Cengage Advantage Books: Sustaining the Earth 10th Edition by Tyler Miller,Scott Spoolman

Exercise 19

Some people in China point out that the United States and European nations fueled their economic growth in the industrial revolution by burning coal, with little effort to control the resulting air pollution, and then trying to clean up its effects later when they became more affluent. China says it is being asked to clean up before it becomes affluent enough to do this without greatly slowing its economic growth. How would you deal with this contradiction? Since China's air pollution has implications for the entire world, what role, if any, should the more-developed nations play in helping China to reduce its dependence on coal and to burn coal more cleanly and efficiently?