How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room.
guardian.co.uk
guardian.co.uk
But neither China nor India wants to remain poor. Any poor country is likely to benefit much more from development than the harm development will cause through additional carbon emissions (unless it's the Maldives). And neither countries' regimes can benefit from buying the votes of a green constituency with expensive projects of uncertain value. Rather, their legitimacy is strengthened by delivering increased living standards, and that is just what they intend to do.
The author is disingenuous to claim that these countries are acting in the service of of "planetary suicide", the breathless accusations of western green activists to the contrary. The Chinese leadership is well-educated. They can read the IPCC reports. They know what the likely consequences are. Planetary suicide is not among them.
Their leaders also know it's a hell of a lot better to be not-poor than poor. They think they are making a rational decision by frustrating the western green lobby's plans. And I'm pretty sure they are right. It's going to take a hell of a lot bigger bribe than $100 billion to convince them otherwise.
A two degree centigrade difference, real or imagined, wouldn't be a big deal to a modernized China, nor would it be a big deal to those of us living in North America.
What's more is that China is blessed with regards to natural defenses. These same natural defenses also lead to isolation. The Chinese paid dearly for their relative isolation in the 19th and 20th centuries. But if all havoc were to break out in the rest of the world, then they'd do comparatively well in their present state.
It's all just politics, plain and simple.
* Yes, this kind of thing often comes down to "real politic".
* No, we shouldn't be happy to let it just stand as that.
I'll give you that the exact result of continuing unlimited production of hydrocarbons is unknown. The "Green Lobby" has ill-served itself by framing things as 'we know global warming will happen' rather than "do you want to risk eating your own industrial shit for longer than necessary?'. "Planetary Suicide" is indeed an almost meaningless term. Tremendous environmental impact with a negative, say terminal, impact for millions of people is concrete and likely. Desertification advances as quickly in China as anywhere.
The Chinese leadership is far-sighted and near-sighted according to their historical origins and material interests. You know about the Cultural Revolution?
Edit: And the particular strategy "the West" have taken certainly has made the bed they are lying in as much as China has. Again, does that mean we should be happy with this situation?
They're living that now and can deal with it a lot easier than they could deal with the hundreds of millions who'd die if they did what the goo-goos in the West asked them to do.
I'm curious. How are hundreds of millions going to die if the Chinese agreed to the treaty?
Look, there's no way to implement the "decarbonization" of industrial society without killing off billions of poor people. It's one thing for the wealthy nations to impoverish themselves, we've got reserves we can draw on. Those living on a dollar or two a day ... not so much.
No doubt, the Party is pragmatic (so pragmatic it supplied Sudan with weapons during the Darfur genocide, collecting their support in Copenhagen in return). It is well aware that to maintain its control over the nation it has to keep delivering the current high growth rate. This has a lot more to do with the politicians' power than the people's quality of life.
If anything, the general idea behind Copenhagen is more similar to the Cultural Revolution than walking away - it's trying to centrally plan what some people think would be a better world.
Traditionally PRC had two factions. The Maoists and the rivals, let's call them the pragmatists. The Maoists were bent on communist doctrines and making great leaps. The pragmatists were more into what already works. The heads of the pragmatists were Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Shaoqi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_xiaoping
The famine as you mentioned was attributed in part to Mao's radical policies, and because so Mao stepped down while Liu Shaoqi took his chair for a few years. While Liu was in power he played with capitalist policies similar to those in place today (this was the early 60s), Mao got paranoid and ousted him and Deng, and cultural revolution was launched in part to undo their popularity. Liu died in house arrest.
After Mao died in the late 70s, Deng took over and finally switched to market economy. The current line of leaders descended from his faction of pragmatists. Maoism is pretty much dead in China, a new split in the party is between the populists and the princelings, much more similiar to the dichotomy of liberals and conservatives in the west.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_of_Chinese_leadersh...
Assuming most HN readers consider themselves independent minded and skeptic towards authority it's disappointing to see the credit given here to China's leaders, who are chosen and operate mostly behind closed doors, as if they really operate with their people's best interest in mind (or even know what it is).
I wouldn't rely so blindly on any Western leader, certainly not on a leader in a closed, one party system like China's.
In fact from what I've read, the current generation of Chinese leaders aren't particularly smart as people have given them credit for. Though they do seem to know that they don't know enough to be visionaries, so they take the stance of non-interference.
I can see the appeal of this kind of mentality has on HN, as I sense a lot of users here hold libertarian views.
Well, you can hardly call first generation of communist revolutionists educated. Most of them know shit about economy or industry. However, the generation after open & reform can be called pragmatic & educated
But perceptions of such matters become skewed by context. Given that the population of China was at the time somewhere around 6-700 million, this loss of life probably seemed marginal to the leadership of the time, and we might also remember that half a century ago the quality of information was considerably poorer; sputnik was the bleeding edge of satellite technology, and it's doubtful whether China even had computers, never mind a nationwide telephone network or even adequate roads.
Now this doesn't absolve them of responsibility, but nor do I think that such deadly economic calculus is limited to their adoption of communism. A century prior, when Britain was the leading global superpower, a famine wiped out the Irish potato crop for several years running (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Irish_Potato_Famine). The English government, which ruled there at the time, did nothing much about it, even though it could easily have been alleviated thanks to the proximity and availability of grain and other foodstuffs - indeed food exports from Ireland to England actually increased, because the native population were too poor to buy as crops had failed. The population collapsed, with about 1-1.5 million deaths (out of a population of only 8 million) and a similar number for emigration (which is why there are so many people of Irish descent in the US and Australia). Of course, in the context of the whole British Empire, this did not seem like such a significant number, and the government of the day viewed it as an embarrassment rather than a tragedy, to the extent of asking other countries not to bother sending food aid and attempting to blockade some that did so anyway.
Now at the time Britain was a limited democracy by today's standards and practiced mercantilism rather than a true market economy, and knowledge of agriculture and economics was basic; but the scope and severity of the problem was well understood, as recorded in parliamentary debates. It's a sad fact that having the basics of modern democracy and economic freedom do not inoculate any government from presiding over or contributing to monstrous levels of suffering in a misguided assessment of where its interests lie.
When we critique Marx and his intellectual heirs, as I agree we should, it's worth bearing in mind that he and his contemporaries had abundant reason to believe that capitalism was a morally bankrupt economic philosophy.
I think they are being pragmatic, but that you're being too dismissive of the potential costs if this strategy has long-term negative repercussions.
Fixed that.
It's also worth noting that with a 60 vote (or votes with) Democratic majority cap and trade is getting exactly nowhere in the current Senate.
It's not a secret ballot with a gag order.
So if you're a senator, it makes no sense to make a risky vote on a bill that you know has no chance to pass.
About Cap And Trade...
Frankly, the bill is an atrocious gift to investment bankers that will make billions in this new market.
But lets ignore that. Let's talk about why a 60-democrat senate cannot pass this or other Progressive legislation.
Here it is: The country has gotten more liberal in the last 10 years. But it's not 60% liberal. Not even close.
Democratic gains have been easy gains, politically speaking. The party ran conservative Dems in conservative districts. All in all I'd rather have a conservative dem than a liberal republican -- at least a conservative dem will contribute to the Democrats having control over committees and procedure.
But what I really want -- and what I think this country needs -- is a progressive. Democratic, Green, Indy, whatever. But, a progressive.
Everybody acts like Democrats should be able to pass progressive legislation just because there's 60 Dems in the Senate. Count the number of Progressives.
The work that needs to be done -- the activism and organization -- is to promote the progressive agenda at the grassroots level. We need to attack on all fronts to move the country left, the same way the Conservative trio of the Reagan Admin, Think Tanks, and new Media (including direct mail and, say, Rush Limbaugh) moved the country right in the 80's and 90's.
The biggest danger by far in "environmentalism" is when big business combines with the Greens, e.g. it's no accident that the CFC ban resulted in a change from long out of patent refrigerants to new proprietary ones (or so I've read).
BTW, are you sure the country has gone left? A bit over 30% self-identify as conservative, a bit over 20% as liberal, the last time I checked. Yeah, there was a general revulsion over 21st century Republican excesses and failures, but that's not the same time. Firing a Republican Congress is not necessarily the same thing as electing a Democratic one.
As for your program ... I can't honestly say I wish you luck, but you do have your work cut out for you. Clinton convinced the nation that trusting Democrats was not insane (we could take a vacation from history (foreign policy) and he did alright with economic policy, especially after 1994, and then there's "ending welfare as we know it", which has already been mostly reversed). Team Obama and the Congressional leadership are ruining that, and under an at least partly false Progressive banner.
So as noted, they (or their staff) can read the IPCC reports, read the ClimateGate emails and code, etc. etc. and do what's right for their country.
Heck, they're not watermelons, e.g. green on outside, red on the inside. They're unabashedly red all the way through, they don't need environmentalism as a stealth path to "socialism", they've got their own version of the real thing!
There's a word for that: nepotism.
There is nothing wrong in trying to provide for your child as well as you can, but (s)he shouldn't end in a leadership position just because of his pedigree. Nepotism is generally one of the opposites of meritocracy.
Go read an actual IPCC report rather than breathless press releases by greenpeace.
"Theoretical and climate model studies suggest that, in a climate that is warming due to increasing greenhouse gases, a greater increase is expected in extreme precipitation, as compared to the mean. Hence, anthropogenic influence may be easier to detect in extreme precipitation than in the mean. This is because extreme precipitation is controlled by the availability of water vapour, while mean precipitation is controlled by the ability of the atmosphere to radiate long-wave energy (released as latent heat by condensation) to space, and the latter is restricted by increasing greenhouse gases." --- http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/technical-papers/ccw/chapter2.pdf
> Might it not lead to more rain in some drought-stricken places and less rain in some rainy places?
Yes, in fact some IPCC analysis suggests that North America will see e.g., increased crop variety and yields by 2080, and also e.g., a 40% decrease in Texan farmers' net income and more agricultural disease.
But although climate change isn't uniformly and strictly bad news, it is likely that some places will see catastrophic effects and that in aggregate the changes will be more problematic than beneficial for humans.
For example, consider the Maldives, with 300,000 people making about $5k/year. Relocating every person in the Maldives to the US would probably be cheaper than most climate change solutions. This would also quadruple the standard of living of the average Maldivian, provided their income increases to the US poverty line.
You're right that it would increase their incomes. But standard of living is much more than income...
-The poster hadn't considered that argument
-The poster doesn't want to have kids
-The poster will have a finite number of descendants
-The poster's concern for the standard of living of his distant descendants diminish according to distance (for instance, he probably cares a great deal for his children and a similar amount for his grandchildren, but by the time you're talking great-great-grandchildren his empathy has diminished significantly)
-The poster's descendants will not want share his fondness for the Maldives
-The poster's descendants will move away from the Maldives for other reasons
I'm sure you can think of a half dozen other alternatives if you think for a minute.
2. Same as barren.
3. Impossible to know, and under any plausible reckoning of improvement, insufficient to make activation costs predominate.
4. Same as doesn't care.
5. Unlikely; goes against millennia of empirical evidence that people love where they live (nowadays we call that 'patriotism')
6. A fully general counterargument (http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Fully_general_counterargument). You can use that to argue against anything: 'You should move away from North Korea', 'Why, my descendants might move away into it for other reasons!'; 'You shouldn't move away from North Korea, then', 'Why, my descendants might then move away elsewhere for other reasons!'
What makes you think people consciously consider it? Most of them just say "I don't feel like moving", or "I'm too lazy". Also, you missed the point of the "fully general counterargument". The point is that if your descendants find it better to be somewhere else later - well, they're fully capable of moving themselves.
5 (his children may not be fond of the Maldives): You just argued that children are likely to have a fondness for wherever they are born. If true, this invalidates the argument for moving at all: whether his descendants love the Maldives or America will make for no gain at all.
6. (children may move away from Maldives): Actually, given the limited economic and educational opportunities of the Maldives, there's likely to be a fairly high probability of one's children moving. Once we use this probability to work out an EV for "number of descendants resident in the Maldives", or even apply the probability recursively to work out a proportion of descendants resident in the Maldives over an infinite number of generations, your infinity argument is pretty well refuted.
We should definitely use that as the solution to climate change.
> For example, consider the Maldives, with 300,000 people making about $5k/year.
The sea level of the Maldives fell by more than 20cm since the 70ies. If the worst of the IPCC predictions come to pass, then the Maldives will still be better of in 2100 than in 1970.
Here is a reference - but you can find many more using Google:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2...
Some actual IPCC reports are available from [1] and [2]. They describe observations of "The atmospheric concentration of CO2 and CH4 in 2005 exceeds by far the natural range of the last 650,000 years," "wide-spread melting of ice margins [...] with implications for sea level rise," and increased frequency of extreme precipitation events. They predict "irreversible changes in climate and ocean chemistry" and "rapid and large changes of the statistics of extreme events."
Droughts, floods, cyclones, and ecological disruptions all threaten human life. The IPCC data and reports suggest that these and other adverse events have increased in frequency and severity, that human activity had a causal role, that things will probably get worse, and that our future behavior matters.
Not that someone's death is the only possible justification for international cooperation in limiting pollution.
[1] http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_da... [2] http://www.ipcc.ch/presentations_and_speeches/presentations_...
I don't consider requiring a few million people to relocate 100 meters inland over 100 years (or stay put and build landfill) to be catastrophic. Nor do I consider a few more hurricanes to be catastrophic -- we handle hurricanes adequately, and as our economy grows, handling them will become even cheaper (relative to our wealth). Caribbean nations will handle them adequately as well once they become richer.
Al Gore's and Greenpeace's dire predictions of the death of humanity are simply way outside the scientific consensus.
Incidentally, the response of climate to CO2 is logarithmic -- i.e., if doubling CO2 increases climate by 1 degree, then an eight-fold increase in CO2 will increase climate by 3 degrees (not 8). (This is all to leading order, of course.) Big increases are only marginally worse than small ones.
Reference? I don't see how that can be the case at all. The basic physics of radiation balance have no logarithms, and the naive expectation would be that the amount of escaping radiation depend exponentially on the CO2 column density.
You are referring to Beer's law, which describes radiation transmission at a single wavelength. However consider its meaning for the broad absorption band of CO2, whose graph is the shape of a wide lump with low shoulders. For parts of the band above some threshold, exponential absorption will have eliminated almost all the radiation, and further increase in concentration will not change this: you cannot go below zero. Parts of the band below that threshold will absorb very little radiation, and increasing the concentration will change this very little: double almost zero is still almost zero. Concentration change only makes a practical difference at the edges of the band, and the CO2 band's shoulders are so steep that even drastic concentration changes only make for small growth in the width of the total absorption band.
P.S. MODTRAN assumes a nonmoving atmosphere, so its temperature predictions are not to be believed. The actual atmosphere experiences stronger vertical convection as ground temperature rises, which in turn produces secondary effects on vegetation, evaporation, and clouds that affects temperature. Predicting the net effect on temperature requires an accurate biological/meteorological simulation. And those are mighty thin on the ground.
P.P.S. Convection effects are why greenhouses actually get hot: the glass obstructs natural convection from cooling the ground. Calling radiation effects the "greenhouse effect" is scientific fraud.
All the carbon will be burnt -- count on it. Plan accordingly.
And you know that because...?
"Michael Crichton on Environmentalism as a Religion" - the video talks about how environmentalism offers salvation and a complete belief structure for many people, but that the religion/faith aspect of it gets in the way of science. Regardless of your views on the environment, it might be insightful for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv9OSxTy1aU
As for China, I lived in China for a short time a few years back. I wasn't convinced at all that they're the next world power - the government and infrastructure were so far behind the West that I didn't think it'd happen. But watching how China adjusted when the U.S. banking sector fell apart last year has convinced me that they're going to the top.
The American government printed a lot, which should make our U.S. Dollars fall relative to other currencies, including Chinese RMB. China in turn printed about the same amount of money and invested it into Chinese infrastructure and tax breaks for their businesses - driving the cost of Chinese goods even lower.
They're building the same sort of infrastructure and industrialization that the United States did during the Cold War. They're also liberalizing and gradually loosening and eliminating central government while we're currently expanding the role of central government. Considering their population is three times larger, if the United States want to keep military parity with China over the next 30 years, they'll have to change their economic policies or they're going to go bankrupt. There's some difficult choices facing the USA soon - China is definitely on the rise.
They face some hurdles - can they integrate and keep friendly the Cantonese, Xianjianese, Tibetans, Macanese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kongese to some extent into the primarily Mandarin Han government? The effects of the One Child Policy will be interesting to see - the gender imbalance and all. China breaking into Civil War is a very real possibility in the next 30-50 years, but if they don't, they're on the rise globally and will be the next world power.
Environmentalism is but one piece, but you're right that we're dealing with a religion here. Moreover, the narrative of sin and redemption is not a coincidence: progressivism (including its environmentalism subset) is not metaphorically a religion; it is a real, living (nontheistic) religion,* the clear intellectual descendant of mainline ecumenical protestant Christianity. A century ago it was the WCTU and the YMCA; today it's NOW and Greenpeace.
*If a nontheistic religion seems like a contradiction in terms, the problem is merely linguistic; English lacks a good word meaning "all religious beliefs minus the supernatural stuff". Whatever you call it, a nontheistic religion can't help but show its roots: a nontheistic sect of Hinduism, for example, would still be identifiably Hindu, despite the absence of gods; it would likely lack a sin-redemption narrative, but would probably include some sort of caste system.
Strongly agree - do you have opinions on good words? I'm currently using "mysticism", "ritual", and "canon", which are often used by religions themselves. They don't seem completely neutral though.
I think this has the potential to be an area of language that changes quickly, so we all look ignorant in 50 years when our writings are read, similar to how the terms for different races have changed a lot. My grandmother is almost 90 and calls a man of Chinese descent a "Chinaman", and I have to say, "No Grandma, we don't say that any more." And she's got a bit of a sense of humor, and says, "I listen to the radio, and they say Irishman, but Chinaman is wrong?" And I don't know how to answer that, since the Irish got all sorts of hell in the States too, and Irishman used to be derogatory, but now it's not and it's okay usage. I think the words used to describe religion are likely going to go through that, and references to myth (bad), cult (bad), mysticism (okay), ritual (okay), canon (generally positive) might all be passed by other words.
I've heard that, but never found a reasonably objective source that references primary sources. I've read a couple pieces: The general gist I got is that North American Christianity split into two basic movements - Fundamentalist Christianity, which emphasized that the Bible was literal and the ancient rites were necessary to be followed, and Progressive Christianity, which said that the Bible was not literal and was more inclusive and open to discussion. But I've not found any primary or objective secondary sources on how this went - you sound knowledgeable, do you happen to know any?
> If a nontheistic religion seems like a contradiction in terms, the problem is merely linguistic; English lacks a good word meaning "all religious beliefs minus the supernatural stuff".
Yes, that I'm very aware of. I've traveled a lot, and you can clearly see that most non-religious people still inherited their basic religious beliefs of their culture. Very few people actively study ethics and come to independent decisions from their peer group - most people inherit their base ethics from their surroundings, and since religions were the way that most people got their ethics for a very long time now, it's mirrored quite well even in non-religious people. People with formerly Confucian surroundings tend to have a very strong family emphasis, which was a fundamental tenet of Confucianism. People with Jewish surroundings tend to get a very strong scholarly emphasis, at least partially descending from the heavy emphasis on Torah studies. Places that had a heavy Christian presence often are more ashamed about sex, pornography, and nudity than places like Africa and Japan which had did not have those same religious views on sex.
The fastest growing religions in the world are nontheistic - this will enter common thought in the next 50-100 years as the power of formal religions continues to decrease and more nontheistic religions gain followers. And that's not a bad thing, but you still absolutely need to insulate public servants and scientists from their religious beliefs, lest they impose their morals on their science and law, thus leading to - well, most people are aware of the impact religion had on law and science throughout the ages. It's a little bit of a dangerous time now, because there's no separation of nontheistic churches and the state.
It's definitely true. Progressivism is the memetic leftover of north-eastern US Mainline Protestantism. The poster above you makes the mistake of comparing it to actual religions, when progressivism has evolved to drop the religious components, which still makes its followers the cultural descendants of creepy religious maniacs even though they don't believe in a God (also, as a side note, consider that this makes progressives not "anti-American" as right wingers make them about to be, but "ultra-American" in the sense of trying to make the US progress into a more 'pure' and ethical state, as the Puritans wanted it to be. Edit: also consider that this might make the right/left 'culture war' more of a religious war between two protestant-influenced sects). This was mainly done for political power. Think about it, there is supposed to be a disconnect in the US between the state and religion, what better way for a memeplex to adapt to its environment then to drop the supernatural bits, and focus on propagating the values, mores, and aspirations of its believers through political power.
You asked for evidence, here is a number of excellent sources:
The main book you should read is "The Puritan Origins of AMerican Patriotism." That pretty much lays out the argument.
Also check out "The Making of An American Thinking Class: Intellectuals and Intelligentsia in Puritan Massachusetts." It makes the case that Puritans are the forefathers of American radicalism.
I also recommend these:
God's New Israel: Religious Interpretation of American Destiny.
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Authoritarianism.
Hellfire Nation: The politics of sin in America.
Also check out Michael Burleigh's two books on political religions (Earthly Powers and Sacred Causes). This isn't an aberration of history. Religious movements often drop their supernatural components under the guise of 'reason' and 'rationality' so as to adapt to the culture and politics.
And if you are still not convinced, here is a large list by an American urban historian: http://www.amazon.com/A-History-of-American-Radicalism/lm/R2...
Edit: I also forgot to mention there is a blogger that writes about this topic often. I generally disagree with a lot of what he says, but he comes up with a number of primary and secondary sources for this historical hypothesis.
Here is one post that sums it up: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/07/univers...
And the multi-part Open letter series is also good: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2008/04/open-le...
Progressivism doesn't have any of: rituals, priests, official buildings, sacred texts, gods, other supernatural beliefs, holy places, concern with an afterlife, elevation of tradition over reason, use of altered states of consciousness, seemingly-arbitrary restrictions on speech or conduct. Of course many religions lack some of those things, but it seems to me that this it's things like these that distinguish religions from non-religions.
You can, of course, squeeze some features of progressivism until they kinda-sorta match some of those. Caring about the welfare of people in the future is just like believing in an afterlife! The peer-reviewed scientific literature is just like a body of sacred scriptures! Leading progressive politicians are just like priests! The allegedly melting polar icecaps are just like hallowed sacred places! The trouble with this (aside from the obvious fact that it's bullshit) is that applying the same principle generally would lead to classifying too many things as religions. (US-style conservatism: folks like Beck and Limbaugh are just like priests! Teabag protests are just like religious gatherings! The US Constitution is just like a religious text! (And requires interpretation by the right people to be rightly understood, of course.) Science: controlled experiments are rituals! Universities are temples! String theory is dogma handed down from on high! Software development: RFCs and ISO standards are sacred texts! Famous hackers are priests or even demigods! That mental state in which code just pours out of you is a mystical experience! Unit testing is a ritual! GOTO is a taboo word!) Bullshit, the whole lot of it.
Sure, lots of things resemble religions in various ways: any status hierarchy is a little like a religious hierarchy (that's even where the term "hierarchy" comes from), any body of ideas that's been developed over time is a little like a religion's official doctrines, any activity that's done in standard ways is a little like a ritual. That isn't because science and conservatism and stamp collecting and democracy and environmentalism are religions, it's because some ways of doing things come naturally to human beings and/or are obviously sensible, and we find them in religions and in non-religions alike.
I have been to one of Jack Houck's spoon bending parties (which Crichton talks about), and as a result I just can't take anything he says seriously anymore. Anyone who goes to such a party with an open mind will have to conclude it's a load of baloney. Only those who really really want to believe in that crap will come out thinking there is something to it.
Just in case you did not know, Michael Crichton passed away in November.
I think there is also a perceived unfairness or indignation surrounding the issues. Depending on how you present things, it's always possible to present you country as getting screwed. There are always those whos agenda (which might even be legit) it serves to tell people they are being screwed.
In every country in the world there are powerful people going around with that message.
Rich Countries:
* You are expected to make emitting carbon more expensive here then it is in other countries. That means that steel mills, factories & the like will shut down & reopened in China. Jobs will be shipped overseas(embellishment) No emissions are prevented since the factory gets reopened in India/China anyway.
* This is a plan to tax US/EU suppliers a& transfer this money to China/India.
* You are expected to pay for the problems created by those countries with over 100 years of industrialized history.
* Going by 1990 levels means dividing a world environmental resource. Since we were polluting 1/5 as much as US/EU in 1990, we get a smaller slice in the future. (related) This deal means that whoever polluted in the past is entitled to polluted in the future.
*There is a known quantity (whatever it takes to get from 380 to 450 ppm) of carbon we can emmit globally. Divide that by 6 billion.
The discussion is always about cutting or freezing. Sometimes it's about slowing growth, then freezing then cutting.
The "inequality" of the deal will allow developing countries to get a little closer to developed country per capita emissions, but overall proportions are supposed to remain prety much fixed. So, if China currently emits 4.5 X US per capita, that may become 3 X at some point. It will never be 1=1.
The reason for this is pragmatic. Demanding the developed countries cut till they reach China levels while China continues to grow emissions will take too long.
{edit} I forgot to mention the other non pragmatic approach that some see as fair. Developing countries should be allowed to continue emitting carbon until their historical effect on atmospheric carbon equals that of the west. This solution locks in catastrophe at some point. (I fee like I need to qualify these sentences with "If the assumptions about climate change are close to correct")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...
We did a small project about future predictions for energy use and CO2 emissions in college in 1995, and we ended with a statement that essentially said "Now, this has all been about global emissions. How to divide these issues by country is a moral, not scientific, question, but it's hard to argue that anything but asymptotically (ie at 2050 or whatever) working towards the same per-capita emissions is just."
I wish all political discussions were on a per-capita basis. It would just be more transparent how different the industrialized countries want their citizens to be treated that way.
Just saying.
But the government promised to lower it by 40 percent by 2020.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/01/energy-literacy-4-ho.ht...
Just pure waste from china is alone responsible for a very large chunk of CO2 emissions.
http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20030215coalenviro...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_seam_fire#Extinguishing_co...
I actually didn't know China had underground coal fires - I learned a little about the topic reading about the underground coal fires in Pennsylvania:
http://www.offroaders.com/album/centralia/centralia.htm
It's expensive and dangerous to put them out as described in Wikipedia, but also the success rate can be fairly low. With our currency technology, you can put out 99% of the fire and have it restart and spread again quickly and undetected. From Wikipedia, italics mine:
> In 2004, the Chinese government claimed success in extinguishing a mine fire at a colliery near Urumqi in China's Xinjiang province that had been burning since 1874. However, a March 2008 Time magazine article quotes researcher Steven Q. Andrews as saying, "I decided to go to see how it was extinguished, and flames were visible and the entire thing was still burning.... They said it was put out, and who is to say otherwise?"
One thing that strikes me is that CO2 is a better asphyxiating agent than nitrogen: it is inert to combustion and it is 47.3% denser than N2, so it will stay put if you can keep it under 147.3% of ambient temperature. And people are looking for places to sequester CO2, anyway. It will asphyxiate animals and people too, though, so you'd better not have any leaks...
You bring up China, well I checked the numbers there as well, and Australia releases eleven times more carbon per capita than China. Will China release more carbon in the future, yes, because instead of the 300 million people that currently enjoy little luxuries like heat in the winter, that number will swell to well over 900 million. Incidentally, guess who is number two in researching alternative energy technologies in an attempt to proactively address their future energy needs. China. What would you have them do in the interim? Freeze as well?
Yet China and the US are the "problem".
No, the real reason these 'environmentalists' are anti China and US is because it is politically fashionable to be so. It has very little to do with the actual numbers and the reasons behind them.
Sane and safe programs for the reduction of carbon emissions should have some basis in per capita emissions. And the evidence is more than clear that many nations have much further to go than the US and China in this regard.
It's not at all clear who "we" refers to in that sentence, but from my cursory glance at the data, it appears that the statement applies to neither the US or China. Please clarify and provide links to relevant data.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...
Having mentioned all of that, the numbers from CSIRO in Australia can be found in the following report:
http://csiro.au/news/GlobalCarbonProject-PNAS.html
Lead by Dr Mike Raupach
EDIT:
Not really sure if the above was too technical. Just realized you quoted wikipedia. Anyway, what follows are some news stories on Australian carbon emissions. A little less techy.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/18/2745751.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/02/2079513.htm
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e57087d4-3862-11de-9211-00144feabdc0...
Note that even though the Financial Times is a conservative paper, it concedes that Australia has decided to 'delay' setting any carbon emissions limits. I put in links to ABC, to balance FT with a somewhat more liberal perspective.
END EDIT:
In my opinion, the report, puts Australia in a very good light, and even they concede that Australia emits at 4.5 TIMES the global rate. A lot of other little nuggets are in the full report if you care to read it. If not, the link above contains a good summary.
I can share more research with you, if you are working in this field, and would like the information.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have to state that I currently do a great deal of research analyzing companies, technologies, and markets for VC investment. One of the fields that a large number of clients are interested in is 'green tech'. The research I have been doing the past couple of years, particularly on markets, has really opened my eyes.
In answer to your other question, I am an American. Extremely so I admit. So by 'we' I meant the US. I will endeavor to speak more precisely in the future.
It occurs to me that perhaps I should be more explicit in what I am saying. The source data used for the wikipedia article is not data on carbon emissions per capita, rather it is data on carbon emissions per capita . . . PER USD1 GDP. That is, per capita per $1 GDP.
The authors of the wikipedia article either mistook the data to be data on per capita emissions, or really didn't understand the difference. At any rate, that is the reason for the confusion I think.
By the way, here is the source data that the wikipedia article uses:
The actual data are not presented as "per capita per $1 USD GDP"; this is a (wholly unintentional, I'm sure) misreading of a sentence describing the data in the charts.
Actually examining the source data shows that there is a set of data measured in metric tons per $1 USD, and another, separate set, of data measured in metric tons per capita.
So if we assume that your interpretation of the data is correct, Australia is just as big an emitter as the US, and they emit roughly 4 TIMES as much as China does. If my interpretation was correct, they emit 5 TIMES the US and 11 TIMES China.
My point being that the material point stands in either case. That is, even if we were to all agree to your interpretation, China is still not the problem. Why then, is all of the attention on China and the US? Clearly there are other emitters just as profligate. In fact, in the case of China, most of the other nations are far larger emitters per capita.
I maintain that the negative attention given to China and the US is due to the fact that being anti US and anti China is the height of political fashion. Clearly, the people denigrating China don't take Australia to task for what we have both established as demonstrably far more egregious behavior.
The reason that most people focus on the US, China (and India) is not fashion, but that they have the bulk of the world's population. Australia only has 20-ish million people, but the US has more like 300 million (FIFTEEN TIMES!), and China has a billion (FIFTY TIMES!). So if their per-capita emissions go up, they're pumping out a lot more CO2.
Have a look into the 'raw' numbers - ie. the absolute emissions - they're the ones that matter. Australia: 372013, the US: 5752289, China: 6103493
On the other hand if you and China cut a small amount each, well, the roll on impact is huge. :)
That's the statistic that counts here.
Maybe it has changed in the last few years, but it is a lot different than your claim of 5 times the US amount or 11 times the Chinese. Where did you get your numbers from?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...
Just like I mentioned to @ryanwaggoner, I think, given incidents like 'climategate' we should be careful of quoting sources like wikipedia.
For instance, the source data used for the wikipedia article is not carbon emissions per capita, it is data on carbon emissions per capita . . . PER USD1 GDP. That is, per capita per $1 GDP.
The authors of the wikipedia article either mistook the data to be data on per capita emissions, or really didn't understand the difference. At any rate, that is the reason for the confusion I think.
By the way, here is the source data that the wikipedia article uses:
http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Metadata.aspx?IndicatorId=28&...
as @nkurz suggests, then you will come to a page with two 'per capita' data charts on it. Click either, and under the 'Series Detail' section of the resultant page you will see something like the following:
Series Name: Carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), metric tons of CO2 per capita (UNFCCC)
Goal: Goal 7. Ensure environmental sustainability
Target: Target 7.A: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources
----HERE---->> Indicator: Indicator 7.2 Carbon dioxide emissions, total, per capita and per $1 GDP (PPP) <<<----HERE----
As you can see it is per capita per $1 GDP (PPP). By the way, the (PPP), Purchasing Power Parity, makes this data even less useful. But I didn't want to get into ALL of the things that are wrong with this dataset.
Alternatively, here is a direct link to:
Carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), metric tons of CO2 per capita (UNFCCC)
http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/SeriesDetail.aspx?srid=752
Again, check under 'Series Detail' and you will see the above dataset description.
They appear to be listing the various data elements compiled. As in:
* Total carbon dioxide emissions * Per Capita carbon dioxide emissions * per $1 GDP carbon dioxide emissions
I guessed that this might be the case, but did not pre-conclude it. Instead I downloaded all of their actual data sets and compared the numbers in the charts, and indeed, the numbers for per-capita carbon dioxide emissions, which include no mention of per-GDP calculations, support Wikipedia's numbers to the same effect.
i.e., Australia in 2006 was showing 19 metric tons of CO2 emissions per capita to the United States' 19.7, etc.
(And I swore I was never again going to get involved in a climate "discussion" on HN.)
My point being that the material point stands in either case. That is, even if we were to all agree to your interpretation of the data, nations like China are still not the problem. Why then, is all of the negative attention on China and the US? Clearly there are other emitters just as profligate. In fact, in the case of China, most of the other nations are far more profligate per capita.
I maintain that the negative attention given to China and the US is due to the fact that being anti US and anti China is the height of political fashion. Clearly, the people denigrating China don't take Australia to task for what we have both established as demonstrably far more egregious behavior.
Come on now, you're having a hard enough time reading the legend, there isn't much interpretation going on.
1) Unlike China, Australia was a signatory to Kyoto (actually, I'm not 100% sure if China was a signatory or not, but at any rate they didn't have binding targets).
2) Unlike the US, Australia actually met its Kyoto targets.
3) Everyone knows that most of Australia's economic activity is geared towards exports of primary produce to the rest of the world - as already noted, Australia's own population is small, certainly not big enough to consume even a tenth of what is being produced. As such, at Kyoto it was agreed to not heavily limit Australian emissions, as these emissions would more fairly be placed on the books of the consumer countries.
4) Australia was willing and able to play ball in Copenhagen, unlike the Chinese.
5) Australia does not have very much diplomatic clout, so it is not being held accountable for the failure of diplomacy, as the US is.
6) And, finally, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what Australia does per capita, as its population is simply too small to make a difference on a global scale - even if we accept the dodgy figure of Australia emitting 11 times more per capita than the Chinese, that still means that China is emmitting more than 5 times more than Australia. Using more realistic figures, China is emitting about 10 times more than Australia, and the US is emitting nearly 20 times more. And that is why no-one is pointing the finger at Australia.
http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Metadata.aspx?IndicatorId=28&...
Follow either of the links to 'Metric tons of CO2 per capita' and you'll find numbers very close to Wikipedia.
(in any case, could you delete one of your responses so that replies aren't scattered?)
http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/SeriesDetail.aspx?srid=752
Series Name: Carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), metric tons of CO2 per capita (UNFCCC)
Goal: Goal 7. Ensure environmental sustainability
Target: Target 7.A: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources
----HERE---->> Indicator: Indicator 7.2 Carbon dioxide emissions, total, per capita and per $1 GDP (PPP) <<<----HERE----
EDIT: I apologize, I mistook the meaning of your response. END EDIT
This is a case of an "Oxford comma". The data would be more correctly described as "...emissions, total, per capita, and per $1 GDP". Including or not including the comma is a style choice; journalists tend not to include it, and often don't realize that it can change the meaning of a sentence.
If you examine the data sets themselves, rather than only the one sentence, I think you'll see.
So if we assume that your interpretation of the data is correct, Australia is just as big an emitter as the US, and they emit roughly 4 TIMES as much as China does. If my interpretation was correct, they emit 5 TIMES the US and 11 TIMES China.
My point being that the material point stands in either case. That is, even if we were to all agree to your interpretation, China is still not the problem. Why then, is all of the attention on China and the US? Clearly there are other emitters just as profligate. In fact, in the case of China, most of the other nations are far larger emitters per capita.
I maintain that the negative attention given to China and the US is due to the fact that being anti US and anti China is the height of political fashion. Clearly, the people denigrating China don't take Australia to task for what we have both established as demonstrably far more egregious behavior.
I'd agree that political fashion likely plays a strong role, but your reluctance to retract your misinterpretation regarding the units of the data makes my unwilling to discuss this with you further. Claiming the the point stands in either case, whether or not this is true, forces me to flip the bozo bit.
Which is good, actually; I'm getting more done, and HN isn't having to suffer my negative influence. ;-)
We're bad, but we're not THAT bad ...
# 1 United States: 5,762,050 # 2 China: 3,473,600 # 3 Russia: 1,540,360
take a look at this :) http://cait.wri.org/figures/USToIntlGHGMap-Regions-thumb.gif
The numbers matter.
Actually, no. At least in terms of CO2 emissions, China replaced us as #1 in 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...
IMO the US seems to blindly insist that everyone other than itself should be punishable, while it will continue to make vague promises and absolutely rubbish the Kyoto Protocol.
EDIT: Rephrased that last sentence.
Also, how did you get from "I'm not sure of this..." to "The fact remains..."?
My bad. I kinda assumed, since nobody was actually contradicting it. I'll edit it now.
[1] http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/industry-CO2-emissi...
OTOH, The US has been at it for much longer. They also have fewer people which should "entitle" them to less on an equitable basis.
And I'm glad they did, they did us a service.
I don't want my country to be shipping out hundreds of billions a year to despotic regimes in the hope that there is a chance in hell the money would go to the uses it was intended for and not serve as a slush fund for well connected government officials.
I don't want my country to do the worst possible thing it could to its already weak economy by hamstringing it even further compared to rivals who do not have the same costs.
Also, I don't buy the guilt argument, I'm not about to apologize for the past 300 years of progress brought to humanity care of the West.
"Reparations" should not even be on the table in any way shape or form, they should be thanking us.
I don't know if the chinese leadership is pragmatic or not, but it sort of makes sense to help your population today, than to help the planet in 50 years time.
I don’t think the choice is
Having lived in India and the UK, I'd say there is already a massive difference between India and UK, in terms of what we used. In India even if you can pay for water/electricity you just don't have access to it, there are regular power cuts in the summers as much as 8 hours a day in most cities. Running Water is available for a few hours a day. Most rich people drill a well and have a pump which pumps water into an overhead tank. For electricity, the rich have diesel generators, to run their homes.
In the UK, I've never experienced a power cut, never had any water shortage, no cut of gas to the house.
There just isn't any infrastructure in poorer nations. If you are poor you are on your own. If you are rich you are still on your own, but you have the resources to fix the problem for yourself.
I think it is important that 1.6 billion of us get electricity some time in the near future.
Or mine and refine uranium?
Total lifecycle analysis is complicated, and important in these questions.
Maybe such a list would be more efficient than certificate trading between countries. Just as for optimizing computer programs, it might make sense to eliminate the worst offenders first. Maybe a lot of bad offenders would be easy to fix. Negotiating emission rates between countries might be akin to premature optimization.
Maybe satellites could be used to spot CO2 emission hot spots? With some additional logic, hot spots could be assigned to industries (ie if it is at sea, it is likely to be a ship. If it is on land, Google Maps probably knows the name of the company). Just wondering how to compile such a list...
So forgive me if I'm cynical about the hysteria about the effects of cutting carbon emissions. A lot of people live in abject poverty, but that is a problem of distribution, not total numbers. The gap between the rich and poor has been widening so quickly that despite the growth in GDP, in real terms, the poor have been getting poorer.
Economic growth, as it stands, does little to help most people, and much to further fill the pockets of the rich.
1) There was a plan in Copenhagen to give $100 billion to poor nations to "help them cope with climate change".
2) Since 1998 the temperature of the earth has fallen about 0.4 F.
3) The actions these nations need to take against global warming are very different than those they need to take against global cooling.
Questions:
1) Is the money they were to be given to be spent to protect against warming, or cooling?
2) Whichever one you picked, why aren't they more specific in their namimg? Why the ambiguity?
Please don't turn this into a place for politics, instant support groups, lolcats, and recycled memes from 4chan. That place is called reddit.
http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ahmdz/how_do_i_kn...
I think your comment should have been more along the lines of "Amazing... it's crazy that a title on reddit.com did not get editorialized to sensationalize the article."
This whole Copenhagen fiasco was to put a lid on developing nations so the west could further delay the transfer of global power to the Asian nations.
USA had no intention of cutting its own emissions but asks China that they should. What kind of deal is that?
If the US had agreed to a minor cut, China would have probably agreed to limiting growth and eventually (10-15 years reducing). The argument is how big the gap is. I've mostly heard talk of between a 15% & a 30% delay for developing countries. @ 15% delay, the US cuts by 5% & China gets to grow by 10%. 20 years later the US cuts by 20% & China cuts by 5%. etc.
Any deal that emerges will probably slightly favour the developing world. It is they that will need to pay for most of it because they have the money. "The West" will subsidise "The East's" reductions somewhat. The only qestion is how much.
The US is holding up the show at the moment. Maybe after next US elections they will be ready for 5-10% cuts with China limiting itself to about 10% growth (by 2020 or 2025). Most other developed countries are ready for 20% by 2020 now.
I doubt it. I expect that the next POTUS will be a conservative Republican.
Case in point: by wrecking the Copenhagen deal, China has helped the cause of liberty in the western countries by making it harder for governments in increase taxes and regulations on its citizens.
While I greatly respect China's economic system ("Socialism with Chinese characteristics"), there are very few definitions of freedom where China is more pro-freedom than the USA.
* Nobody questioned me on entry into china like I was a criminal
* Policemen don't walk around with guns like they are ready to gun you down
* When a girl removes her shirt, she she is not jailed in china
* When I drink excessively and start acting the fool, I am treated like an idiot in china, not like a criminal
I visited both countries. In china, people are happy and friendly. In American, people are trapped and unfriendly.
China feels a lot freeer than the United States.
Nobody forces you to stay with a tour or anything, it's not like North Korea. Of course, if you stick to a guided-tour, you probably won't see too much. If you leave the city, you can find plenty of backpackers.
The friendliness probably has more to do with the culture being more laid-back then political freedom.
Disturbing you have collected 8 upvotes for this utter nonsense. I challenge you to name any area of the country permanently off limits to foreigners. China is hardly perfect but what you insinuate is just BS.
At any other time, though, it should be fine. It's not North Korea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system#Household_registra...
Also, if you were upper class Englishman presumably no one bothered you on entry to India ca 1920, or made a fuss if you got a bit drunk. I suppose police would be quite nice to you as well. And all the natives seemed so friendly and happy.
* Most people I encounter are happy and friendly, even the poor and unemployed.
* I'm not accustomed to seeing police carrying anything more than a holstered service pistol.
* Not only can women take off their shirts without being arrested, both men and women can legally be completely naked in public (in this state).
* I've never seen anyone "treated like a criminal" for being drunk, so long as they aren't violent or otherwise harming other people.
* I've never experienced more than cursory questions on entry to the US, with 1 exception: returning to the US on Sept 14, 2001
Personally, I've lived in and visited enough places around the world that I would never reach a judgment on what a place is really like based on a brief visit, especially not a country as large as the US or China.
Indeed. Personally I find the recitation of anecdotal evidence for how "free" a country is to be bollocks. Alright, so the country "feels" freer sometimes, but that's not a sound argument for its actual freedom.
Have you tried this outside of a college campus? Pretty sure you can't.
More to the point, you've been trained think that is normal, in countries where guns aren't legal, the very sight of a gun would strike fear into people.
> * Not only can women take off their shirts without being arrested, both men and women can legally be completely naked in public.
I don't know where you live, but public nudity will get you in trouble just about anywhere in the U.S. You just can't stroll through a mall naked, you will be forcibly removed and you will meet some police.
> I've never seen anyone "treated like a criminal" for being drunk, so long as they aren't violent or otherwise harming other people.
Same as above, stroll though a mall falling over drunk and you'll meet some police very quickly. Public drunkenness will get you in trouble in most public places that aren't a bar.
I suppose that might be true in some places, but I've lived in Europe and spent a fair amount of time in Mexico, and my observations in both were that the police carried much more serious weaponry under normal circumstances than you see in the US.
> I don't know where you live, but public nudity will get you in trouble just about anywhere in the U.S.
I live in Oregon, where we have a constitutional right to be naked in public.
> You just can't stroll through a mall naked, you will be forcibly removed and you will meet some police.
Malls are private property, not public property. The owners of the mall have every bit as much right to exclude someone being naked on their property as I do on my property.
> Same as above, stroll though a mall falling over drunk and you'll meet some police very quickly. Public drunkenness will get you in trouble in most public places that aren't a bar.
Again, malls are private property. And, I suppose I can’t argue with whatever your experiences were, but I see lots of drunk people wandering about on a typical Friday or Saturday and the only ones who have problems with the police are the ones who try to start fights, or who won’t leave private property when asked.
Interesting, but Oregon is rather progressive, which is why I think I'll eventually end up in or near Portland. I live in Arizona, it sucks.
> Malls are private property, not public property.
A bad example perhaps, substitute "the mall" with a stroll down a public street, in most states you'll be arrested.
Indeed. Get off the Eurostar at GdN and you will see soldiers patrolling the place with assault rifles. Same around the Tour Eiffel. And this is in France. No-one bats an eyelid. I've never seen routine patrols in any US city carrying M16s.
More to the point, you've been trained think that is normal, in countries where guns aren't legal, the very sight of a gun would strike fear into people.
I remember traveling to the UK from the US as a kid with my family. In the airport there were police holding fully automatic rifles. That scared me. I had never seen something like that. I was thinking "WTF is going on in the UK??". I of course had no idea that the UK was supposed to be "gun free".
The only time I remember seeing police/security people in the US with automatic weapons (in person) was at the airport right after Sept. 11th. I have seen police holding (semi)automatic weapons in several countries now. It is much scarier than the standard holstered pistol you see in the US.
* I can get real milk (see http://www.realmilk.com/) delivered to my door.
* Fireworks of all sizes and detonative power are readily available.
* There is no prohibition on the sale of alcohol or cigarettes to minors.
In addition:
* You can start a new business with relative ease.
* Uncomplicated income tax (no tax return, withholding, W2 forms, etc.)
* Police are generally friendly and there is no fear of being unjustly tazed or beaten.
You are reading reddit and digg too much.
Is it some kind of sarcasm or is it considered a great freedom when the kids can poison themselves all they want? I'm ok with an adult drinking himself into an early grave, but a 10 year old kid might not clearly understand the consequences of drinking/smoking.
On issues which do not threaten these goals, China may "seem pro-freedom". However, most of the important issues (free speech, rights of the accused, labor rights, religion, etc. etc.) do. And on those issues, they're decidedly less free.