“People need to think for themselves, what makes you happy should not be even more plastic crap made of oil/coal transported by oil from China.”
A lot of crap is made in China to be sold in the west commissioned by western companies. The world’s manufacturing base is China because western companies wanted to take advantage of the cheap labour. However, a lot of stuff that isn’t plastic crap is made in China and Taiwan, South Korea, Japan. Most of the high end tech stuff is fabricated in these countries. Again, initially this was to take advantage of cheaper labour. It’s not just China, we import a lot of food stuffs from elsewhere and export our own. 40 years ago my mother succeeded in feeding me very well with what was available then. Mostly seasonal, Irish produced food with some imported things maybe. Most folk were somewhat in tune with what was in season etc. Things like bread were generally baked by local-ish bakers, maybe county wide and similarly with milk with local dairies. Supermarkets and economies of scale have fucked all this up.
As for China, read post 40 in the MOA article I linked in the first post by someone named d dan. I hope he /she doesn’t mind me pinching some of what is stated.
“Fun facts about environment in China.
- China is the country that grow the most forest (afforestation) in the world [1].
- China has the most installed solar photovoltaics in the world (more than the next 3 countries combined) [2].
- China is the largest producer of wind power in the world (more than the next 9 countries combined) [3].
- China is the largest hydropower producer in the world (more than the next 4 countries combined) [4].
- China has the longest high speed rail (more energy efficient than plane or car) in the world (more than the rest of the world combined) [5].
- China has the largest green investment in the world (more than the next 4 countries combined) [6]
- China produces and uses most electric cars in the world.
- In addition, the trends will continue and may accelerate for all the above, and the gap between China and others will keep growing.”
In the post references to data are given.