How America will compete? The environment.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the two narrative threads the last couple of weeks: climate change in Copenhagen and global competition here at home.

As we muscle our way out of this recession, it’s unclear to me exactly how America will hold its position as an economic superpower.

At the same time, we’re muddled over how to reduce our contribution to carbon pollution and global warming.

Even if a meaningful deal is reached in Copenhagen, will America’s Senate ratify it? Hard to imagine.

But when I look at the situation overseas, it strikes me that the answer to both of these muddles is more, not less, environmental stewardship.

China and India, the two fastest-growing world economies, have made many of their gains at the expense of their land and rivers and forests.

Their governments have tolerated practices so ugly and short-sighted that they are literally poisoning their own air, soil and water.

We’ve seen how this kind of short-sighted thinking plays out. The Soviet Union followed a similar growth-at-any-price mandate and much of Russia is now a toxic waste site.

Birth rates there have plummeted; quality of life is deteriorating. The once-powerful empire has plummeted to something approaching Third World status.

If the developing countries aren’t careful — limiting, in part, the unconscionable behavior of American companies working in their lands — they will follow the same trajectory.

The Washington Post has a story today about the poisoning of the Yamuna River, which provides 70% of New Delhi’s drinking water.

CNN recently profiled Linfen, in China, the world’s most polluted city.

The sun shines through a murky haze, if at all. The smells of industry are pungent. Just a few minutes outside and your eyes start to sting, your throat starts to hurt. You may feel dizzy or nauseous.

For visitors it can be unbearable. For residents, this is life — breathing the consequences of China’s long march toward economic prosperity.

There’s no way that’s sustainable.

China and India might out-compete us for a decade or two with this kind of madness, but if they’re smart they’ll do what America did after our own industrial revolution.

They will accept slower rates of growth, more regulatory hassles and, yes, less personal freedom, in exchange for long-term viability and quality of life.

The same enlightened self-interest will eventually shift the climate change debate.

Without the glaciers and snowpacks of the Himalayas, Asia’s water resources will be thrown into disarray.

The same goes for America’s Rocky Mountains, which supply water to much of the West.

Preserving the environmental conditions that sustain those natural reservoirs isn’t granola stuff; it’s good business.

And America can get there by investing massively in the technologies and exportable practices that reduce the human footprint without eroding prosperity.