The Lightning RoundIf you're looking for a highly charged debate, this is the place to find it. But be forewarned, rules infractions are taken very seriously here.
A great coal rush is under way across China on a scale not seen anywhere since the 19th century.
Its consequences have been detected half a world away in toxic clouds so big that they can seen from space, drifting across the Pacific to California laden with microscopic particles of chemicals that cause cancer and diseases of the heart and lung.
Nonetheless, the Chinese plan to build no fewer than 500 new coal-fired power stations, adding to some 2,000, most of them unmodernised, that spew smoke, carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere.
It is the political fallout of that decision that is likely to challenge the foundations on which Britain and other developed nations have built their climate change policy — even as there are signs that ordinary Chinese citizens are at last rebelling against lives spent in poisonous conditions.
Cloaked in swirling mists of soot particles and smoke, cities such as China’s “coal capital” of Datong are entering the coldest period of winter in which demand for power and heating produces the worst pollution.
It is often darkness at noon in Datong, just 160 miles west of Beijing, where vehicles drive in daytime with their headlights on to grope through the miasma.
One of the four filthiest towns in China, it stands at the heart of the nation’s coal belt in Shanxi province, a region that mines more coal every year than Britain, Russia and Germany combined.
Cancer rates are soaring, child health is a time bomb and the population, many of whom are heavy cigarette smokers, are paying the price for China’s breakneck rush to riches and industrialisation — an estimated 400,000 premature deaths nationwide because of pollution every year.
Now, for the first time, the Chinese media have reported a revolt among the choking citizens of Shanxi. More than 90% of people surveyed by the provincial bureau for environmental protection said economic growth cannot go on at such an appalling cost.
That puts them on a collision course with their rulers — the same survey, reported by the China Youth Daily, found that 90% of mayors and local cadres opposed any moves to protect the environment that might slow the economy.
It is not hard to find the reason why. One mine boss in Shanxi named Zhang owns three Rolls-Royces of different colours plus a fleet of other luxury cars for his extended family, according to the Chongqing Morning Post, a daily newspaper.
“While normal people die of polluted air and water, officials use mineral water to wash their vegetables and even their feet,” said Yue Jianguo, an analyst, commenting on the Shanxi survey.
“People can’t tolerate the pollution any longer but officials only care about their political achievements of hitting targets for growth. If this policy isn’t stopped, China will become a land where there are only graves, no people.”
Coal is king in China. The nation’s hunger for energy appears insatiable. Oil, costing more than $60 (£31) a barrel, is too expensive. Nuclear power is a distant option. Giant hydroelectric projects, such as the Three Gorges Dam, generate a mere fraction of the demand. Wind power and other alternative technologies make a minimum impact.
So China is digging furiously and fast in more than 21,000 mines. Last Wednesday Zeng Peiyan, a vice- premier, disclosed that coal output had doubled in the past five years. The nation will use 2.5 billion tons in 2007.
Along with such dizzying statistics goes another: the world’s worst casualty rate among miners. China’s media admitted to 3,818 deaths in 2,456 accidents underground in 2006. Journalists say the real figure is higher because some disasters are covered up by mine bosses and local party leaders.
I thought cow farts causing global warming? Better send Algore!
China is exempt from the ridiculous Kyoto scam. In fact, China can sell clean air credits to countries like Canada, which produces only 1% of the worlds pollution.
California is passing new laws in 2007 to combat so-called global warming by reducing exhaust from lawnmowers and barbecue grills.
IIRC China did not sign the Kyoto agreements. And maybe you didn't notice but China is one big country with places where no human has yet set foot. So at those places there will not be pollution. But that aside...
China is one of the most heavily polluted countries in the world. And maybe if they were a bit more concerned with their environment they would not be in this bad shape.
I'd like you to find any country who did sign the Kyoto agreements which is this heavily polluted. Or are you going to suggest that burning coal is the way to go for achieving the Kyoto norm? We all know in which shape China is currently in.
The countries who signed it actually are aware of the environment problem and are actively making an effort. It's that effort of which it's all about. It costs money so more people will be motivated to make an effort.
Linking it to global warming is pretty pointless as that is subject to other environmental factors. Let me give you the example of Belgium.
We did sign the Kyoto agreement and we've been making efforts for a while now. Some of them paying off and even generating profit. None the less when looking at the 10 warmest years in recorded history 8 of them have happened in the last 10 years. The other two 11 and 12 years ago.
The warmest of those 10 was this year which broke the previous record made in, yep, 2005.
That's not a coincidence.
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Having places "where no man has set foot" is irrelevant to whether or not that place is polluted, or the production of pollution of a country.
Kyoto's main faults are that it's a swap and trade system for imaginary credits that are doled out based on political decisions. The most insidious part of this protocol is that it limits or ties a countries economy to other countrys' economies. One world! Here's how we can control your growth...
And the false economy arising based on the trading of pollution credits can be swept away in one day with the stroke of a pen. I wouldn't bank on it.
^^^ Didn't China sign on as some goffily constructed "go along but not comply" member, though? I'm not up on any of this Kyoto junk, but seem to remember China being a signatory to the treaty but not having to comply with it because they're third world, or some such thing.
This whole Kyoto/global warming/Algorythm thing is gonna be the largest money sucking joke ever devised... it'll make oil for food programs look like chump change.
Kyoto Protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaIn other words, China, India, and other developing countries were exempt from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol because they were not the main ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol - 142k - Dec 29, 2006 - Cached - Similar pages
Meet the world's top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow.
A United Nations report has identified the world's rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs.
The 400-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock's Long Shadow, also surveys the damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world's 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.
Climate Change: A U.N. report indicates that a major contributor to global warming may be the barnyard animals your kids see at the petting zoo, not the SUV you used to drive them there.
Just when conventional wisdom had settled on your SUV and the Industrial Revolution as the culprits in imminent and disastrous global warming, a 400-page report by the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization identifies emissions from livestock and the world's rapidly growing cattle herds as the greatest contributors to climate change.
So as the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court ponder whether to force the Environmental Protection Agency to treat life-sustaining carbon dioxide as a "pollutant," and in so doing impose job- and growth-killing regulations on the American economy, U.N. scientists say a goodly percentage of greenhouse gases emanate from the east end of westbound livestock.
Titled "Livestock's Long Shadow," the FAO report also surveys damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But it mostly puts the blame on the world's 1.5 billion cows. Altogether, the report says, flatulent livestock and farming are the source of 18% of the greenhouse gases said to cause global warming — more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.
The report has created quite a stink by documenting the impact on Earth's climate by gases from manure and flatulence, deforestation (including destruction of rain forests to create grazing land) and the energy used in farming.
The U.N. may have stumbled on some more inconvenient truths. We just hope Al Gore doesn't have a cow.
Correct me if I am wrong but it's the source of the carbon not the method of release that is the point. Carbon already cycling through the ecosystem is really not the issue but Carbon removed by sedimentary processes being reintroduced that is the theoretical problem. Of course if you believe the Earth is only 7,000 years old and no sedimentary processes occurred then you can blame the cows. Ostriches.
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Correct me if I am wrong but it's the source of the carbon not the method of release that is the point. Carbon already cycling through the ecosystem is really not the issue but Carbon removed by sedimentary processes being reintroduced that is the theoretical problem. Of course if you believe the Earth is only 7,000 years old and no sedimentary processes occurred then you can blame the cows. Ostriches.
Well, if that is how it works, hasn't all the carbon been cycling around for billions of years and disappearing into the ground. Maybe it needs to be set free to return us to the pristine conditions of the dinosaurs.
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