Global pollution: Who's responsible?

Ms. Erin Imhoff (Fence Post, Saturday) is concerned about global warming and pollution as we all ought to be.

She describes the U.S. as the world's biggest polluter. This is a version of the complaint we have all heard countless times: The U.S. has only 5 percent of the world's population but produces 25 percent of global pollution.

Well, of course. For the past 50 years, we have produced 25 percent of the world's output of manufactured products.

But we have economy of scale, which reduces the amount of pollution per unit.

If our manufactures of the past 50 years had been dispersed globally into many smaller units, guess what, the sum total of pollution would be greater.

However, in a year or two. Asian countries will surpass us in pollution output.

I hope it is obvious that in a global economy, if we move American manufacturing capacity overseas, those operations will continue to pollute.

To put it bluntly, humanity's longing for advanced material benefits has a price: contamination of the ecology.

That problem cannot be controlled without a huge economic sacrifice by someone. If that results in a profound worldwide depression, I suspect Ms. Imhoff's fellow citizens will be extremely unhappy.

James R. Schaefer

Mount Prospect