It's an interesting debate. I see points scored on both sides. Meister, your point about the job is well taken, but in some ways its a folly too (a human one), my point being we have to trend away from the "me first" attitude. How we will do this, I have no clue. Imagine if the Pope for example were the head of some philosophy that practiced an Ecological form of spiritualism, such as the natives of north America, before we devastated their culture with booze and guns. I'd be instantly in favour of replacing the mullahs with Algonquin Shamans.
We have lost our relationship with Mother Nature. We do not respect her, she in turn will ultimately destroy us, for what we are doing to the planet.
If you have ever been to Queen Charlotte Islands, you will know instantly what I am getting at. Mother Nature is a force, and you can feel her intelligence there. I can tell you, she is not happy.
As for allowing all our manufacturing to slip away to China, and then support it lock, stock and barrel over our obsession with the profit motive, its very short sited IMHO. Globalisation is fine on paper, but wait until the scrap over energy begins. The rules will change. And the skill sets that we have lost in this country, the same ones being learned, transfered to china, may lead to regret one day. The same applies to farming. Hundreds of generations of technology is being lost here due to 'modernization'. It's not healthy. I have cousins that still farm because they love it, but if they had no 'service industry' income, as the first job, they could not continue. And there is no one to replace them. When they are gone, the lifestyle is gone with them. Rural Mexico is reeling from this very thing. They no longer produce corn, it's shipped in from the US in containers... problem is, they have little money to buy it, at the rural level. And there are no jobs.