This photograph and article is from the Vancouver Sun on Wednesday 19th 2009.
It shows 3 new Quad cranes arriving at Deltaport. The cranes were made in China and transported by a Chinese ship.
So we are importing from the exporters the means to import from the exporters.
Whither lessons from British colonial history?
The trinkets and baubles imported from China filling every store and sometimes whole malls are all price driven, never directed by quality or ethics - ethics both in terms of buying local and the exploitation of the workers in China making this crap.
In order to keep up with demand (read addiction) for this low cost unethical crap, China is demanding more and more energy, including coal from Canada.
Add to the story above the recent announcement of the Chinese government investment of C$1.74 Billion in Teck Resources - it's all about cheap coal - three stories here:
Flaherty and the Bloomberg article on the Teck Deal
Full story fom CEO world here
What this really looks like - Canada ripping itself apart to provide energy to China to pollute at will while producing unnecessary goods to fuel Canadian obsession with 'drive to the bottom' wages. Can you say Walmart, Costco and a hundred other retailers without a trace of moral fibre selling this crap to a million consumers without a trace of moral fibre.
Exploitation is apparently fine as long as we don't have to see it - either as in the picture above or in the sweat shops where our 'low cost' (cost to whom?) goods are made.
This is what China wants - coal - which if burned here is 'bad', which if exported to China and burned is apparently 'good', firstly because it creates Canadian jobs, and secondly keeps the stream of slave labour produced trinkets going. A stream which destroyed Canadian jobs in the first place.
How many cloth bags (99% made in China btw) will it take to wipe out or equalize the CO2 produced by this coal when it is burned in China with few environmental cares?
Sickening all round.
1./ Read the label - stop buying Chinese made goods
2./ Repeat above
3./ Buy fewer goods of better quality from producers who value their tradition, their quality and their workers - preferably from the country where you live to keep local jobs for local people.
These are the ways to reduce the Chinese demand for Canadian coal, fueling this disgusting mess.
