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back to article US sends factories to Asia, gets ozone in return

The West’s massive shift of manufacturing to Asian locations – which have a reputation for looser environmental standards – is having an unforeseen and unwanted outcome: some of the pollution offshored to Asia along with jobs and factories is returning to the West. That’s the conclusion reached by a team of US researchers who …

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  1. Arctic fox
    Trollface

    Well, that just about defines...........

    .........what goes around, comes around. It is somewhat ironic that in a certain sense Western countries are breaching the environmental protection laws in their own countries by this roundabout route. Seems like, one way or the other, we get the goods we want and the pollution we don't whether we like it or not. There's a moral in there somewhere!

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    1. hayseed
      Reply Icon

      Re: Well, that just about defines...........

      ... But it is much worse in China, so it's a rather lopsided "retribution."

      Anyways, are the guys (and gals) in the Chinese EPA just sitting on their a**es?

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Well, that just about defines...........

        "the Chinese EPA"

        Oh my, aren't you the funny one.

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    2. skeptical i
      Reply Icon
      Devil

      More lesson than moral (because Corporate Amurka has no morals)

      send jobs overseas to cut labor costs

      + send factories overseas to cut environmental compliance costs

      + healthcare costs? not my problem!

      + charge same or similar price for lower quality products

      ---------------

      = PROFIT!

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    3. Elmer Phud
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      Morals

      It's nothing special, it's just that the Industrial Revolution is now more globalised than localised.

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  2. Voland's right hand Silver badge
    Devil

    This is a very interesting development

    Interesting.

    So is USA now entitled to put an import duty on Chinese goods on environmental grounds without getting a WTO rap?

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not really "unforeseen"

    "The West’s massive shift of manufacturing to Asian locations – which have a reputation for looser environmental standards – is having an unforeseen and unwanted outcome..."

    Only unforeseen by those who know nothing, or those who were determinedly not thinking about the problem. Of course it was bloody foreseen - it just wasn't cared about.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Same With Carbon Dioxide

    The stupid Greenists here in Europe are all so happy about "CO2 emission reductions". What really happens is the Carbon tax destroying factories and jobs here and moving that activity to China. Surely Chinese companies are happy to open factories and make these energy-intensive products for us idiots.

    Total CO2 emission only rises by that, as Chinese factories are not the most efficient. Note that I am not bashing the Chinese here, but the selective cognitive function of these "ecologists".

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  5. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    I had a plan to collect CO2 from Europe in oil tankers and vent it into the atmosphere just off the Pacific coast of the U.S., where I hear it legally doesn't count as pollution. Although major cities trying to breathe the stuff neat would disagree, briefly. I don't actually have any oil tankers or money to get them and I'm not exactly sure how to get the CO2 into them, so I leave the idea on the table. Well, I suppose you could take oil, and burn it. But that would rather miss the point. And would be expensive.

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  6. jukejoint

    Whatevs

    All your ozones are belong to us!

    And since the article mentioned 'LA Basin', well fine. I live north of there. What, me worry?

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