We&#x27;re just as much to blame every time we whip out or iPhone -- (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnet.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;riots-suicides-and-other-issues-in-foxconns-iphone-factories&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnet.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;riots-suicides-and-other-issues-in-...</a>) not only involves working conditions so bad that people are driven to literally jump off the roof of the building so frequently that managers placed a net down, but the production of semi-conductors involves tons of rare-earth metals like yttrium.<p>One could argue a cabin-style zero-impact lifestyle would be the ethically sound thing to do, but the land you purchase to till was the result of systemic genocide and internment of tons of Native Americans (modern estimates between 76 million down to less than a quarter million over 4 centuries - obviously not all by the sword but those are still Stalin-esque numbers) over the course of a few centuries which makes the loss WW2 genocide look like a joke.<p>I really can&#x27;t blame China for doing what any nation does as they progress into an industrialized &#x27;first world&#x27; society. Travesties occur on all sorts of level in the pursuit of &#x27;national progress&#x27; set by the agenda of a few tens of thousands of people. The populace isn&#x27;t any more guilty than you and I are of the half a million deaths in Iraq. And I don&#x27;t think those who are polluting are doing anything different than what the US did as we Manifest-Destiny&#x27;d our way through the country, reaping coal, oil, timber, tobacco, and cotton, without which our nation wouldn&#x27;t have had the funding to progress into what we are (for better or worse..)