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China produces about 14.5% of the planet’s alleged global warming emissions. Australia produces only 1.6%. Which leads the Sydney Morning Herald’s Mary-Anne Toy to ask:
Is it fair to expect China to cut carbon emissions, which per capita are a tiny fraction of Australia’s?
Well, it depends; are you opposed to carbon emissions, or opposed to Australia?
UPDATE. Hanyu sets Mary-Anne straight. Also, don’t miss the latest Detective Paco adventure.
“Tell you what, Mr. Gore. Let’s kick back and talk this thing over. Here, I’ve got a couple of Cohiba cigars I’ve been saving for just such an important occasion. Won’t you join me?”
His brow furrowed in concern. I could tell that his brain was going off like a home-model CO2 detector in a kitchen with the gas stove on.
“Well, it’s your office, of course, but I really don’t think . . .”
“Oh, come on! Just this once. Let’s fire up these heaters and celebrate our partnership.”
I snipped the end off of one cigar with my gold-toned, stag-horn cigar clipper, and lit it. A look of terror came across Gore’s face, and he started snarling and waving his hands frenetically in front of his face.
“Uunnnngh! Fire! Fire . . .baaaaad!”
“No, Al. Fire . . .good! Smoke . . . good!” I lit the other cigar, grabbed one of his flapping fins and held it down, then forced the stogie into his yap. A few seconds later, to his surprised delight, he was puffing away ecstatically. He began chuckling, and then let out a guffaw.
“Mmmmmm! Smoke . . . good!”.
An hour later, Sheila buzzed me on the intercom again. “Paco, there’s a gentleman here to pick up Mr. Gore. Says his name is Professor Freiderick von Gaiaplatz.”
Professor von Gaiaplatz shuffled into the office, and coughed violently, as he was suddenly exposed to an atmosphere of heavy cigar smoke. He came over to the desk, where Mr. Gore – he had become “just plain Al” a long time ago – was sitting with me by the computer monitor, looking at the Dodge Truck web site.
“Yo, Freddie. Check this out! The new Dodge Ram 2500, with a 345 h.p., 5.7 liter engine! Man, you could really tear up some country with this baby! Throw a Texas Sizzler grill, some thick, juicy t-bones, and a cooler full of beer into the bed, head out to the beach, and you’d be smokin’!”
“Al?”, the professor inquired, weakly. “Er, we’ve got a showing of An Inconvenient Truth at the Shady Rest retirement home this evening. A lot of, er, heh, ‘legacy’ potential, there, you know.”
Al rose from his chair, a new man. “I’m finished with that crap, Professor! Global warming? Pffft! I’ve got a new mission in life.” He gazed reverently at some glorious horizon in his imagination. “I’m going to open up a chain of Dodge dealerships across this great land. I’m going to put a Dodge Ram in every garage. America: Haulin’ Ass! That’s the ticket from now on! And you know something? I’m going to drop all that PC b.s. I’m not selling trucks with ‘megacabs’; they’re ‘king-cabs’, and, by god, that’s what we’re going to call them! I’ll see you, Paco. And thanks for everything!”
After they’d left, Sheila poked her golden head into the office for a second, withdrew, and then came back with a can of air freshener, spraying liberally.
“Whew! Have you been having another one of your poker games in here? Did you win?”
I gave her a broad smile. “We all won, Sheila. You, me, the whole planet. We all won.”
The article says “Other” nations are responsible for 27.4%
of emissions. I say we go after them!Posted by Mystery Meat on 2007 02 07 at 11:38 AM • permalinkPaco - best yet.
Alas, fiction. Sighhh..
Posted by Jack from Montreal on 2007 02 07 at 11:56 AM • permalinkPaco, the “unbaked croissant” description—ew, blech, I am so geeked out.
It’s brilliant, I say, brilliant!
Posted by tabitharuth on 2007 02 07 at 12:30 PM • permalinkpaco,
See how better the Detective paco stories are when they’re not laden down with unnecessary 2nd parties like Andrea. And me. And bees. (eyes twitches)
Posted by wronwright on 2007 02 07 at 01:33 PM • permalinkI suggest Mary-Anne purchase a Personal Anti-Chinese Carbonator™ to shut out all of those Chinese carbon emissions even if they are, allegedly, less per capita than Oz’s. And the fact that this PACO product is a clear plastic bag with an elastic band means that its $8.95 price tag is well within reach of all of PACO’s Green consumers. You can breathe easy with PACO, well, for some 5 minutes anyway.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 02 07 at 01:47 PM • permalink#12: Au contraire, mon general! I think they are much better when you and Andrea’s bees make their appearance. Then, the yarns have greater verisimilitude, a certain je ne say what?, as we say down south. If only you’d let Detective Paco borrow the Tardis! Why, that could be you Ingrid Bergman’s running off to meet, instead of the potato-faced Paul Henreid, or the gin-soaked Humphrey Bogart.
Oops! I left out the Oxygen part of PACO, just like using the PACO does.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 02 07 at 01:49 PM • permalinkThe coffee trembled at that croissant line. Thankfully no spillage. It was wisely placed firmly on the coaster to the side of the keyboard for the rest of the story.
The comments after Ms Joy-Joy’s column are almost as funny, a bitter tug of war between “No, no, we can’t ask the poor Chinese to to that, it’s our moral duty to lead the way; even though our overall contribution is insignificant, it’s the moral thing to do!” and “Yeah, those Chinese bastards need to cut their emissions quick and bugger the economic costs, they’re destroying our planet!”
Shit! When I first ran my eyes over that paragraph, I thought that perhaps they’d finally found someone with a brain to write on the subject. Then I read it properly and realised that nothing changes at the SMH.
Since the Kyoto conference in 1992 I’ve been arguing that (in the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby “if you must do this damned silly thing, don’t do it in this damned silly way”. Population distribution on the land surface should be at least as important as any other factor in the whole business of correctly apportioning blame in a world that hates carbon. Maybe we are bigger generators of carbon emmissions, per capita, than China, but if you correct for the fact that we are 20 million and they are 2 billion, on similar sized land areas, the whole picture becomes a little clearer. Even “clean green New Zealand” is a much worse “polluter” than us, on this basis.
Posted by AlburyShifton on 2007 02 07 at 04:21 PM • permalinkChina and India give us the motto for today:
“Overpopulate or Perish!”
Breed like crazy then grab for power.
Hoist the west on its own petards. Those PC idiots will tie themselves in knots trying to be fair while you walk right in and do the numbers.
Look at them now, behaving like a cult of twats, listening to media airheads preaching the new gospel: “I’m a naughty boy, spank me, for I have sinned and need to be punished along with my democratic capitalist country.”
“All the leading scientists agree ...” my arse!From the dual department of Algore is a piker And who need China when we have Pelosi!
Emporer Pelosi not only wants her own military aircraft but she wants one with the following specs.
First class seats for 40 or 42(I forgot which one).
Private sleeping quarters.
A crew of 16.
Who pays the carbon credits on that one? How many windmill offsets?
A more compelling problem is that the Summary for Policymakers, attached to the
IPCC Report, is produced, not by the scientific writers and reviewers, but by a process of
negotiation among unnamed bureaucratic delegates from sponsoring governments. Their
selection of material need not and may not reflect the priorities and intentions of the
scientific community itself. Consequently it is useful to have independent experts read the
underlying report and produce a summary of the most pertinent elements of the report.
Finally, while the IPCC enlists many expert reviewers, no indication is given as to
whether they disagreed with some or all of the material they reviewed. In previous IPCC
reports many expert reviewers have lodged serious objections only to find that, while their
objections are ignored, they are acknowledged in the final document, giving the impression
that they endorsed the views expressed therein.
See Andrew Bolt item and his link to the Fraser Institute paper.I’d like you all to spare a minute, please, and join me in prayer:
Our Gaia, who art heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Your kingdom’s come,
Your will shall be done,
on earth as it is…on earth.
Give us this day our daily bread,
For we no longer are allowed to use the tools to make it ourselves.
Forgive us our carbon emissions,
but feel free to smite down with hurricanes all those who emit carbon against us.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,
forever and ever.
Amen.Is it fair to expect China to cut carbon emissions, which per capita are a tiny fraction of Australia’s?
Maybe that has something to do with the fact that China really didn’t evolve from its feudal/warlord period until the 19th century. Then along came Communism and the stupidity of The Great Leap Forward, not to mention the Cultural Revolution. And all that time, it had a population density several times that of any Western nation.
Want to bring Australia’s per capita CO2 production closer to China’s. Then transfer its manufacturing capacity, its attendant jobs, and economic impact to China.
Only a fucking liberal would fail to think this stuff through.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 02 07 at 04:56 PM • permalinkBehold, we are in the presence of a scribe extraordinaire. Paco, I completely agree with those that say, do it for money. There is nothing wrong in doing what you enjoy and have a love doing, for money.
As to the statement made by Mary-Anne Toy. I can only say, the idiotic thinking of people like Ms. Toy (and there are a plenty around this world, a plenty) has yet to find its depth, and I doubt that depth will ever be determined….bottomless pit, it is.
Paco - best yet. - Jack from Montreal
Best yet, Paco! - RebeccaH
It’s brilliant, I say, brilliant! - tabitharuth
Bravo, Paco! - rbj1See paco, it’s much better without the unnecessary characters.
Wait a minute. Jack. rbj1. tabita. I saw these people applying for salesman positions at PACO Products. For crying out loud, they’re just trying to suck up. For shame!
Posted by wronwright on 2007 02 07 at 05:08 PM • permalinkMary-Anne’s problem is easily solved. Let’s shut down our Aluminum industry in places like Gladstone, so that Alcoa sets up its processing facilities in another country. Like China.
All of a sudden Australia would be saintly, with our per capita emissions well below other countries.
And instantly the global greenhouse problem would be solved…oh wait…...
#28: The performance ratings and bonuses awarded to PACO employees are completely independent of their unsolicited hosannas for the dillettante literary efforts of their chief.
Hey, Rob? Paco. Everything going ok in the Human Resources Department? Great, great. Listen, I wouldn’t take it amiss if Jack, rbj1, tabita, Rebecca and El Cid get “Outstanding” ratings for this performance period, and maybe a little something extra in their pay envelopes this month. Right. Some great blurbs for the dustjacket when the trade editions come out. Take care of it, will you? Thanks.
From a mining magazine 2006.
In 1980 worldwise coal production was 2,805 Mt
In 2004 (last year they have figues) it was 4,629 Mt.
Consumption was in 2006
Europe: 8%
Former Soviet union: 6%
North America: 21%
Asia pacific: 60%
NO euro state figures in the top 10 coal producing countries either, nor oil producers. So i wonder why the shibolleth of coal and oil are pushed so hard by them??Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 02 07 at 05:53 PM • permalink‘The man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife.’
- Theodore Roosevelt
Posted by ausdiplomad on 2007 02 07 at 05:58 PM • permalink37. RebeccaH
Shouldnt your kids be dow’nt pit hauling that coal out??
Hmmph, hovel!! Lording it over the rest of the PACO corp employees with your airs and graces.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 02 07 at 06:37 PM • permalinkI had always been under the impression that Australia was a world leader in per capita greenhouse emissions but am bitterly disappointed to discover that we are a paltry 12th
Lift your game people.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 02 07 at 06:46 PM • permalinkOh Paco, Paco- you make my day- have printed off and will read next installment to husband over breakfast. Puts us in a great mood for the day.
Please put me down for a first edition signed by your worthy self.You should publish- tho I love reading for free.
I am so hearlity sick of being harrassed via the air waves on global warming and climate change, until I read your liquid prose- then I come up for air and BP back to normal
Um, I might just mention that I wrote a comment. You can find it above at #26. It discusses how China is the cause of its own low per capita CO2 production and—
Can everyone read #26? It shows up on your computer, right?
For that matter, is this comment showing up?
ANDREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !
Posted by wronwright on 2007 02 07 at 06:58 PM • permalinkSay, greenhouse emissions per capita from France are about one third of Australia. I wonder what their secret is?
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 02 07 at 07:00 PM • permalinkAnother thought on saving resources,let’s get rid of all state governments- They were esssential during the time of Cobb & Co but in the 21st century and with modern technology, why oh why do we have to pay wages and superannuation to all these states as well as the Federal Goverment. The emissions they create not only orally but from freqent travel interstate, intra state overseas,all replicating each other should stop, NOT TO MENTION ALL THE COMMONWEALTH Limmos line up motors runnning and one car per MP.
Why also does the opposition have to mirror every trip the PM make. Have they not heard of satellite conferencing and e-mail.Any member of Parliament who leaves the government with less than 20 years service should not longer be paid for life + the high level of super, they should do as the rest of us have to do, find another job and access their super at 65 like the rest of us plebs
Someone at #26 made a reasonable point about China.
I heard an interview on ABC radio yesterday. Don’t remember his name, but someone from one of those climate change think-tanks was on about “everyone in the world, including China” being involved in combating climate change through the carbon credit scheme - except Australia and America, of course.
The other bloke being interviewed politely pointed out that yes, China was trading in carbon credits - as a beneficiary!
The lies and half-truths these climate change advocates are spewing out is staggering.
(And for the record, wronwright, no one gets less recognition than me. Just because I haven’t posted a thousand comments yet).
Great work, Paco, as usual. I’ll add my voice to others and say you ought to publish.
My tolerance for those whose “morals” are so divorced from reality that they require the suffering—and death—of others in order to practice their ethics. It is like those who decried the use of DDT, happy and smugly satisfied, while millions suffered and died from malaria. They are the same people who said that it would take blood flowing in order to enact communism, or those who followed Rousseau and turned the French Revolution into a blood-bath. How are they any different than the terrorists who believe that blood and death is necessary to fulfill Allah’s will?
Oh, wait. I keep forgetting that they also stand with the terrorists. One cannot accuse them of inconsistency—at least when it comes to mass death as a consequence of their moral high-ground.
Speaking of commenting milestones…
Congrats to geoff, Stop Continental Drift and Texas Bob for reaching 1,000 and Grimmy, an even more impressive 2,000.
A fine class of inductees, but we still have some catching to reach wron. Apologies if I missed anyone.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 02 07 at 07:21 PM • permalinkOne point that hasn’t been dealt with in discussion of China and CO2 emissions is that although their per capita emissions are low, they are not in fact emitted equally or anything like that. For example China allows (or hasn’t the capacity to stop) fires in coal mines. China also has some cities that create huge emissions. They create nearly 15% of world emissions when 80% of the Chinese people are rural based and emit very little. To use a per capita basis is misleading in the extreme.
If we extrapolate into the future from the small proportion of industrialised China today to a time when 80% of Chinese are city based as in Europe/US/Australia (and historically this can happen within a generation) we can see that if they continue with their current practices they will be producing at least 80% of the world’s man made greenhouse gases. If man made greenhouse gases are a problem, China is the place to start to solve it.
Are you having problems being recognised in blog comment sections? Are brilliant word plays and your pointed commentary going unnoticed? Then try the Personal Aggrandizement Comment Orator to let everyone know who you are. PACO will enlarge and colour text to get you noticed. Remember, you can’t spell ‘PACO’ without ‘Comments’. [PACO is not responsible for any odd line breaks caused by its use.]
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 02 07 at 07:36 PM • permalinkDminor
(And for the record, wronwright, no one gets less recognition than me. Just because I haven’t posted a thousand comments yet).
Hey now! I happen to read your comments, and respond to them quite often.
p.s. You like Sibelius? Cool!Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 02 07 at 07:38 PM • permalinkBeing in Finland, I imagine you would.
;^)
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 02 07 at 07:48 PM • permalinkIs it fair to expect China to cut carbon emissions, which per capita are a tiny fraction of Australia’s?
Land mass is a better measure than population.
Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 02 07 at 07:59 PM • permalinkToy’s attitude is typical of the left. It is all about symbolic gestures. From Kim Jong-Il’s massed dancers to that kid walking from Brisbane to Sydney, it achieves nought in solving the problem, where real or imagined. Remember the Sorry Day march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 2000. Almost seven years ago now and Aboriginal communities are even more disfunctional and brutal than they were then. The only people to benefit were the middle-class wankers who marched, safe in knowledge they did their bit for Aborigines. And what did they do? Walk from a coffee shop on one side of the harbour to a barbecue on the other.
I’m starting to become a fan of global warming. It strikes me that a substantial culling on the world’s population might be a good thing. Let’s start with the left.
Looking at the historic impact of global cooling vs global warming, I for one, will take global warming anytime. I noticed that none of the comments I read questioned the human factor in global warming. Once they get their wealth distribution from the US to the rest of the world, watch the “global warming” scare die down.
I wonder if the Chinese have those dreadful little graphs on their quarterly power bills showing ‘how much carbon emission your energy consumption has contributed to global warming in the last three months’.
No wonder people believe all that shit.
Like I’m going to not wash my children’s clothes or let them go cold in winter or not cook my dinner or something.
Fuck off, stupid Fairfax typist. You wouldn’t know journalism from a tram ticket.
Ya know, if I wuz to drop a curling stone on Ms. Toy’s head, on a per capita basis that’s hardly any weight at all…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 02 07 at 08:53 PM • permalink#28 Wronwright
The implication is outrageous.
As director of the HCMC branch of PACO Enterprises (Asia) Ltd, what makes you thing that I have any need to suck up to the boss?
Any little “extra” that might find its way into my pay packet will go straight to the servants as a new year (Tet) gift.
Posted by Jack from Montreal on 2007 02 07 at 09:06 PM • permalinkMaybe if goddamn Mao had set off on his journey of a 1000 miles by Humvee rather than foot, they wouldn’t be so far behind in the emission stakes.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 07 at 09:16 PM • permalinkToy’s attitude is typical of the left. It is all about symbolic gestures.
#54, spot on. The Lefties love using measurements on a ‘per capita’ basis because it allows them to highlight meaningless symbolism.
For example, they might say that Norway contributes more to foreign aid on a per capita basis than the US [I have no idea if this is true, I just made it up for this example]. This completely ignores the fact that Norway’s contribution to aid in dollar terms is tiny and achieves very little when compared with that of the US.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 02 07 at 09:37 PM • permalinkDoes this mean China agrees with Ms. Toy?
China Says West Must Take Lead in Emission Cuts
(CNSNews.com) - China, the world’s second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, says Western industrialized nations must take the lead in cutting “greenhouse gas” emissions.
“The developed countries must fulfill the obligation of emission reduction and take emission reduction measures,” Beijing foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a press briefing this week.
They create nearly 15% of world emissions when 80% of the Chinese people are rural based and emit very little. To use a per capita basis is misleading in the extreme.
If we extrapolate into the future from the small proportion of industrialised China today to a time when 80% of Chinese are city based as in Europe/US/Australia (and historically this can happen within a generation) we can see that if they continue with their current practices they will be producing at least 80% of the world’s man made greenhouse gases.
That’s a bit high. Extrapolating from your numbers: If the Chinese urban population goes from a 20% share to 80% (we’ll assume their overall population stays the same so it’s a simple quadrupling), their share of CO2 emissions would go from 15 points out of 100 to 60 points out of 145, or about 40%, holding the rest of the world constant.
That’s still plenty enough to make the greenie insistence on ignoring China rather puzzling, of course.
Sydney Morning Herald’s Mary-Anne Toys with us.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2007 02 07 at 09:56 PM • permalink#55 Dminor
Thanks, Spiny. I’m joking, of course. Was “cool” a pun?
Partly, yes. ;^)
A lot of Sibelius’ music invokes feelings of cold weather.
Funny you should mention that, because I listen to Sibelius (and Grieg, too, for that matter) quite a bit during the winter.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 02 07 at 09:58 PM • permalink#67 PW
That’s still plenty enough to make the greenie insistence on ignoring China rather puzzling, of course.
Not at all, once you realize the Greenies are “watermelons”: green on the outside, red on the inside.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 02 07 at 10:02 PM • permalinkThey are not really a tiny fraction are they? They have 50X the popn. and 9.1X more output. This means (9.1/50) they use about 1/5th per capitat. Agreed, it is less, but it is not a tiny fraction and it is growing. Further more, one needs to compare like with like, we have a far greater land mass per capita and therefore the costs of stewardship are greater.
Paco, the other commenters are wrong when they say you should find a publisher. Instead, just email me any future excerpts and I’ll “look after them.” With a quick dustoff (read author change) I could make something of ‘em.
Gore’s “Plan B” cracked me up. But I must say I’m concerned about what appears to be a certain amount of “product placement” that seems to be going on. Am I mistaken? Or would you care to declare any financial interests you might have in Dodge and cigar companies?
I’m sure Wronwright as the offical Blog Tax Attorney is interested.
#70: Ah, Habib. I considered the elevator shaft gambit, but Michael Moore got trapped in the lift in an earlier episode, bolted a ham sandwich that took the weight-load beyond the sustainable maximum, and the cable snapped, causing the car to plunge into the basement; the elevator doors have been boarded up ever since.
#72 Penguin,
I am NOT the official blog tax attorney. I dislike anyone knowing I’m an attorney (they look funny at me now) and I knew I shouldn’t have made that one solitary mentioning of it. But of course paco jumped on it, pointing at me.
I’d want to go back to people thinking I’m a roofer.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 02 07 at 10:57 PM • permalink#77 - We’d all just assumed you were Karl’s Boy Friday. No one is buying that tax attorney malarkey.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 07 at 11:03 PM • permalinkdubai doesn’t seem too worried about rising sea levels
#79 - Dubai is one hell of an interesting construction site. Just goes to show what can be achieved without pesky local councils, with an army of indentured labour and with a never ending slush fund of petro-dollars.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 07 at 11:27 PM • permalink#73: No,no, no personal interest in Dodge (I do not even have the privilege of owning a Ram truck). I just wanted to use a vehicle that, as Wronwright would say, generates oodles of “gaia-wallopers”. And of course, when Castro falls, I will move with the greatest alacrity to present my ownership claims to Cohiba, Montecristo and Romeo y Julieta. And for the record: the fact that my stock certificates in the Cuban cigar companies look very similar to the carbon credit documents issued by Paco Environmental Services is just one of those wacky coincidences.
#74. KK. What an extraordinary coincidence! If I wasn’t so self destructingly broadminded, I might see a pattern.
Only days ago, my wife had a “run in” with a group of men of no appearance whilst she was sunbaking at a hotel pool (I wasn’t there.)
When she told me how upset it had made her, I struggled to remember that, as the left has taught me, I must not find fault with the offenders. I failed.
Mary-Anne Toy hasn’t got a clue. How she can get away with this drivel is beyond me. Moreso that she actually lives in China!
In the Chinese-language press (and English-language) too, the environment continues to be one of the most reported issues in China. Much of that reportage is critical of highly polluting industry, ineffective implementation of environmental regulations, and the state of the environment generally (which is frankly a disaster).
She writes:
China’s attitude to global warming has seemed ambivalent at times because, frankly, the environment is a far lower priority than economic growth, fighting poverty and maintaining social stability.
The day after she penned this ridiculous assertion (reducing a morass of policy, laws and regulations, the non-implementation of said policies etc, competing officials trying to hang on to power, warring Party members, etc., to a single throwaway line), the national news agency ran yet another story about how global warming is changing China’s climate. This quote is even in English (see here):
BEIJING, Feb. 6 (Xinhua)—It’s too early to state categorically that China is experiencing another “warm winter” this year, but the world’s fourth largest economy is definitely suffering the impact of global warming, a senior meteorological official said on Tuesday. Qin Dahe, director of the China Meteorological Administration, told a press conference in Beijing that global warming had made extreme weather—such as high temperatures, drought and hurricanes—more common in China.
She also wrote:
Mainland Chinese-language media all but ignored last Friday’s release of the UN expert group’s latest report stating that global warming was almost definitely caused by human actions and warning of dire consequences if the world did not take urgent remedial action.
I’m assuming she reads Chinese, but let’s start with the English-language press in China:
THE words of warning about global warming from the top panel of international scientists today were purposely blunt: “warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” the cause is “very likely” man-made, and “would continue for centuries.” Officially releasing a 21-page report in Paris on the how’s and the what’s about global warming—though not telling the world what to do about it—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gave a bleak observation of what is happening now and an even more dire prediction of the future, according to The Associated Press. Shanghai Daily
Let’s look at Chinese-language sources:
Here’s CCTV - China Central TV hardly rates as a small and marginal news source: it even has a video of the news report that mentions the UN expert group’s latest report. Watch the video: even if you don’t understand Chinese the pictures will give it away…
Then there’s this: from Xinhua - the national news agency. The first sentence says (my translation - quick and dirty but the meaning is correct):
On February 2, the United Nations intergovernmental climate change expert committee issued a severe warning on the climate saying that in the past 50 years it was “extremely possible” that humans had caused global warming.
I can go on and on. See here (scientific article on the report) and here, for example. Same thing.
All but ignored..? This is just plain disgusting. She’s telling lies. She can’t report facts. She’s stupid. Which is it?
It’s just unbelievable.
#67 Just like my maths professor used to do, I failed to provide all the steps for my reasoning. The 80/20 rural/urban split was for illustration only. It was intended to illustrate the enormity of the potential for growth of emissions from China. Within the “urbanised” 20% of Chinese there is a miniscule proportion of people who enjoy living standards close to Australia. Nobody really knows this number but if you take your same very valid calculation and apply it to this number you will see why I take a stab guess at 80%. My fault and I was only trying to demonstrate how averages such as “per capita” mislead.
Kind of O/T
Just popped over the always entertaining Have Your Say page at BBC (Pommie edition)
There’s a survey there
Would you pay more for a “greener” car?
Results so far
Yes 33.42%
No 56.42%
Not sure 10.14%
2673 votes so far
The brainwashing needs to be hurried up - people are still not getting the message!
Posted by aussiemagpie on 2007 02 08 at 12:38 AM • permalinkIf we include the sheep and cattle in Australia, as well as the native wildlife (not much of that left in China), I think you’d find the per capita figures a little closer.
This is all getting too much - as well as being tall poppy-loppers, racist and obese, we poor old Aussies are now worse planet polluters and carbon emitters than the mainland Chinese!
Give us a break. Don’t we do anything right????
Read some of the comments below the article, I tell you what, the moonbats are definitely howling.
I wrote a post here about some of my favorite comments:
Part of the problem is our Prime Minister is living in the past, he seems to think that fossil fuels are economical heaven, unwilling to acknowledge that the consequences could cause hell on earth, with a very high price tag.
.... Posted by: A Hutchins at February 8, 2007 2:06 PM
Whoah, there they go again these religious types, evoking images of hell to get us to repent for our sins. The IPCC themselves warned of 1.8 to 5 degrees of warming in the next century. Its nothing short of hell on earth !!
Stupid bold tags !
Here’s another great comment:Jono at 1104am must have his script written by John Howard. We have the grand daddy of a fight on our hands, and barely a soul on this blog has accepted that we ALL need to change our behaviour and our expectations. With our standard of life here it is disturbing to hear people refusing to give up anything in their selfish, materialistic life-styles. We have to set examples here or all is lost.
...Posted by: Georgie at February 8, 2007 2:47 PM
I tell you, they really believe in the apocalypse ! The end of days is approaching !
Ask the bastards to set a deadline for the climate apocalypse. If it’s good enough for Iraq, it’s good enough for Gaia.
When exactly is this cataclysm going to bloody get here? Do you have any idea how hard it is to forward plan with the end of days hanging over your head? Do I buy ocean front or hill top? Can I kill the pig by opening a swimming lessons business in Bangladesh? There is a myriad of opportunity out there for the enterprising bastard, but I do need some firm dates.
I want a Doomsday deadline and if it fails to eventuate by that date , then I want all these whiney warm-mongers to kindly be quiet.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 08 at 01:07 AM • permalink#49 There’s a nice little piece in Der Spiegel on Chinese pollution. Apparently the Europeans and Americans are already detecting pollutants from China in their skies.
That extravagantly wasteful little bout of bold just pushed the planet past the tipping point. Get ready for farming in Nunavut now, you bastards!
Posted by Crispytoast on 2007 02 08 at 01:17 AM • permalinkDo I buy ocean front or hill top?
How about a barge? That way, you need not worry about water levels at all…..just storms, a la’ Kevin Costner.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 02 08 at 01:26 AM • permalinkAt the risk of being hideously outnumbered here (by about 97:1), isn’t the scorn poured on the idea of climate change more due to the tea-bag-like arguments and watermelon-like nature of the climate change proponents?
Posted by pommygranate on 2007 02 08 at 01:36 AM • permalinkI’m waiting for the Reality O’ Doom to descend on the well-heeled UV-treated sack-cloth and non-carbon ash true believers, and they accept the inevitability of planetary innundation and solar broiling, and abandon their waterfront gaffs in the face of future tsunamis and storm surges, knock out their Porsche Cayennes for pocket change to get the bus to Katoomba, there to scurry into the treetops or a geodesic mud yurt to ride out the coming cataclysm.
I’m keeping a ready reserve of cash, survival kits and other trade items I can swap with these primitives for their apparently worthless assets- I reckon I can do better than that pilgram bastard who gypped the
WindybumsNative Americans out of Manhattan.Keep up the hype, panic merchants, there’s ackers to be made* here.
*You’re not much of a RWDB if you can’t profit from your fellow citizens stupidity.
#98 - If I even suspected for a moment that evil-doing-man-global-up-temp-happening was true, I’d be on to it like an art student at a grant give away. Reason? Warm weather tends to make me sweat like a dog in a Korean restaurant. Truth beknown I actually enjoy our frightful Perth winters. Sometimes the mercury only reaches 17c, but I can handle that.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 08 at 01:49 AM • permalinkMoonjava Feelfree put down her bong and let her head spin. It had been a very heavy day. Her previous welfare payments had only just extended through to today’s payment. And a letter had finally arrived rejecting the arts grant application for funds to complete and exhibit her latest masterpiece.
The fools couldn’t see the political and artistic merit of an array of oversize top hats made only from crushed egshells and welded horseshoes suspended over large pots of lobster bisque. Philistines! The piece’s references to the evil connection between the international “bankster” conspiracy and the Wal-Mart corporation were obvious!
But that wasn’t what was bumming Moonjava out. She had been religiously following the scientific consensus and educated comment concerning Gaia’s dying breath.
The words and phrases tumbled over in her mind; “hell on earth”.....“crisis for the earth”....“the splashening”........“all is lost.” It was clear what had to be done. Sad but clear. She would end this existence to be reincarnated as a bird (or maybe a stinkbug.) The end had come, and with a sigh she prepared a noose using her dressing gown waist cord.
Then she suddenly stoppped and through the haze of her “medicinal purposes only” addled brain remembered her 3 year old daughter, Truthiness, was alseep in the other room.
It was no good. Truthiness would have to be reincarnated as well. She was too good for this terrible consumerist world. She wobbled over to the bedroom door….
Qin Dahe, director of the China Meteorological Administration, told a press conference in Beijing that global warming had made extreme weather—such as high temperatures, drought and hurricanes—more common in China.
A big problem in this debate is that people simply make up ‘facts’.Chinese scientists have recently published a study showing a clear trend to fewer and less intense cyclones over the last 50 years. You can find the study linked at junkscience.com.
Only 1.6%?? Good lord, if you’re Australian it is a total and complete waste of time to even think about caring about global warming—nothing you do will make an iota of difference. Australia I absolve you, go forth and pollute to your heart’s content.
Posted by Shaky Barnes on 2007 02 08 at 02:17 AM • permalinkIowahawk stirring up trouble, again
Bless his talented heart…:). This kind of straight talk is needed in D.C. (and I do mean straight). You’ll see what I mean. Follow the LGF link to the HawkPage “The Pandagon Papers”. It’s a fuckin’ hoot.
Malcolm Turnbull on the 7.30 Report tonight stated “a ton of carbon emitted into the atmosphere in Sydney, is the same as a ton emitted in Shanghai”.
Went over with Peter Garrett like a fart in a lift. No answer of course, just let’s change the subject. Poor old Pete sat there with this slightly bemused stunned mullett the whole time. Compelling viewing to see the man revealed as a cardboard cutout.And so went the debate - Turbull putting up facts, Garrett evading, switching subjects.
Must have been a depressing sight for the Garrett fans looking for him to help get Ruddy over the line.
#115
Manufacturing for Chinese local consumption has been happening for a while (VW Golf, etc.) but EU firms (not just automotive) are continually making China their global manufacturing base: the corporates are most likely threatening to accelerate this process as a response to proposed stifling EU regulations.
Dr Paul Nieuwenhuis interviewI was furious with myself a month or two ago for not buying some toll road shares. Most Australian toll road companies have done very well since they were floated for one simple reason - there are more cars going through the toll booths each month. The company that I was looking at went up 30% in the few months between the float and when they were taken over.
Share prices are a good guide to future expectations of earnings growth. If the price is going up, people expect profits to keep on growing into the future.
If toll road shares are going up, then the market expects traffic growth to continue on an upwards path, which means that most people are not bothering to change their driving behaviour in response to global warming. Which I guess makes them secret sceptics. They’ll say one thing to a pollster, and then jump in their car and behave completely differently.
I’ll believe that most of the population have converted to being true believers when toll road shares tank and Harvey Norman reports crap sales results thanks to lower demand for air conditioner.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 02 08 at 06:40 AM • permalink#120
If the knob buffers currently in charge around the country get their way, every road will be a toll road soon.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 08 at 06:43 AM • permalink#116,118, I saw Red Kerry start his smarmy prating and I had to switch off. I was going to have a squiz at the transcript later.
I just want to smack his face.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 02 08 at 07:16 AM • permalinkSpeaking of, a few of the news bulletins had a breathless (pun intended) item on how global warming is going to increase asthma cases.
What next? How about:
Global warming will lead to explosion in athelete’s foot cases say expertsPrats.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 02 08 at 07:22 AM • permalinkAn interesting take on global warming by cartoonist Sam Ryskind.
At the risk of being hideously outnumbered here (by about 97:1), isn’t the scorn poured on the idea of climate change more due to the tea-bag-like arguments and watermelon-like nature of the climate change proponents?
pommygranate, years ago, I celebrated the first few Earth Days as a middle school student. At other times of the year, I volunteered to clean roads of litter.
I watched air pollution from three nearby refineries turn our white home into a gray and white home; my step-mother used to get free tulips for the garden from the state University so they could observe the effects of air pollution over time.
I lived on a beach while growing up; I watched sealife actually rebound around those same refineries as anti-pollution measures became more effective. Not perfect, but certainly there was no more dumping of raw waste into Puget Sound.
So, the environment concerned me then, and it still does. Man does impact the evnironment, and the natural ecosystem tends to lose under those conditions. I’ve watched this happen over my life.
But I’ve also watched the environment (at least in the United States) greatly improve since those first few Earth Days. However, those improvements took time and money to effect, and generally required people to lessen their impacts in the environment. Said measures tended to be more effective when they had a net positive economic impact, as they could be sustained nearly indefinitely. Returning to nature (AKA “living like our ancestors, the noble savages”) is a load of crap; when I saw that happen, I generally saw squalid living conditions, or someone sponging off the system, and not truly “returning to nature”...assuming that they stayed there in the first place, and didn’t come back to “civilization”.
Anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But it works for me.
So, I am not fanatical about the matter; humanity has a role on this planet, and while I claim no communication with any sort deity, I firmly believe that said role does not include self-destruction for any reason.
Nor do I believe that Man controls or managed the ecosystem; at best, we can only limit our impact.
Therefore, the environment, as important as it is to our survival, is merely another facet of the continuous problem to survive as a species. An important facet, but not the controlling one. If there is a controlling one, come to think of it. But it is not an easy nut to crack, requiring a hard, objective look at the problem, and the use of all available tools and technology to resolve.
So when I hear environmentalists boiling down the problems into one line solutions, and I know, through personal and professional experience, that those “solutions” are warm-and-fuzzy cliches merely intended to rally the masses under a socialist-turned-religious-environmentalist banner, my blood boils. If you can’t address the problem rationally, and describe it objectively, you won’t be able to even start addressing it. The “tea-bag-like arguments and watermelon-like nature” don’t cut it with me. Nor do the idiots spouting that crap.
And I don’t think that you are outnumbered in anyway.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 02 08 at 11:02 AM • permalink
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The cold had settled in like a transient relative down on his luck, waiting for something good to “turn up”. Bogan lay by the radiator, wearing a sweater and some booties that Sheila had knitted for him. He had made a desultory effort to pull one of the booties off, then had glanced in the direction of the waiting room where Sheila sat, typing away. He sighed in resignation, and curled up into an enormous ball, looking like a furry bean-bag sofa. Like most rough beasts – up to and including Man; at least, every man who knew her – he had a reverence for Sheila that compelled him to put up with her little whims. She had made these absurd garments. He would play the stoic and wear them.
The intercom buzzed. “Paco, there’s a Mr. Gore here to see you.”
“Gore? Gore . . .Gore . . . The writer fellow? The one Bill Buckley once threatened on national television to punch in the snoot?”
“No. You’re thinking of Gore Vidal. This is the ex-vice President. He says he wants to hire you to do some ‘opposition research’, whatever that is.”
“Send him in.”
A few moments later, I heard a slow, heavy clomping noise. It sounded like a deep-sea diver who had absentmindedly walked off a boat without removing his suit, heading down the dock in his lead shoes for a bite to eat at Davy Jones’ Oyster Bar. The door to my office swung open, and Al Gore lumbered in. He extended a big, doughy paw; it was as if somebody had placed an unbaked croissant in my hand.
“I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Paco.”
“My pleasure, Mr. Gore. Won’t you sit down?”
He slowly lowered himself into the chair; it was like watching an elephant being hoisted into the hold of an African steamer, bound for some roadside zoo in the states. In the time it took him to seat himself, I observed him closely. The man had put on a tremendous amount of weight. I had heard that he was trying to save the planet; apparently his “plan B” was to become one himself, and invite the inhabitants of earth to colonize him. The old police-precinct chair creaked ominously, but held its own.
Gore’s mouth opened a little on one side to reveal clenched teeth. In anybody else, I would have said that it looked like he was trying to suppress gas; I think in this case, it was supposed to be a smile.
“Mr. Paco, you’ve no doubt followed my recent career as a spokesman for the solid consensus of scientists who believe that global warming is an imminent threat to mankind’s existence?”
“Uh . . . sure. I’ve followed your efforts. At an inconspicuous distance, you might say.”
“Well, then, you must know that there are a few cranks out there, aided and abetted by their allies on the far right, who have challenged this consensus – this overwhelming consensus, I might add – and are resisting our efforts to implement measures to save our planet from melt-down. What I want you to do, is to conduct some background research on these heretics. I’m sure that they’re in the pay of the big oil companies.” He suddenly leaned forward in his chair to speak in a low, confidential voice. I resisted the urge to shout “Timber!”
“You see, the sooner we can discredit these frauds, the sooner we can reallocate our government resources. Stop fighting those so-called terrorists in Iraq, and start fighting the real terrorists: those in suits who work for Exxon and Shell. Hugo Chavez has the right idea. He’s nationalizing everything, and it’s made him wildly popular. President for life, most likely.” To the extent a weather balloon can look wistful, Gore did at that moment.
This guy was on the wrong track; he was a run-away train carrying a dangerous load of stupid ideas. If I didn’t stop him, he’d take us all off the trestle and into the gorge with him.