK and parts of China, they are really different, in terms of everything, history, culture, the speed of life. Everything is in heighten speed. China is going through what England went through when England was the factory for the world, China is having to deal with environmental problems, labor problems, corruptions, changing from farming communities to manufacturing industries. Now Europe has developed into the way it is, and China is a century behind, now trying to install all the hardwares as quickly as possible. Is it fair for developed nations to sit back and criticize when they went through similar hardships and problems? Nothing is just black and white, the ways people deal with developing in China is probably also a century behind, therefore there are a lot of ethical and habitual problems that's not in tune with modern times. If North Korea opened up, and changed their policy, they would go through similar things too for the sake of modernization.
In reply to KaWai:
.. I can hardly be convinced with such argument!....simply because when Britain/ Europe. the USA went through the Industrial Revolution....hardly anything was so advantageously developed as today as far as ...tons of sound legislations, new well thought/sound technologies did not exist at that very point in history, the right knowledge to foresee the impact on the environment in grand scale, code of ethics, worker's rights, health guidelines, and not forgetting the information highway opened to every one on the planet...etc . etc.....so if we are to compare....THEY ARE at this point in time and history at a huge advantage as to be able to profit enormously from the mistakes made in the last 100 years or so by the West.....so to say that 'we do not understand '...you are absolutely right.... but just and only just from an extremely logical point of view !.....I think , if I may say so, the problem is.....' common sense and the will not to make the same mistakes'... Nothing is ever perfect but that is never the perfect excuse when tackling such issues to find the ' semi-perfect' solution... at least !!.....
In reply to Galileo's Universe:
There are lots of corruption in China, in almost every level, and greed, which is not to say it doesn't happen in the west, in US we see more corperate greeds and corruption, but in China is a serious problem, and it's been throughout its history. The workers and grassroots are the ones that get exploded. There are good business people too, as in everywhere, but somehow it's always an uphill battle. I think it's the Chinese govn't and many people in that level who don't have the iron will to uproot local gov't corruption. HK had a very significant corruption problems too until ICAC established in the early 70's. If China wants to really move with the flow of modernizing, they have to really crackdown in the largest scale corruptions in all level, and that's a really daunting task. Sound legislations and information are no use if people don't carry them out, in the end, it's about people and people who are in charge. China and Russia are too countries that have really significant problems when it comes to modernizing, they always get tangled up by age old problems, corruptions. China is getting near and near to facing this or another grassroot uproar in a largest scale could happen again. I am afraid they have to see the worse before seeing things get better, right now they are trying to improve but also just covering the lids to the bubbling problems that seem ready to errupt at some point in the foreseeing future.