I keep hearing legislators say that we cannot address climate change without CHINA. I wholeheartedly agree that China has to be part of the solution — but since when does the United States wait for China to lead? There are a few lessons from the world of sports that may help explain how we can get this done.
Last year Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers toured China for basketball exhibition in an effort to grow the sport internationally. In two weeks, Major League Baseball will send the New York Yankees and LA Dodgers to China for an exhibition. The sports leagues are selling American products – in this case, jerseys, hats, and TV rights – to one of the world’s largest markets. We need to do the same with clean energy technology – that is, develop it here and sell it there. If we sit on our hands, it will happen the other way around.
Why would China be interested in buying our clean energy technologies? You’ll get your answer this summer at the Olympics. The environment in China is awful. The air is choked with smog. The whole world will watch as Olympic marathoners spend just under three hours representing their country and destroying their lungs as they run for the gold. Aside from the international embarrassment, the Chinese will eventually have to deal with their pollution problems to keep control of their own population, who are increasingly prosperous and unwilling to put up with this deadly situation.
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Alternative Energy Technology, Cap and Trade, Climate Change, Eco-Business Strategies, International Environmental News, Pop Culture . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
