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Europe is locking itself in to US LNG

(davekeating.substack.com)
151 points hunglee2 | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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mytailorisrich ◴[] No.45262444[source]
Another level of irony is that this is partly because Europe does not want to develop shale gas for environmental reasons, so it imports US LNG... which is mostly shale gas [1].

The US love Europe's policies...

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/surging-us-lng-expor...

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GuB-42 ◴[] No.45262558[source]
Also, both Europe and the US are happy to have China do the dirty jobs so that they stay clean in their countries. With the consequences we all know today in terms of dependence.

Furthermore, China doesn't want to be dirty anymore, in fact they are maybe the ones who take green technologies the most seriously. So the dirtiest jobs are pushed to other countries, mostly in southeast Asia.

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llm_nerd ◴[] No.45262639[source]
> Also, both Europe and the US are happy to have China do the dirty jobs so that they stay clean in their countries

Can you give examples? What "dirty jobs" is China, and now apparently other countries, being purportedly forced to do? So is Trump really an environmentalist when he levied massive tariffs on countries in the region?

No, when countries devastate their environment they do it on their own volition. China was disastrously dirty mostly due to domestic reasons like the absolute lack of pollution controls, coal burning, and so on. China introspected and decided that they wanted to be better than that (the Olympics might legitimately have been a major turning point) and have done an amazing job cleaning the country up, and many areas are now truly Western. Air quality is infinitely better...at the same time that the country is making more than ever for the rest of the world.

Other countries haven't got there yet. India, the Philippines and so on have only themselves to blame for the state of their country, however self-comforting the delusion that it's really outsiders that are to blame might be.

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1. GuB-42 ◴[] No.45262985[source]
The US literally dumped their trash in China for "recycling". China doesn't want to anymore and India and several southeast Asia countries took over (Indonesia, Vietnam, ...).

And sure the the western world wasn't forced to trash China, but when a country decides to buy Chinese production that we know was made with no regard for the environment because it is more competitive than doing it locally where one has no choice but to care, then you are effectively exporting pollution.

As for Trump being an environmentalist with his tariffs. A few decades ago, he would have been, not so much anymore. If he didn't insist on trashing his own country that is.

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2. llm_nerd ◴[] No.45263408[source]
> The US literally dumped their trash in China for "recycling"

No one "dumped" anything. There weren't random ships sneaking onto the coast and dumping their contents. No airdrops tossing out garbage bags.

This was a pull industry and China had such a negligent position on their environment that people -- Chinese people, in China, allowed by China -- made money tendering for recycling contracts and then just stacking it into a giant pile, presumably awaiting some innovation that would make it worthwhile to process. That precisely speaks to exactly what I was saying, and externalizing that and blaming it on others is the sort of patronizing, laughably bigoted infantilizing that people do about developing nations, and it's extraordinarily unhelpful. China started caring, and regulated these exploiters out of business.

> and India and several southeast Asia countries took over (Indonesia, Vietnam, ...)

Vietnam is a surprisingly clean country. Like you can drop a Google Maps pin almost anywhere in Vietnam and while it might not be glitzy and rich, there is a sense of pride in environment and a care and a concern about the commons.

India and Bangladesh, on the other hand... Yeah, this isn't covertly imported garbage, but instead is 100% domestic sourced, just as the vast majority of China's was before it became more enlightened. Countries that are cesspools overwhelmingly have themselves to blame.

I just had to respond because this sort of infantilizing "every bad thing is caused by outsiders" angle isn't remotely helpful. Like almost all of the world's ocean plastics come from Southeast Asia, and it's amazing seeing people try to rationalize how in cultures where plastics are used for everything, and discarded thoughtlessly everywhere, actually it's somehow the West's fault.