But that’s only half of the equation. As you mentioned, they need to have the knowledge of how to do all of this, and how their negative choices affect the environment. And they have to have access to the necessities of life! It’s hard to care about a tree when your children are hungry.

To answer your question, though, it is important to educate those in developing nations about the importance of lessening our impact, while at the same time ensuring they have the resources to do so. That being said, industrialized nations like the US contribute MUCH more to the total environmental impact than most third-world countries combined, simply because the volume of pollution, resource use, etc. is so much greater in developed nations.

Make sense?

I believe that global warming is real. However, I agree with Nathan that global temperatures are naturally cyclical. I think the jury is still out on whether or not human activities are making the temperature change worse. Unfortunately, the debate has moved from the realm of pure science into politics, which definitely taints and research and makes it difficult to separate the gold from the dross.

That being said, I absolutely believe that human activity is seriously damaging the natural world. Waste, harmful chemicals, deforestation, air and water pollution, all of these things are destroying the world in which we live.

So rather than focusing on “global warming” which has become such a political hot-button, we should be concentrating on a holistic approach that focuses not on whether or not our activity increases global temperature, but reducing the overall impact that human activity has on the environment. Once we do that, IF indeed our activity is increasing global temperature, the global warming issue will have been alleviated by our care for the world around us.

“Fake” science keeps moving the temperature gauges to parking lots and parking garages just off a busy interstate highway system.

The way it used to work, was you got your investment back once the full amount of the loan was repaid, but now you get repaid as the loan is repaid…which is nice…

Also, Todd, I didn’t intend to impose my views of success onto others…I guess I should have defined what I meant by unfair wage and poor working conditions. My definition fits almost exactly with your definition.

For the record, I do not think that the American society even remotely represents success! Not even close! I guess I see success as the progressive realization of an ideal, and to me the only ideal worth realizing is the one that is more than just an ideal, i.e. “Christ in [us], the hope of glory” (see if you can find the reference!) and seeing Christ’s banner lifted up throughout the world, and God’s just kingdom established in and through Christ.

As to your question about if it wasn’t fair, why are they working, it’s because they simply have no choice. There are no other jobs available; they have no capital to purchase equipment or land. It’s important to remember that many of these people have literally nothing; they live in shacks, and have little to eat. Think of all the coal miners in Appalachia in the early part of this century: so many of them died of Black Lung, children went to work in the mines as early as 12, but that was all they had available to them. Does that make it right? Absolutely not.

And I would argue that a 40-hour work week is not fair.

And although I understand what you mean in your last comment about cultural biases, your main argument is a bit skewed. Those of us who are anti-sweatshop are not trying to re-create the American working class in developing nations; we are trying to ensure that the people who produce the goods we use are treated humanely and fairly (and remember, a fair wage, etc. is determined by local conditions).

Basically, it comes down to the Golden Rule: Treat others as you wish to be treated (my paraphrase). I certainly don’t want to work 17-hour shifts to make barely enough to buy a bowl of rice so that some (comparatively) rich person in another nation can buy a cheap t-shirt.