China sees the evil of plastic bags ポールスミス 財布
On political and policy matters グッチ 財布, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum.
half of our columns come from our Board of Contributors, a group whose interests range from education to religion to sports to the economy. Their charge is to chronicle American culture by telling the stories, large and small, that collectively make us what we are.
also publish weekly columns by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY's founder, and DeWayne Wickham, who writes primarily on matters of race but on other subjects as well. in order to get shoppers to use recyclable baskets and cloth satchels."
"Bam! Just like that 1.3 billion people, theoretically, will stop using thin plastic bags," he marveled. "Millions of barrels of petroleum will be saved, and mountains of garbage avoided."
The key to Friedman's analysis is the word "theoretically." Because, in reality China did no such thing. The country is still awash in plastic bags ヴィトン バッグ. But perhaps the most damning critique is that banning plastic bags isn't necessarily the optimal policy.
A new study by the Environment Agency of England finds that those thin plastic bags have a smaller carbon footprint than reusable plastic or cotton satchels as well as disposable paper bags. According to " Evidence: Life Cycle Assessment of Supermarket Carrier Bags," you'd have to reuse a fashionable cotton bag at least 131 times to equal the low carbon footprint of a simple plastic bag. If you reuse a plastic bag as a wastebasket liner perhaps they pull even further away as the most green technology.
Also, as other studies have shown, those trendy reusable bags provide a wonderful breeding ground for E. coli and other bacteria. That is, unless you wash them regularly. But if you do that, as my American Enterprise Institute colleague Ken Green notes, all that bleach, soap and hot water expand their carbon footprint as well.
Now, the humble plastic bag is far from perfect, but it is even further from the plague it has been made out to be. Certainly ポールスミス ネクタイ, the paper bag (my preferred food conveyance) is more deserving of outlaw status. That is ヴィトン 公式, if you measure the worth of something solely by its carbon footprint a debatable practice to say the least.
Long-delayed study
Intriguingly, the British study was commissioned in 2005 but only came out in February. Some allege it was suppressed by Greens inside the former Labor Government. If true, shame on them. Even so, there's a moral to the story as well. Democratic elections and a free news media bring such suppressed truths to light. That relatively open process might be too tardy or sloppy for people like Friedman, but it is far more speedy than in places like China. After all, Beijing's much ballyhooed fondness for markets came only after the country experimented with various schemes involving social engineering, starvation and mass murder on a staggering scale. Even now シャネル, the country's rulers ruthlessly protect the myth of their own infallibility to the point where admitting error is tantamount to divulging state secrets.
There's this strange notion out there that experts, technocrats and planners are immune to the power of fads. But the simple truth is that the madness of crowds can infect professional crowds ポールスミス 時計, too ポールスミス スーツ. Friedman looks to China and myopically sees them doing things he likes and concludes it must be because China is run by dispassionate geniuses. Perhaps the Politburo simply drank the same Kool-Aid?
President Obama shares much of the mania than has afflicted Friedman. No, the president doesn't pine for autocracy, but he is obsessed with China's mythological green revolution (the country has the dirtiest industrial economy in the world, building a new coal plant every 10 days). He's convinced that we can "win the future" with such boondoggles as high-speed rail and impractical fads such as wind and solar energy.
The good news is that he can't lock us into these policies without first convincing the public and their representatives バーバリー 財布. And if he does succeed in locking us in エルメス 時計, we can unlock ourselves, too. That's because it's America here, every day of the year.
Jonah Goldberg is editor at large of National Review Online and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.
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