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Americans worried about this country’s manufacturing economy fret over three simple words: “Made in China.”
For good reason, they worry about what will happen to our economy if we don’t manufacture products in this country. The sting is even worse when existing domestic manufacturing is shipped overseas, costing American jobs.
It’s one thing to be angry about products being made in China, and quite another to face a future in which new renewable energy technologies are invented, developed and brought to market by China.
But that’s what could happen.
“China and India have announced very ambitious national climate change plans. In the case of China, so ambitious that it could well become the front-runner in the fight to address climate change,” U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said in an interview with The Associated Press this week.
What does that have to do with us?
Some Americans question whether Earth’s climate is really changing, if man is causing it to change and even if climate change will be as disastrous and disruptive as predicted.
But the bottom line is the bottom line, both for the Dan River Region and the United States. The same technology that could be used to address climate change also will help free our reliance on imported energy sources.
If China, India and other emerging nations grow green and develop new, renewable energy technologies that also address climate change, will it matter if climate change is still an unsettled political issue in this country?
More to the point, if we think we’re being put in a tough economic position by seeing today’s manufacturing jobs shipped overseas, where will our country be if future energy technologies are discovered, patented and first brought to market overseas?
The Chinese are struggling with some of the same energy problems we are — like dealing with nuclear waste and developing cleaner coal technologies. They know what’s at stake and what has to be done.
We should be wary of any treaty that could put this country in a bad position relative to our economic competitors. But the real danger to our economy is that someone will develop the next generation solar panel, coal-fired power plant or other new energy technologies — and that someone won’t be doing it here.
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Reader Reactions
The R & B is absolutely right on this one. Even for those who don’t accept the scientific facts about climate change, the issues will still be addressed in the context of ground-level ozone or “smog” and acid rain…which can slip in the jet stream from as far as China to impact the environment all the way to Los Angeles…solar energy can be stored like a battery stores energy and result in immense cost savings, coal-caps also address acid rain and smog (which damage both the environment and human health), and we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil with alternative energy sources as we are currently subject to the whims of OPEC and political volitility in some regions at the gas pump. Why should China and India and others have all the advantages in import-export trade and emerging technologies? I know science and math scores are way way behind in the U.S. but surely we have enough researchers and entrepreneurs to capitalize on the new “green” field. It could be a way if we are on the cutting edge to rebuild a bit of a manufacturing base in the U.S. and we could harness climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December to gain advantages…if only the idiots who have been duped by the oil industry and a few narrow minded partisans into believing climate change is “myth” (like the earth being round is a myth) would wake up to the economic advantages of addressing toxic air emissions and cornering a market in emerging technologies. We could simultaneously fuel our economy and our cars and our homes with energy efficiency…
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