Home
News
In Focus
Business
Metro
Nation
World
Sports
Feature
Opinion
View more »Opinion Columns
Wan LixinOpinion deputy editor of Shanghai Daily
Forum emphasizes BRI cooperation between China and Arab countries
Rights to lower sleeper berths should be softened by empathy for fellow passengers
Sunday
- Subscribe
Home » Opinion » Foreign Views
A view from Iowa State on China and America
By Greg Cusack |
March 15, 2010, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
WAN Lixin's columns about America recall for me the Scottish poet Robert Burns' comment, "God give us the grace to see others as they see us." His columns about America have served as that kind of invaluable point of view for me.
Visitors to America from other cultures, while unable to be entirely free of their own "cultural biases" or "lenses" by which they observe themselves and others, can offer stark, sometimes sharply different perspectives from those many of us in this country share.
When Mr Wan writes, in his recent column on water issues in the US ("Consumerism threatens water supply" on March 6) that flying over our country he saw below him an "expanse of water in a lake that I first mistook for the sea," I presume he was looking down on our system of Great Lakes, which are large and impressive remnants of our ancient, inland sea.
He also marveled at "the vastness of America's arable land." We, indeed, have been blessed with an abundance of many things: pure air, fertile land, and abundant water.
However, like most countries, such abundance does not exist everywhere within the US. Natural forces have made water scarce in our huge Western states (large in territory, not in numbers of citizens), and these are the same areas most at risk for enduring droughts.
Then, of course, there are the impacts of what we humans have done to the land and its pristine water and air. Our earliest pioneers, pushing westward, (and, not incidentally, playing a crucial role in the eventual displacement of the original inhabitants, the Native American Indians), were overwhelmed at the apparent abundance all about them.
Arriving in Nebraska, Colorado, and eventually California, they were not at first aware of the relative scarcity of water. As their numbers multiplied, they began - again, without any intent to harm - to adapt agricultural and industrial practices which made demands upon that water (both in drawing it down and in polluting it).
Practices begun in the past multiplied as patterns guiding our present. We are loath to change our ways, or to attempt to envision how things could be done very differently.
Mr Wan cites the works of some authors, including Susan Marks and Frank Talbot, who are trying to bring greater awareness to the American people of the water crisis within our own borders. We have made great progress in tackling pollution of our waters, thanks to environmentalists and the significant passage of the 1965 Water Quality Act, the 1966 Clean Waters Restoration Act, and the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act. However, there are other negative forces at work, too.
Mr Wan states: "The propagation of this (consumerist and wasteful) lifestyle and the perception of it as 'civilized' - ultimately driven by capitalists' craving for markets - is at the root of the depletion of earth's natural resources." Whew! There is a lot in that sentence.
First, the "consumerist lifestyle," while related to "capitalism," is not the same thing. It grew from the original desire of all human beings to "live better."
Certainly this is a driving force in China today, as well, and poses a distinct threat to you if not somehow constrained or counter-balanced. At heart, this requires having a perspective rooted in "community," and not just "myself."
Second, unrestrained capitalism feeds on individual greed and does not welcome constraints of any kind. "More" is always assumed to be "better."
"For Chinese," Mr Wan continues, "the water scarcity/pollution issue is of even more strategic significance ... It can be debated whether the manufacturers have the rights to squander the natural resources, while polluting the water and air that are temporarily in our stewardship."
Amen to the above! No one, and no society, has the "right to squander" our natural resources! The problem is both recognizing "squandering" when it occurs, and finding the right balancing mechanisms to regulate our respective economies so that all have their basic needs met and none rolls in the luxury of consuming/owning that which is "surplus" - beyond what one needs.
(The author was a member of the Iowa State House of Representatives and also served in the Iowa executive branch. He retired in 2004. His e-mail: gloster@iowatelecom.net)
Visitors to America from other cultures, while unable to be entirely free of their own "cultural biases" or "lenses" by which they observe themselves and others, can offer stark, sometimes sharply different perspectives from those many of us in this country share.
When Mr Wan writes, in his recent column on water issues in the US ("Consumerism threatens water supply" on March 6) that flying over our country he saw below him an "expanse of water in a lake that I first mistook for the sea," I presume he was looking down on our system of Great Lakes, which are large and impressive remnants of our ancient, inland sea.
He also marveled at "the vastness of America's arable land." We, indeed, have been blessed with an abundance of many things: pure air, fertile land, and abundant water.
However, like most countries, such abundance does not exist everywhere within the US. Natural forces have made water scarce in our huge Western states (large in territory, not in numbers of citizens), and these are the same areas most at risk for enduring droughts.
Then, of course, there are the impacts of what we humans have done to the land and its pristine water and air. Our earliest pioneers, pushing westward, (and, not incidentally, playing a crucial role in the eventual displacement of the original inhabitants, the Native American Indians), were overwhelmed at the apparent abundance all about them.
Arriving in Nebraska, Colorado, and eventually California, they were not at first aware of the relative scarcity of water. As their numbers multiplied, they began - again, without any intent to harm - to adapt agricultural and industrial practices which made demands upon that water (both in drawing it down and in polluting it).
Practices begun in the past multiplied as patterns guiding our present. We are loath to change our ways, or to attempt to envision how things could be done very differently.
Mr Wan cites the works of some authors, including Susan Marks and Frank Talbot, who are trying to bring greater awareness to the American people of the water crisis within our own borders. We have made great progress in tackling pollution of our waters, thanks to environmentalists and the significant passage of the 1965 Water Quality Act, the 1966 Clean Waters Restoration Act, and the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act. However, there are other negative forces at work, too.
Mr Wan states: "The propagation of this (consumerist and wasteful) lifestyle and the perception of it as 'civilized' - ultimately driven by capitalists' craving for markets - is at the root of the depletion of earth's natural resources." Whew! There is a lot in that sentence.
First, the "consumerist lifestyle," while related to "capitalism," is not the same thing. It grew from the original desire of all human beings to "live better."
Certainly this is a driving force in China today, as well, and poses a distinct threat to you if not somehow constrained or counter-balanced. At heart, this requires having a perspective rooted in "community," and not just "myself."
Second, unrestrained capitalism feeds on individual greed and does not welcome constraints of any kind. "More" is always assumed to be "better."
"For Chinese," Mr Wan continues, "the water scarcity/pollution issue is of even more strategic significance ... It can be debated whether the manufacturers have the rights to squander the natural resources, while polluting the water and air that are temporarily in our stewardship."
Amen to the above! No one, and no society, has the "right to squander" our natural resources! The problem is both recognizing "squandering" when it occurs, and finding the right balancing mechanisms to regulate our respective economies so that all have their basic needs met and none rolls in the luxury of consuming/owning that which is "surplus" - beyond what one needs.
(The author was a member of the Iowa State House of Representatives and also served in the Iowa executive branch. He retired in 2004. His e-mail: gloster@iowatelecom.net)
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
