Mao's War Against Nature

In the summer of 2006, I stopped at the train station in the small industrial town of Panzhihua in Sichuan Province. I was on my way to the touristy mountain paradise of Lijiang in Yunnan Province. Although Panzhihua was smack dab in the middle of an idyllic mountain setting, it was a dystopian industrial hellhole.


Photo of Panzhihua from greensos.cn

My assumption at the time was that Panzhihua was simply a casualty of China's post-Mao-era rapid economic development. It turns out that my assumption was wrong. Panzhihua's landscape is not a result of contemporary China's economic boom. Instead, it is a victim of Mao's 1960s Cultural Revolution-era attempts at military might.

Mao's War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China by Judith Shapiro is about Panzhihua and a number of other examples of Mao-led destruction of nature. The book begins in the late-1940s/early-1950s and goes over Mao's systemic attacks against nature through the end of his life in the mid-1970s.



Shapiro's book, published in 2001, is broken into five sections that move linearly through Mao's reign:

1. Population, Dams, and Political Repression
2. Deforestation, Famine, and Utopian Urgency
3. Grainfields in Lakes and Dogmatic Uniformity
4. War Preparations and Forcible Relocations
5. Legacy

These chapters are pretty self-explanatory based on their titles. I found the sections on dam construction, agriculture during the Great Leap Forward, and stories about educated youth - educated urban young adults who were sent to the countryside to learn from the peasants - to be the most interesting sections.

A couple of Chinese idioms that I've talked about before - 人定胜天 ("man can conquer nature") and 人多力量大 ("a larger population means more power") - show up again and again in Sharpiro's book. Both of these Mao-isms say so much about Mao's simplistic attitude towards the environment and political governance.

Here is a nice summary of Mao's basic views on nature from page 67-8:

Mao's War Against Nature is a nice complement to a couple other books on China's environment that I've read - China's Water Crisis by Ma Jun and When a Billion Chinese Jump by Jonathan Watts.

My biggest take away from Jun's book is that China's destruction of nature goes back millenia. Although his book is mostly about China's current water problems, a large focus of the book is on China's centuries-long destruction of and influence on nature.

Watts book is solely focused on China's economic destruction in the more recent boom years. Watts takes the reader to every corner of China to highlight the severe and, in many cases, irreversible damage that is ravaging China's environment on a daily basis.

Sharpiro's Mao's War Against Nature does a nice job of filling in the gap that exists between the two books. Mao, between 1949 and 1976, did so much lasting damage to China's environment: the countless dams, the ludicrous collectivization of China's farms, and the massive resources poured in to military industrialization, like in Panzhihua, that changed China's landscapes forever.

The main problem I had with Sharpiro's book is that it often goes into mind-numbing detail that I just didn't want or find interesting. The book is, in many ways, written in a reader-friendly journalistic fashion. Parts of it attempt to be more academic, though, and go into way too much detail. I didn't really appreciate when Shapiro gave several paragraphs to how many hectares of Yunnan Province were destroyed or the year-by-year population estimates of Panzhihua during its military industrialization. Those sections don't really fit with the totality of the book, in my opinion. I wanted more of an overview compared to an academic study.

Despite the sections sections that go into too much detail, I feel that Shapiro's book is a worthwhile read. Anyone wanting to get a very detailed picture of the history of China's destruction of its environment should check out Mao's War Against Nature.

When a Billion Chinese Jump

My biggest problem with living in China when I was there was the pollution. Language issues, trying to understand social mores, being treated differently because I was a foreigner, and any homesickness I felt being on the other side of the planet from my home all paled in comparison to the you-can-only-fathom-it-if-you've-been-there pollution that engulfs China.

Xi'an's pollution, in particular, is horrific. Xi'an, the city I lived in for three and a half years, is just to the south and to the west of the richest coal reserves in China. Xi'an's streets are choked with cars and its economic activity (carbon emissions) is booming. South of Xi'an stand the mighty Qinling Mountains, a very formidable range. You may not know there are mountains near you if you live in Xi'an, though. The peaks of the Qinling range are not visible 350 days out of the year. The beauty of the Qinling Mountains are no match for Xi'an's all-encompassing smog.

Jonathan Watts, a China correspondent from The Guardian, last year published a book entirely about China and its environment, When a Billion Chinese Jump: How China Will Save Mankind - or Destroy It.

I'd heard a lot of hype about this book for more than a year in the China blog and Twitter-sphere. Having now read it, the book lives up to the big buildup it's garnered. When a Billion Chinese Jump expanded and refined my knowledge of environmental issues in China a great deal. Watts' book put important facts and figures into my brain to go along with the negative experiences I've had with China's pollution.



The organization of Watts book is very good. It is split into four sections - Nature, Man, Imbalance, and Alternatives - and highlights each of these themes by focusing on different corresponding regions in China - the Southwest, the Southeast, the Northwest, and the Northeast. The result is a full portrait of what is going on in the humongous land mass that is China. The good, the bad, and the ugly all make it into Watts study of Chinese people and their relationship with their land.

I've talked before on my blog about how western China is the most interesting part of the country to me. The West is the frontier land of China that is often overlooked by journalists and policy-makers who only spend time in the large metropoli of eastern China.

Nobody can accuse Watts of not getting the full picture of China in When a Billion Chinese Jump. He visits nearly every nook and cranny of every corner of China - the snow-peaked mountains and glaciers of Tibet and Sichuan, the barren deserts of the former Silk Road in Xinjiang, and the idyllic scenery of Yunnan - to get the widest-ranging scope of China's environmental impact possible.

One thing I found very interesting on a personal level is that Watts visits every city in the on-and-off series on this blog - Chinese Cities that You've Never Heard of But Should Know. The giant factory that is Guangzhou and its surrounding area, the "model village" of Huaxi, the excesses of Ordos, and the Bladerunner-esque city of Chongqing are all places that Watts highlights.

I think it's pretty cool that Watts and I see eye-to-eye on what are the larger-than-life stories going on in China today. There were several points in When a Billion Chinese Jump where I felt Watts had written the book just for my reading. That's a great feeling to get when plowing through a meaty book.

One of my favorite chapters in the book is titled, "Why Do So Many People Hate Henan?" I laughed out loud when I saw chapter title in the table of contents. I imagine that anyone who's ever lived or spent a some time in China know the reputation that Henan Province and its people have amongst non-Henanese Chinese people.

Watts writes: "The antipathy of so many Chinese feel toward Henan seems to mirror the prejudice that many foreigners express towards China: that it is dirty, overcrowded, and untrustworthy."

Watts reminds the reader, though, that Henan is the birthplace of some of the most glorious Chinese things from China: tai qi, kung fu, and Zen Buddhism. Watts writes convincingly that Henan, which at one time was a bucolic place, is the dystopia it is now because of a systematic destruction of its environment. Instead of being known for some of the most beautiful things China has offered to the world, Henan is now famous for pollution-induced cancer villages, corruption-induced AIDS villages, and the worst of the worst man-made problems in China.

The story of Henan is tragic. Watts hammers what's gone on there hard because the entire country of China is on the brink of becoming one big Henan-like hellhole.

I'm going to highlight a passage from When a Billion Chinese Jump that I liked. It features a general theme found throughout the book: ingrained Chinese cultural traits make one wonder whether there is any hope that China will be able to change its attitude towards its environment.

From page 68 and 69:

Whether China's deeply ingrained negative cultural attitudes towards nature can be overcome is going to be one of the most important things to watch in the world over the next several decades.

My only criticism of When a Billion Chinese Jump is that it, at times, sounds a bit patronizing. Hearing Watts, an Englishman, lament fast food's growth, the Barbie store in Shanghai, and China's embrace of materialism was a bit much at times. I do think that it is near impossible to avoid this problem when a westerner writes a critical book about a developing country. Reading about "Barbie's eco-footprint" (the CO2 that Barbie, if a real person, would've been responsible for emitting) made me cringe some, though.

Watts book is a great guide to understanding China's struggle to build sustainable economic and societal structures. Watts knows a ton about China and such is reflected in his very serious, yet readable, book. I recommend anyone with even a hint of a green world-view or interest in China to pick up When a Billion Chinese Jump.

Red China

I saw a disturbing map the other day from a report on China's pollution from the Wall Street Journal (h/t to @danharris):


Here's an explanation of the map:

To get a sense of how China’s air quality compares with the rest of the world, there’s a new map of global air-particulate pollution from Canadian scientists using National Aeronautics and Space Administration satellite data. The verdict: It doesn’t look good.

...

It’s important to note that the data used for this map are derived from 2001 to 2006. But as The Wall Street Journal noted in July, authorities affirmed that China’s air quality continues to get worse, not better.

According to the NASA post, health officials say fine particulates can get past the body’s hair-like cilia defenses, penetrate the lungs and blood, and lead to chronic diseases, such as asthma, cardiovascular disease and bronchitis.

Read the Whole Article

This isn't too surprising. It's still disturbing though.

The biggest drawback of living in Xi'an is its air. It's horrific. The mountains in the (not-too-far) distance cannot even be seen because of the omnipotent smog. When I lived there and was outside for too long on particularly gray days, the air made me feel like I was getting strep throat. When I used to ride my bike, I would wear a cloth facemask in a futile attempt at limiting the number of harmful particulates entering the membranes of my body.

There are plenty of things I miss about China and life in Xi'an. They greyness there isn't one of them. The fiery sunsets of the great plains are a new-found appreciation I've discovered upon coming back to the US.

Rising Waters

There is a nice piece on the aftermath of the Three Gorges Dam in The New York Times' "Lens Showcase" blog today (h/t The Don).

Here are a few pics and some of the writing on the pieces:

In all the coverage of the enormous Three Gorges hydroelectric project on the Yangtze River, and the creation of a vast reservoir that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people around his birthplace in Chongqing, the photographer Muge Huang Rong felt the lack of something very important. And personal.

“I saw many images about Three Gorges, but could not find a familiar emotion — one that belonged to me,” said Muge, as he is known professionally. Now 30 years old and living in Chengdu, Muge has just spent four years on “Go Home,” a look at the lives that have been disrupted by the construction of the Three Gorges Dam.

“Home, for me, has too many meanings,” Muge said. “On one side is demolition, explosion, collapse; mixed with noises and flying dust. On the other side is my childhood memories.” This tension is apparent in his portraits, in which people inhabit desolate landscapes. The intimacy of the subjects’ relationships with one another — depicted in embraces, gestures and gazes — contrasts starkly with the rubble and refuse piled in the background.

Go to the Showcase

Really great stuff here.

Seeding Snow

Beijing had a good snow on Sunday. Nothing too out-of-the-ordinary. Except that the white stuff was man-made.

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Photo from AP

BEIJING – When I drew my curtains on Sunday morning to find thick snow falling outside, I thought something weird was going on.

Saturday had been gloriously warm and sunny. And even if the temperature had plummeted overnight, which it clearly had, Beijing winters are generally dry as a bone.

Monday morning, all was revealed. Beijing’s weathermen had been at work, it turned out, seeding the clouds to make it rain. Or snow, as it happened.

“We have to seize every opportunity to increase precipitation,” the head of the Beijing Weather Modification Office, Zhang Qiang, told the daily Global Times. “Beijing had almost no rainfall in October.”

You may not have a Weather Modification Office in your country. You don’t know what you are missing.

Read On

In the past, I've voiced my skepticism about the ability for these kinds of seeding programs to actually work. This latest snow storm sounds pretty legitimately man-made. Doesn't sound like it could've happened on its own without the push from the "Beijing Weather Modification Office."

I wonder what the limitations to creating rain/snow are. From the sounds of it, the circumstances need to be just right for any tinkering to work. It doesn't sound like rain/snow can just be turned on or off on any random day.

With water tables dropping and rivers dying and pollution continuing, North China needs all the water it can get. Last winter in Xi'an, we had a drought that went on for several months. The dry air combined with dusty and coal soot covered streets made for a pretty horrific atmosphere. For the sake of China and its people, I hope that seeding technology can be refined and used effectively.

Greening Black

Take a look at these horrific photos of China's pollution (h/t PKD). Seriously, click that link. China's pollution woes are unimaginable for people in the West. But hopefully such dystopian pollution won't be the norm for too much longer.

From The New York Times:

MONTREAL — The staggering economic growth in China has come at a heavy cost, paid in severe contamination of the country’s air, soil and water. But now the Chinese government is aggressively pursuing more stringent environmental regulation, with a particular focus on water distribution and wastewater treatment.

Recent stimulus spending has opened up the Chinese market to green initiatives. And Canadian companies are responding to the call for advanced water treatment and reuse technology.

“It’s not well known that China has set aside more money for the adoption of clean technologies than any other country on the planet,” said Dallas Kachan, managing director of Cleantech Group in San Francisco, which tracks global investment in clean technologies.

The Chinese economic stimulus package of 4 trillion yuan, or $585 billion, announced a year ago, focused nearly 40 percent of its spending on environmental and energy-efficient projects.

...

China’s water shortage, especially in the northern part of the country, is driving a need for wastewater recycling. “Right now, only 30 to 40 percent of the wastewater gets treated in China,” said Steve Watzeck, president of engineered systems at G.E. Water. “But we understand that Beijing aims to reuse 100 percent of its wastewater by 2013. Implementing advanced wastewater reuse technologies is key to China’s continued industrial growth.”

China’s capability in clean water technology is still underdeveloped. But the country’s solar industry is an example of how quickly it can sprint to the fore. Mr. Kachan of Cleantech Group, points out that Suntech Power, the Chinese company that a year ago became the world’s leading maker of crystalline silicon solar modules, did not exist eight years ago.

Read the Entire Article

China has a long ways to go when it comes to its environment. I understand that the country has done a lot and appears to be doing more. But it still has a far, far way to go. Xi'an's perma-gray skies and oppressive air are things I'm not missing at all.

I like to see that China committed 40% of its stimulus to green growth. Where did America allocate its? Failed banks, Detroit, etc. As the film producer Robert Compton told me a few weeks ago, "China's stimulus is building while ours is bailing." Whereas I've criticized China in the past about saving face to the detriment of its economy and people, the United States could definitely be criticized for the same thing when it comes to shelling out billions to failed companies such as GM and AIG.

Americans, more and more, don't believe in global warming. I'm wondering if this attitude is going to lead us to continue the attitude that we'll be able to drill our way out of any future energy problems. It's apparent that a significant number of Americans already believe such will be the case. If this thinking continues, I have to think that America is going to be left behind.

Shanxi, Shaanxi, and many other Chinese provinces are going to continue to pump out coal and China is going to continue to get oil from Africa and the Middle East. But China does deserve credit for making efforts towards serious green growth.

330k to be Relocated

Beijing is being proactive in getting water from its saturated south to its parched north. The move has significant costs though.

From The Xinhua News:

Image from Lifeofguangzhou.com

ZHENGZHOU, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- A resettlement project involving 330,000 people living in central China's Hubei and Henan provinces has started to make way for China's south-north water diversion project, according to resettlement authorities in Henan Sunday.

These people will be relocated from their homes near the Danjiangkou reservoir, where sluice will be built to divert water from the Yangtze River to thirsty north China regions including Beijing, Tianjin, Henan and Hebei.

...

The Chinese government has issued preferential policies to help compensate for the resettlers' relocation losses. For instance, apart from compensation for unmovable property with the old home, each family to be relocated will be allotted new arable land in the newly built village according to a standard of 0.1 hectare per person, plus an annual subsidy of 600 yuan (about 88 U.S. dollars) a person for 20 years, according to Duan Shiyao, deputy chief of Hubei Provincial Resettlement Bureau.

Read On

The end of this project - providing water to cities that are desperately in need of relief - is noble. But the means - relocating hundreds of thousands of poor farmers - are rough.

A couple years ago on my old (and now defunct) blog, I put a link to a really fascinating story on the the development of waterless north China. I'll link up to that article again now.

From The New York Times:

Hundreds of feet below ground, the primary water source for this provincial capital of more than two million people is steadily running dry. The underground water table is sinking about four feet a year. Municipal wells have already drained two-thirds of the local groundwater.

Above ground, this city in the North China Plain is having a party. Economic growth topped 11 percent last year. Population is rising. A new upscale housing development is advertising waterfront property on lakes filled with pumped groundwater. Another half-built complex, the Arc de Royal, is rising above one of the lowest points in the city's water table.

''People who are buying apartments aren't thinking about whether there will be water in the future,'' said Zhang Zhongmin, who has tried for 20 years to raise public awareness about the city's dire water situation.

For three decades, water has been indispensable in sustaining the rollicking economic expansion that has made China a world power. Now, China's galloping, often wasteful style of economic growth is pushing the country toward a water crisis. Water pollution is rampant nationwide, while water scarcity has worsened severely in north China -- even as demand keeps rising everywhere.

...

A century or so ago, the North China Plain was a healthy ecosystem, scientists say. Farmers digging wells could strike water within eight feet. Streams and creeks meandered through the region. Swamps, natural springs and wetlands were common.

Today, the region, comparable in size to New Mexico, is parched. Roughly five-sixths of the wetlands have dried up, according to one study. Scientists say that most natural streams or creeks have disappeared. Several rivers that once were navigable are now mostly dust and brush. The largest natural freshwater lake in northern China, Lake Baiyangdian, is steadily contracting and besieged with pollution.

Read the Whole Article

I hope that China's attempts to conquer nature can overcome north China's severe water problems. It seems likely to me that such projects will work in the short term. But the long term sustainability of redirecting rivers seems suspect. Especially given the fact that the source of China's main rivers - Himalayan glaciers - are becoming victims of climate change.

The Other Side of Wind Power

China's been lauded a lot for its efforts in going green. Indeed, China does seem to be taking climate change seriously. But at the same time, China, and the rest of the world, have a long ways to go in terms of weening itself off of carbon-emitting energy sources.

From The Wall St. Journal:

Photo from CS Monitor

SHANGHAI—China's ambition to create "green cities" powered by huge wind farms comes with a dirty little secret: Dozens of new coal-fired power plants need to be installed as well.

Part of the reason is that wind power depends on, well, the wind. To safeguard against blackouts when conditions are too calm, officials have turned to coal-fired power as a backup.

China wants renewable energy like wind to meet 15% of its energy needs by 2020, double its share in 2005, as it seeks to rein in emissions that have made its cities among the smoggiest on Earth. But experts say the country's transmission network currently can't absorb the rate of growth in renewable-energy output. Last year, as much as 30% of wind-power capacity wasn't connected to the grid. As a result, more coal is being burned in existing plants, and new thermal capacity is being built to cover this shortfall in renewable energy.

In addition, officials want enough new coal-fired capacity in reserve so that they can meet demand whenever the wind doesn't blow. This is important because wind is less reliable as an energy source than coal, which fuels two-thirds of China's electricity output. Wind energy ultimately depends on wind strength and direction, unlike coal, which can be stockpiled at generators in advance.

Further complicating matters is poor connectivity between regional transmission networks, which makes it hard for China to move surplus power in one part of the country to cover shortfalls elsewhere.

China may not be alone in having to ramp up thermal power capacity as it develops wind farms. Any country with a combination of rapidly growing energy demand, an old and inflexible grid, an existing reliance on coal for power, and ambitious renewable energy-expansion plans will likely have a similar dilemma. What marks China out as different is the amount of new coal-fired capacity that needs to be added.

...

"China will need to add a substantial amount of coal-fired power capacity by 2020 in line with its expanding economy, and the idea is to bring some of the capacity earlier than necessary in order to facilitate the wind-power transmission," said Shi Pengfei, vice president of the Chinese Wind Power Association.

Read On

It's seeming more and more like significant steps towards actually getting away from our CO2-powered lives are not that close to becoming a reality.

That's unfortunate.

Internet Access, Climate Calamity, and Politicking

It's been a while since I've had the time to sit down, type "China" into Google News, and read about what's going on in the country. Maybe it's because I haven't been online in a while, but I was really intrigued by a number of articles today.

First, an article from the Los Angeles Times on the newest of China's netizens - low-paid workers:

Image from nataliebehring.com

Reporting from Shenzhen, China - When Jiang Dabao lost a hand to a molding machine three years ago, his boss said he wasn't eligible for workers' compensation. Unemployable, Jiang whiled away his days in the Internet bars that thrive in China's manufacturing heartland.

Eventually he tapped into QQ, a popular social networking service, where he found a worker advocacy group that helped him win a $30,000 settlement, said Jiang, who identified himself by his childhood nickname for fear of official reprisal.

Forums have become the Chinese proletariat's equivalent of Facebook or Twitter and are seen by some as the beginnings of a labor movement.

Authorities and factory owners are eyeing the networks warily. Sites dedicated to grievances have been shut down, and stories about worker rallies are regularly deleted, according to labor advocates. The QQ forums are capped at 100 users, making mass mobilization more difficult.

Still, the potential remains for groups to organize through social networking.

Authorities alleged that exiled separatists used the Internet to urge ethnic Uighurs to riot in China's western Xinjiang province in July; the government cut Web access in the region for days.

"Nobody can predict when the Chinese working class will have uproar. It may be once in a lifetime, but if it happens, it will change everything," said Jack Qiu, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who follows the Internet in China.

Until a few years ago, factory workers missed out on the Internet boom. But that changed with the explosion of Internet cafes and cheap cellphones that enabled users to go online.

Read On

It's great that new technology is giving the bottom rung of China's society the opportunity to get online. China is going to continue to clamp down on its country's internet as much as possible. But I like to think that the more people that get online and get used to having a voice the better. It'll be harder for the powers that be in China to restrict people the longer people are used to having the ability to enjoy some degree of freedom online.

Second, an article from AP on the future of climate change:

Image from The Guardian

BEIJING — If China's economy continues to expand rapidly and rely heavily on coal and other fossil fuels until the middle of the century, its power demands could exceed what the entire planet can withstand, according to a study by government think tanks released Wednesday.

The two-year study, supported by the U.S.-based Energy Foundation and the international environmental group WWF, also said if China's energy usage structure remains unchanged, its emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming would reach 17 billion tons a year by 2050. That would represent 60 percent of total global emissions and three times China's current production, it said.

"If the current mode of economic development drags on, the scale of China's fossil fuel consumption will be shocking," said the study, titled "China's Low Carbon Development Pathways by 2050."

The researchers said global warming will challenge China more than many other countries, with its developed east coast cities contending with rising sea levels, and already drought-prone agricultural areas suffering further water shortages.

Read On

I've talked before about the contradiction/irony/tragedy of climate change. The West has been developing and industrializing for two hundred years, yet now it is China's recent growth that may very well push the world past the brink. The West been enjoying the fruits of industrialization for generations, yet now that China is getting there, there's a climate crisis and they can't use (is pillage more appropriate?) the Earth in the same way already industrialized nations have.

I'm not saying that China shouldn't change or that the West is evil or anything. I just think the whole situation is pretty interesting when broken down.

Third, an article from Asia Sentinel on the things being discussed at China's annual CCP Plenum:

While most plenary sessions of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee – usually held once a year – merely endorse decisions made by the supreme Politburo Standing Committee, the plenum now taking place in Beijing deserves special attention.

Party insiders say Vice-President Xi Jinping, 56, may be promoted to the vice-chairmanship of the CCP's Central Military Commission. This will not only confirm Xi's status as Hu's successor as party general secretary and state president, but also spell a bonanza to the political fortune of the "Gang of Princelings" – the offspring of party elders – that Xi heads.

Xi, the son of former vice-premier Xi Zhongxun, does not come from the Communist Youth League faction led by President Hu Jintao. And Hu, who has been military commission chairman since 2004, has maneuvered to delay Xi's induction to the policy-setting military organ. One reason is that while the princelings are heavily represented in the top echelons of the People's Liberation Army, very few youth league affiliates have attained senior ranks in the defense forces.

Within the standing committee put together at the 17th Party Congress in late 2007, Xi outranks long-time Hu protégé Li Keqiang, who as First Vice-Premier is expected to take over from Wen Jiabao as premier in 2013. It is understood, however, that Hu has hoped to delay Xi's induction to the military commission so as to allow Li, a former party boss of the Youth League, time to build up a power base at the top.

However, recent events in Xinjiang, in which more than 200 people were killed in ethnic violence since early July, have dealt a blow to the Youth League faction. The bulk of the top cadres running Xinjiang and Tibet, including their party secretaries, respectively Wang Lequan and Zhang Qingli, are veteran youth League affiliates.

Read On

I have a hard time getting excited about Chinese politics. But succession debates and possible grabs for power at the top are always gripping theater.

Given how chaotic things have been for China recently (really for a couple years now), I'm not surprised that a serious look at what's going on with China's power structure is happening. I wouldn't think that the upheaval and general "disharmony" that's taken place over the past couple years in the Middle Kingdom is sustainable.

Well, this coffee-induced news round-up has been fun!

Copenhagen Talks Already Stalling?

Many have hoped that the Copenhagen Climate Summit later this year will be a productive and positive step forward. There's a chance that it will be, but any progress or agreement is going to be horribly difficult though.

From Forbes:

Image from treehugger.com

China has just laid out its negotiating position for the upcoming summit in Copenhagen, where diplomats will gather in December to try to hammer out an agreement on how to battle climate change.

The West is not going to like it. Essentially, China will argue that Western consumers buying Chinese-made goods should pay their fair share of the cost of cutting the pollution used to make the goods.

West and East have been arguing for years about who is to blame for climate change and how to cut down on the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Broadly speaking, developed countries like the U.S. have looked with alarm at the fast increase of pollution in the East and insisted that nations like China and India must save the planet by acting quickly to curb pollution.

Developing nations have cried foul, arguing that cutting pollution levels would unacceptably slow down their economic development, keeping tens of millions of people mired in poverty. They argue that the West was allowed to pollute during its period of industrialization, and that they should be allowed to do the same. They say it would be unfair to penalize poor countries when richer Americans and Europeans consume far more energy than Asians do on a per-capita basis.

...

Fan and his colleagues lay out a common-sense approach to determining responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions and use a complex formula based on accumulated emissions from 1950 to 2005 to quantify how much responsibility, in China's view, each nation should shoulder. Their reasoning? "The production is because of consumption, the supply is because of demand, the export is because someone wants to import," according to their August study, "The Low Carbon Development: China and the World." Fan is director of China's National Economic Research Institute.

Using their calculations, China's share of the burden is tiny, despite the fact that China will be the world's biggest polluter by year-end. The U.S. bears the biggest responsibility, with the 27-member European Union just behind the U.S.

...

The leader of the U.S. delegation at the talks, former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth Dam, said after hearing the Chinese presentation, "I'm very pessimistic on the outcome of the Copenhagen talks." He felt negotiators should take a pragmatic approach that allows for climate improvement, rather than holding out for a comprehensive deal. U.S. negotiators should only agree to what the U.S. Senate will accept, Dam said, to avoid torpedoing any agreement reached in Copenhagen.

Read On

The author of this piece, Robyn Meredith, did a really good job capturing the nuances and contradictions that are going to come up this fall and winter.

I've talked about these issues before recently on my blog. I see both sides' arguments.

China is, in fact, producing goods for the rest of the world. Sure, it's growing quickly and consumption is definitely increasing throughout the country (see the sprawl of shopping malls in any major city as evidence), yet its standard of living is nowhere near what the west's is or has been. China, I think rightly, doesn't believe that it should be fully-burdened for filling Wal-Mart's shelves with goods. The end user of a lot of China's products, and the pollution that chokes China, are Americans and others in the west.

At the same time, I can see why the US doesn't want to let China's pollution and carbon release get out-of-hand. A China that is completely oblivious to its affect on climate change doesn't sound like a good or tenable position to take.

I'm not sure what the middle ground is or could be on these negotiations. Both sides are just going to have to end up compromising.

Considering how polarized things are, both in American and world politics, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see gridlock and nothing significant happen at this critical juncture in human history. That would be sad.

Cruisin' on E-Bikes

This won't really surprised anyone who's been to China the past couple years; electric bikes are really popular over here.

From The Associated Press:

SHANGHAI — It's a simple pleasure, but Xu Beilu savors it daily: gliding past snarled traffic on her motorized bicycle, relaxed and sweat-free alongside the pedal-pushing masses. China, the world's bicycle kingdom — one for every three inhabitants — is going electric.

Workers weary of crammed public transport or pedaling long distances to jobs are upgrading to battery-powered bikes and scooters. Even some who can afford cars are ditching them for electric two-wheelers to avoid traffic jams and expensive gasoline.

The bicycle was a vivid symbol of China in more doctrinaire communist times, when virtually no one owned a car. Even now, nearly two decades after the country began its great leap into capitalism, it still has 430 million bicycles by government count, outnumbering electric bikes and scooters 7-1.

But production of electric two-wheelers has soared from fewer than 200,000 eight years ago to 22 million last year, mostly for the domestic market. The industry estimates about 65 million are on Chinese roads.

Car sales are also booming but there are still only 24 million for civilian use, because few of the 1.3 billion population can afford them. And unlike in many other developing countries, Chinese cities still have plenty of bicycle lanes, even if some have made way for cars and buses.

"E-bike" riders are on the move in the morning or late at night, in good weather or bad. When it's wet, they are a rainbow army in plastic capes. On fine days, women don gloves, long-sleeved white aprons and face-covering sun guards.

One of them is Xu, on her Yamaha e-bike, making the half-hour commute from her apartment to her job as a marketing manager. She had thought of buying a car but dropped the idea. "It's obvious that driving would be more comfortable, but it's expensive," she says.

"I like riding my e-bike during rush hour, and sometimes enjoy a laugh at the people stuck in taxis. It's so convenient and helpful in Shanghai, since the traffic is worse than ever."



Read On

A few months ago, I bought a mountain bike from a friend of mine who was returning back to America. The lightly-used bike, an XDS MA530, cost less than half of what I would've bought it for new. It's the best bike I've ever owned. It's a 21-speed, has shocks, and disc breaks. Here's a stock photo I just found of it on the internet:



While it is an old-fashioned pedal bike and not an electric one like those featured in this article, I can definitely relate with that last quote of the abstract above. Cruising around on a bike is vastly superior to riding other kinds of transportation.

As the article mentions, Chinese streets are well-equipped with bike lanes. Just about every main street in Xi'an has a small bike lane off to the side of the street for two-wheeled traffic. This makes cruising around (relatively) safe and quick.

I can get from my apartment into the city to meet Qian at work in about fifteen minutes on my bike. On a city bus, the trip would take at least twenty minutes (if I don't have to wait very long for the bus to come). And while a taxi would be faster than my bike, it'd cost about 15RMB ($2). So I view my bike riding as the best way for me to get around the city.

One of the interesting aspects of my bike riding in Xi'an is that I wear a cloth mask covering my mouth and nose as I cruise around. After I began riding several months ago, I realized that my throat would hurt after being out on the streets. Particularly after riding on a typical gray and smoggy day in Xi'an. I found wearing a mask really helps though. Sometimes I'll ride for a while, reach my destination, and then take off my mask only to find that the air outside actually stinks. But I hadn't realized this until taking off the mask.

It sounds as if the electric bikes are helping out with this problem of terrible urban pollution. Although the bikes are not a long-term pollution prevention because the bikes still require electricity (provided by, more often than not, coal-fired power plants in China) and have serious problems with disposal of the large batteries (that is discussed in the article above).

Despite the problems associated with electric bikes, they're a step in the right direction. I really enjoy seeing them on the streets of Xi'an. I have no problem being passed by an electric bike on the streets of Xi'an. A gasoline-powered one shooting exhaust in my face is another story all together.

And I can't expect all of China to stay content with pedal bikes like I am at the moment.

Carbon Capture

China is serious about reducing CO2 emissions through CO2-capture at coal-fired power plants.

From The New York Times and Climate Wire:

Image from New York Times

When European and Chinese scientists first agreed to collaborate on capturing carbon dioxide from power plants and storing it underground, China's entire carbon capture and sequestration "team" was composed of two Tsinghua University graduate students.

Less than five years later, the landscape is markedly different. China's first near-zero-emissions coal plant won state approval this month -- an apparent formality, since construction already is far under way. Two other pilots are in the works, including one in inner Mongolia that could be the largest sequestration project in the world. Conferences on carbon capture in China now routinely feature high-level government and industry leaders.

And one of those once-lowly grad students, analysts said, is among China's negotiators at the international forum of the world's 17 major economies meeting on energy issues next month in Mexico City.

"It's a definite shift in attitude," said Matthew Webb, coal campaign leader in Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who once led the ongoing attempts at cooperation between Europe and China on carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS.

"It's not political taboo anymore," he said. "It's a reality that needs to be addressed."

Read On

It's refreshing to see that the world has moved past the thinking that dominated the beginning of this decade. During that time period, we heard a lot of "we shouldn't get serious about climate change because the other side won't." How much of that was due to President Bush is debatable. Although I'd say that he had a great deal to do with this attitude.

I also like seeing that instead of an inconvenience, tackling climate change is being viewed as an opportunity. I see the development of a renewable energy and other technologies, like carbon capture, as great chances to do something productive with economies that have fallen off a cliff.

Clean coal has a wide range of issues. Ultimately, it may not be the best thing for humanity to embrace. Other truly renewable energy developments would seem to be ideal. Coal is king though. And it will be for some time. But the willingness to take the idea seriously across the globe, and especially in China and, hopefully, America, is a step in the right direction.

Serious Green Growth

I've talked a few times now about the status of US/China talks before this coming winter's Copenhagen Climate Summit. What happens over the coming months is, indeed, going to have major ramifications on the future of the planet.

I stumbled across an excellent report from The Center for American Progress by Julian Wong and Andrew Light from last week detailing what China is already doing and has already done with regards its development of clean energy.

Here is the opening section of the report:

A common refrain from climate action naysayers is that, "China is building two coal-fired power plants a week!" They insist that the United States should wait until this major emitter takes on binding commitments to climate change mitigation before it decides to adopt global warming pollution reduction policies in the American Climate and Energy Security Act (H.R. 2454). They "further claim that if such a bill became law, the United States would be transferring its jobs to countries such as China and India that are doing nothing to curb emissions. But that thinking is exactly wrong.

Critics fairly point to the fact that 80 percent of China’s power is derived from dirty coal, and that China recently surpassed the United States as the word’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide. Yet China’s per capita emissions remain a fifth that of the United States, and its historical cumulative per capita emissions from 1960 to 2005 are less than one-tenth that of the United States.

Still, the Chinese have recognized that it’s climate inaction—not climate legislation—that will lead to its own economic undoing. As the U.S. Congress debates the merits of enacting renewable electricity and energy efficiency standards, China has already forged ahead with building its own low-carbon economy, laying the foundation for clean-energy jobs and innovation.

China ranked second in the world in 2007 in terms of the absolute dollar amount invested in renewable energy, according to the Climate Group. It spent $12 billion, which put it just behind Germany’s $14 billion. These investments have placed China among the world leaders in solar, wind, electric vehicle, rail, and grid technologies. And now approximately 9 percent of China’s $586 billion economic stimulus package will go toward sustainable development (excluding rail and grid) projects.

China is expected to unveil in the coming weeks another extensive and unprecedented stimulus package—reported to be in the range of $440 billion to $660 billion—dedicated solely to new energy development over the next decade, including generous investments in wind, solar, and hydropower. If those expectations are fulfilled, China could emerge as the unquestioned global leader in clean-energy production, significantly increasing its chances to wean its energy appetite off coal, and at the same time ushering in an era of sustainable economic growth by exporting these clean-energy technologies to the world.

The bottom line: China is not there yet, but it is beginning to transition to a clean-energy economy through a wide range of actions. The United States should recognize China’s efforts and encourage China to expand upon them. We have sketched this claim before, but let’s run though the numbers in more detail.

Read On or Download the .pdf of the Memo

I encourage everyone reading this to click through on this link and check out what Wong and Light highlight that China has done. It is well-referenced and very insightful.

In my three years of blogging on China, I've gone on countless rants about how awful China's environmental degradation is. It is astounding. But there is obviously more than meets the eye when it comes to China's handling of its unprecedented environmental issues.

There is an interesting story about a speech Thomas Friedman gave a couple years ago in a recent Guardian article about China and its response to climate change:

Visiting China a couple of years ago, the American journalist Thomas Friedman conceded that, when it came to climate change, his hosts had a point. Yes, the west had grown rich using dirty old coal and oil, and the Chinese had the right to do the same. "Take your time!" he told a conference in Tianjin. "Because I think my country needs ... five years to invent all the clean power and energy efficiency tools that you, China, will need to avoid choking on pollution and then we are going to come over and sell them ... to you." It took a few moments for his words to be translated and land in delegates' headphones - and for the ripple of consternation to spread around the hall.

Two years on, Mr Friedman's lesson - that clean energy can be profitable rather than a costly drag - has not only been learned by the Chinese; now Beijing is intent on writing the rest of the textbook.

Read On

While the world needs to avoid blowing up another bubble, investment in the development of green energy technologies could be an excellent way to get through the financial crisis. China gets this. America doesn't.

China, with billions upon billions set to be invested in green technologies, is serious about doing something in the face of the climate change challenge. Will America change its traditional stance on the climate change issue and treat clean-energy develoment seriously? The answer to this question appears far from certain.

I like the conclusion of the report posted above:

What makes the above list of actions by China all the more impressive is that the country’s leaders decided to act unilaterally even though its per capita GDP and per capita emissions, both historical and present, remain a fraction of the United States'. China hasn’t done so out of charity, but out of recognition that doing so is both critical to its national security and a huge opportunity for future economic prosperity.

Sure, China can do more. But we can create a much more constructive platform for forging a consensus in Copenhagen or forming the basis for a bilateral agreement with China on climate change by acknowledging and understanding the effects of the full range of China’s climate actions outside of its lack of hard caps on carbon emissions. A more extensive analysis should quiet the naysayers on Capitol Hill that use the false excuse of Chinese inaction to block the passage of the historic climate and energy bill in the U.S. Congress.

China isn't getting serious about developing clean-energy to cover its share of the climate crisis or out of kindness. China's stepping up for selfish financial reasons. If America can't wrap its head around this idea, then it deserves to be passed up by the Chinese in the coming decades because it will be blowing a huge economic opportunity (as well as a chance to, you know, save the planet, but that's not important).

Climate Change Rhetoric

Talks before Copenhagen's Climate Change Conference later this year are continuing to heat up.

From The Wall St. Journal:

China, in a new document outlining its stance ahead of December climate talks in Copenhagen, says it wants developed nations to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions by at least 40% by 2020 from 1990 levels. But that is a far more aggressive cut than the level proposed in the U.S.'s Waxman-Markey bill. Europe, in turn, has pledged to cut emissions by at least 20% by 2020 from 1990 levels, and by 30% if other advanced economies follow suit.

The divergent views come as negotiations begin in earnest for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of 2012. China's 40% target represents the high end of cuts in emissions mentioned in the 2007 Bali road map, which stopped short of endorsing a specific target.

China is also asking rich countries to donate at least 0.5% to 1% of annual gross domestic product to help poorer countries cope with climate change and greenhouse-gas emissions, it said in the document, which was posted on the Web site of the National Development and Reform Commission, its economic policy-making body.

China has resisted any mandatory quotas on carbon emissions. The country is widely considered to have surpassed the U.S. as the world's top polluter.

Read On

So China is really playing the developing nation card here and calling upon richer nations to help out those not at a high-level of economic development yet though.

Somewhat surprisingly, China appears to be walking the walk and not simply talking the talk on this issue.

From The New York Times:

China's efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions are "impressive" and are often underestimated in the United States, President Obama's top climate change ambassador said yesterday.

U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern told E&E that when major economies meet in Paris on climate change next week, they will try to bridge the gap between ambitious domestic energy agendas in some emerging nations like China and the seemingly unyielding negotiating positions that developing countries take to the U.N. global warming talks.

"If you look at what a country like China is actually doing with respect to climate change, it's quite significant," Stern said. "It's quite impressive in many ways."

China and the United States are the world's biggest global warming polluters, accounting for 47 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol -- to which the United States is not a party -- requires only industrialized countries to make cuts. So far, neither America nor China has been willing to reduce emissions before the other.

Advocates for a new global climate treaty in Copenhagen this year say an agreement between China and the United States is critical. Chinese negotiators, meanwhile, have remained firm in insisting that industrialized countries act first and that developing nations not be forced to make legally binding commitments.

Still, Stern said he believes Americans often wrongly assume China is not acting on climate change at all.

"In fact, they have a 20 percent energy intensity goal, they've got a significant renewable energy goal, and they've got an auto standard that is about where our brand-new ones are," Stern said, referring to the Obama administration's proposed new fuel efficiency targets of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016.

"It's clearly not enough," he said, but added, "they've got a lot of things going on."

Read On

I suppose there might some kind of politicking behind these comments, but the reason why Stern would give false praise to the Chinese isn't abundantly clear to me. Stern may very well just be stating what he really believes or is observing.

Combatting climate change and carbon emissions seems like a great economic opportunity in addition to being the responsible thing to do. It would not be surprising to me if China and the US were to embrace fighting climate change for economic reasons more than anything else.

Developing clean energy resources could be a great way to innovate one's country out of recession. Becoming less reliant on oil, its fluxuating prices, and the shady countries that provide much of it would also be a very noble and practical goal.

Whether the adoption of an agreement to reduce carbon emissions by China, the US, and the rest of the world happens because of attempts to cultivate new economic opportunities or because of genuine concern for the environment doesn't matter too much to me. As long as some kind of action is taken, that is enough for me.

Don't Give Up Eating for Fear of Choking

The largest dam in the world - the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River - is wreaking all kinds of havoc these days.

From Xinhua News:

CHONGQING, April 17 (Xinhua) -- The rise and fall of the water level in the Three Gorges reservoir has triggered 166 geological hazards and forced 28,600 people to relocate in Chongqing Municipality since last September, local officials said.

Since the water levels behind the dam rose from 145 m to 172.3 m on September 28 last year, these geological disasters including landsides and mud-flows have caused economic loss of 539 million yuan (79 million U.S. dollars). No casualties were reported, said Wen Tianping, spokesman of Chongqing government, at a press conference Thursday.

The people whose houses were liable to suffer damage had moved to safe places where new homes have been built. Some are living with their relatives, he said.

Read On

The problems with this dam are too long to rattle off in one blog post. In fact, we don't even know the extent of the problems that the dam may ultimately cause. New waves of difficulties with the dam are constantly coming to light.

From Earth Times:

Beijing - China's Three Gorges Dam, due to be completed in November, is getting bigger every day on all fronts. While officially the government said it has spent 180 billion yuan (26.35 billion dollars) on building the 185-metre dam and a reservoir stretching more than 600 kilometres, local critics and foreign observers said the real figure could be more than twice that amount, and that's just in the construction phase.

A new figure emerged in local media, indicating that nearly 100 billion yuan would have to be spent over the next 10 years to manage the myriad social and environmental problems that have risen alongside the dam's concrete wall.

The financial magazine Caijing and local newspapers reported that 98.9 billion yuan would be needed over the next decade. Of this, 38.2 billion yuan would be spent on environmental protection.

Read On

Nobody should be surprised by the new problems that are arising on an almost daily basis. The project, from the beginning, has been over-the-top. Everyone involved with the decision to do it took the potential costs into consideration.

I'm about to finish the book River Town, by Peter Hessler. Hessler is a really good writer from Columbia, Missouri who's written for publications like The New Yorker and National Geographic. He, along with Edgar Snow, keeps the tradition of prominant China writers from the Kansas City area going.

River Town is about Hessler's two year Peace Corps experience in Fuling, a city in between Chongqing and the three gorges, in 1996 and 1997. The book is a must-read for any westerner living in China. It's also good for anyone wanting an enlightening read into modern China. I highly recommend it.

I found his writings about the Three Gorges Dam, which at the time was just in its earliest stages of planning and development, to be a particularly good part of the book. Fuling is a city that's been affected greatly by the dam.

To hear the way Hessler describes people talking about the contruction of the dam in the late 90's and the effects it'd have in the future is very interesting.

From page ninety-nine of the book:

I taught my writing class from a Chinese-published text called 'A Handbook of Writing.' Like all of the books we used, its political intent was never understated, and the chapter on "Argumentation" featured a model essay entitled "The Three Gorges Project Is Beneficial."

It was a standard five-paragraph essay and the opening section explained some of the risks that had led people to oppose the project: flooded scenery and cultural relics, endangered species that might be pushed to extinction, the threat of earthquake, landslide, or war destroying a dam that would hold back a lake four hundred miles long. "In short," the second paragraph concluded, "the risks of the project may be too great for it to be beneficial.

The next two sentences provided the transition. "Their worries and warnings are well-justified," the essay continued. "But we should not give up eating for fear of choking." And the writer went on to describe the benefits - more electricity, improved transportation, better flood control - and concluded by asserting that the Three Gorges Project had more advantages than disadvantages.

So there you go. All of these recent developments - land slides, out-of-control costs, increasing amounts of displaced persons - were taken into consideration.

But despite these costs, "one shouldn't give up eating for fear of choking."

Benefit of Economic Slowdown: Easy Breathing

Although I've talked on here before about how the economic crisis could lead to even higher levels of pollution, it looks like the opposite is happening.

From The Associated Press:

A photo taken from the window of my apartment this morning

BEIJING (AP) — Last summer, Xu Demin struggled to cut emissions from his coal-fired factories as part of China's all-out effort to clean the air for the Beijing Olympics.

He could have simply waited six months. This spring, overseas demand for his farming and construction machinery plummeted, forcing him to close two plants and lay off 300 workers.

The global economic slowdown is helping to accomplish what some in China's leadership have striven to do for years: rein in the insatiable demand for coal-powered energy that has fed the country's breakneck growth but turned it into one of the world's most polluted nations.

Beijing, China's normally smog-choked capital, is breathing some of its cleanest air in nearly a decade, as pollution-control efforts get a sizable boost from a slowing economy.

"It's like the sky I saw overseas. I can see clouds. I've seen days here like I've seen in Europe or the U.S.," Xu says, his voice echoing in the cavernous space of his idle factory outside Beijing.

An Associated Press analysis of government figures backs up his observations: In the second half of last year, a period that included the Olympics in August, Beijing recorded its lowest air pollution readings since 2000, according to data from the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

...

"It's up to us whether we can turn crisis into opportunity," he said.

Read On

Xi'an's air quality still leaves a lot to be desired. I'm sure this is the case for Beijing too. While we're getting more blue skies here, I'd hesitate to compare it to the US or Europe like the guy in the article did. But things are indeed going in the right direction. The air quality now is so much better than it was when I came at the beginning of 2006.

In other positive news on China's environmental front this week, The New York Times did a feature on China and its interest in being an electric car producer powerhouse:

TIANJIN, China — Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and buses after that.

The goal, which radiates from the very top of the Chinese government, suggests that Detroit’s Big Three, already struggling to stay alive, will face even stiffer foreign competition on the next field of automotive technology than they do today.

“China is well positioned to lead in this,” said David Tulauskas, director of China government policy at General Motors.

To some extent, China is making a virtue of a liability. It is behind the United States, Japan and other countries when it comes to making gas-powered vehicles, but by skipping the current technology, China hopes to get a jump on the next.

Read On

There are problems with electric cars in China though:

But electric vehicles may do little to clear the country’s smog-darkened sky or curb its rapidly rising emissions of global warming gases. China gets three-fourths of its electricity from coal, which produces more soot and more greenhouse gases than other fuels.

A report by McKinsey & Company last autumn estimated that replacing a gasoline-powered car with a similar-size electric car in China would reduce greenhouse emissions by only 19 percent. It would reduce urban pollution, however, by shifting the source of smog from car exhaust pipes to power plants, which are often located outside cities.

Thinking about where the energy that drives electric cars is something I've been doing recently. In Xi'an, gas-powered motor bikes are banned within the second ring road of the city. All the bikes within that ring have to be pedal bikes or electric bikes. This is to reduce pollution in the city.

But with electric bikes, it's true that the pollution is ultimately pushed somewhere else. Or at least that is the case in China where carbon-emitting gases are the primary source of energy from power plants. I'd come to the same realization that the article does; the pollution is just moving from one place to another with these electric bikes.

Dirty factories that have shut down due to the economic crisis and electric cars that shift pollution from cities to the countryside aren't going to ultimately solve all of China's environmental problems. But I suppose that if these things make Chinese cities more bearable places to live in the short term, then they are steps in the right direction.

Dust Storm/Acid Rain Pollution Paradox

All of China's environmental problems come together in Beijing. Between its nearby desertification and the resulting dust storms or coal-powered power plants and their resulting smog and acid-rain, it's pretty much a "pick your poison" scenario living in China's capitol.

Strangely, it turns out that the dust storms and the sulfur from power plants engage in a yin-yang like balancing act that somehow protects the city from toxic acid rain.

From Discovery News:

March 31, 2009 -- Powerful dust storms that whip across China's north and central deserts are infamous for blotting out the skies over Beijing. They wreak havoc with transportation and industry, and pose a serious health risk to the 17 million people who live there.

But they may be a blessing in disguise. According to a new study, the dust is protecting the city from a horrible case of acid rain.

And government reforestation and farmland management programs may be backfiring, inviting corrosive precipitation into the country's capital region.

Acid rain is a known scourge in China's heavily industrialized southern and northeastern reaches, threatening soil quality, forests and food supplies.

But for all its smog-ridden reputation, Beijing remains comparatively acid-free; an island amid the country's sea of coal-burning, sulfur-belching power plants. The reason is the region's regular dust storms. The calcium-rich dust acts as a buffer, neutralizing sulfuric and nitric acid particles before they fall to Earth.

...

"This is a time bomb waiting to happen in China," Gene Likens of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York said. "Once you clean up the dust particles, all that material that was buffering and neutralizing the acidity is gone."

Read On

The Olympics put Beijing's ridiculous pollution problems on the world stage. It was common knowledge that China is a polluted place, but the smog-filled days leading up to the games genuinely surprised the world at large.

But to anyone who'd visited China, let alone anyone who'd lived in China, the pollution problems exposed to the world were already common knowledge.

When people ask me about living in China (or in Xi'an particularly), I invariably tell them that pollution is the biggest drawback to being here. Waking up in the morning and walking out into acrid smoggy air is not something I'll ever get used to.

Xi'an, like Beijing, has out-of-control pollution. Xi'an's problem has a lot to do with the surrounding area's geography. Xi'an has exceptionally good feng shui. This can be seen in its name; "Xi" means "west" and "An" means "peace." Basically, Xi'an is considered a very safe and peaceful place because of it being in a cradle of the Qingling Mountains.

This Google Earth terrain map helps visualize Xi'an and its mountainous geography:



While these mountains give Xi'an good feng shui, they wreak havoc on Xi'an's air quality. The dust that comes in from nearby desertification and the pollution that comes from a fair bit of manufacturing in and around Xi'an makes for a pretty rancid mix. The pollution in and around Xi'an just stagnates in the city. It's awful.

The Google Earth terrain map that I just posted is helpful, but this Google Earth satellite photo of near where I live is even better for understanding Xi'an's pollution problem:



Notice the milky color here. That's the air. Not so nice.

China and the Copenhagen Climate Change Agreement

Over the past few days, I've been reading some of the back-and-forth and jockeying for position among the global players in preparation for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen later this year. From what I'm reading, a lot of people are hopeful that Copenhagen will provide a sustainable framework for growth over the coming century.

Seeing the beast of an emitter China has become, their participation and input into the agreement is vital.

They have a few items that they want to make clear before they agree on anything though.

One of the main points of contention that China makes is that a sizable amount of the pollution it emits is done so for the sake of Wal-Mart and its American consumers.

From Environmental Leader on March 18th:

Photo from Wired

Consumers in the United States, Europe and elsewhere should pay for carbon emissions spewed out by Chinese factories, or so says China’s top climate negotiator, according to The Guardian.

China’s position, laid out by Li Gao, could present a stumbling block for the Obama Administration in advance the next round of UN climate change talks, set for December in Copenhagen. Gao is on China’s powerful National Development and Reform Commission.

Most observers agree that for the international accord to have meaning, China and the United States have to come to an agreement. China in 2006 became the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, and it remains heavily reliant on coal.

“As one of the developing countries, we are at the low end of the production line for the global economy,” Li said. “We produce products and these products are consumed by other countries… This share of emissions should be taken by the consumers, not the producers.”

Li said up to 25% of China’s global warming emissions were the result of exports.

Read On

China's position here makes sense to me. If all of the factories that are producing the goods that American and Western consumers want, it seems reasonable that these emissions are the "responsibility" of the people who consume/demand the products. "Penalizing" China for these emissions doesn't seem fair if one thinks about it in this way.

This week, China pointed out another area it thinks is unfair.

From Reuters:

Photo of China's pollution from NASA

BEIJING (Reuters) - A top Chinese state think tank has proposed a global greenhouse gas trading plan to reflect the different historic emissions of rich and poor nations, indicating deepening discussion in Beijing about climate change policy.

...

The Beijing think tank's plan seeks a solution to the divide between developed nations, with high per capita accumulations of greenhouse gas emissions, and developing nations, including China, with low levels of per capita emissions that are set to rise in coming decades.

China's 1.3 billion people currently emit about 4 tons per person in greenhouse gases, compared with the United States at about 20 tons per person.

The answer, the think tank says, is to set emissions rights for each country, based on historic accumulation, and then let nations trade portions of those rights in an international market.

...

The plan says all countries should develop an "historic account" of past emissions. That account would be used to measure whether current emissions fall above or below appropriate levels calculated from population, accumulated emissions and total global reduction objectives.

Each country would then hold a national account projecting future annual emissions entitlements up to a set date -- the authors offer 2050 as an example. How countries keep emissions within agreed levels would then be left to governments to decide.

Read the Full Article

I also see the point that China is making here.

It doesn't seem just that the US and the wester hemisphere got to pollute the hell out of the world for a century and a half with no penalties whereas China, and the rest of the developing world, are going to be held to a high standard during their development.

It's true that the US' development took place in an era when we didn't know the ramifications of what it was doing to the planet. And of course China's development is taking place during a time period when emitting carbon-dioxide is believed to be the cause of global climate change. But there's no doubt that the United States is responsible for a vast majority of carbon-dioxide emissions in the past century.

While China has already overtaken the United States in term of emissions, if one looks at the history of the two countries, it is completely irrational to say China's recent boom in emissions are the main culprit for climate change. Surely China's development is adding to the problem, but a ton of damage had already been done before they started seriously emitting greenhouse gases.

If the developed western world takes the attitude that China "has to do as it says and not as it did," it will be treated by the Chinese as a flimsy argument.

Knowing what we know now, China should be held to a different standard. But whether that standard is the same as a developed nation should be questioned. Forcing China to abandon its massive coal resources while America depleted its reserves over the past century just doesn't seem fair to me.

I think about this point of "climate change responsibility" a lot. Everywhere I look in Xi'an there are traffic jams, massive smoke-sputtering busses, new buildings going up, etc. There are literally tons of greenhouse causing carbon-dioxide being put into the atmosphere every second here in China. It worries me to think that this country is just beginning to develop.

But then when I think about America and its suburban sprawl, car culture, Hummers (for Gods' sake), etc., I can't help but think that America and its decades-long history of this stuff is much more responsible for the climate crisis than China is. No matter how convenient a target China is.

Realizing how delicate the US/China relations on this issue are going to be on this issue, the American think-tank - The Brookings Institute - released a policy recommendation yesterday for both governments' leaders.

From The Brookings Institute:

Photo from The Guardian

Climate change is an epic threat. Concentrations of green-house gases in the atmosphere are higher than at any time in human history and rising sharply. Predicted consequences include sea-level rise, more severe storms, more intense droughts and floods, forest loss and the spread of tropical disease. Each of these phenomena is already occurring. Every year of delay in reducing greenhouse gas emissions puts the planet at greater risk.

The United States and China play central roles in global warming. During the past century, the United States emitted more greenhouse gases than any other country - a fact oten noted, since carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, remains in the atmosphere for roughly 100 years. However, in 2007, China may have surpassed the United States as the world's top annual emitter of carbon dioxide. Together, the two countries are responsible for over 40% of the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere each year.

For the world to meet the challenge of global warming, the United States and China must each make the transition to a low-carbon economy. Far-reaching changes will be needed. To date, however, each nation has used the other as one reason not do to more. Enormous benefits would be possible if this dynamic were replaced with mutual understanding and joint efforts on a large scale.

Yet cooperation will not be easy. he U.S. and China are separated by different histories, different cultures, and different perspectives. Opportunities for collaboration in fighting climate change and promoting clean energy are plentiful, but moving forward at the scale needed will require high-level political support in two very diferent societies and systems that have considerable suspicion of the other. This report identifies major barriers to cooperation and recommends ways to overcome them.

Download the Full Report

This report is long. I have not read the whole thing. I like the tone of their abstracts and basic reccomendations though.

Climate change is something the world is going to have to come together to tackle. Demonizing other countries and their relative position in development is pointless. As an American living in China, I understand where both countries are on the issue.

I realize that this may sound hypocritical coming from an American based on what happened with the Kyoto Protocol, but I hope that the world can come to an effective agreement this winter.

The ability to find common ground and a framework for cutting down on carbon emissions and producing renewable energy is, in many respects, going to determine the fate of humanity.

The Himalayas' Melting Glaciers

There is ominous news today about the long-term sustainability of the source of a majority of Asia's great rivers.

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Feb. 22, 2009) — Glaciers that serve as water sources to one of the most ecologically diverse alpine communities on earth are melting at an alarming rate, according to a recent report.

A three-year study, to be used by the China Geological Survey Institute, shows that glaciers in the Yangtze source area, central to the Qinghai-Tibet plateau in south-western China, have receded 196 square kilometres over the past 40 years.

Glaciers at the headwaters of the Yangtze, China's longest river, now cover 1,051 square kilometres compared to 1,247 square kilometres in 1971, a loss of nearly a billion cubic metres of water, while the tongue of the Yuzhu glacier, the highest in the Kunlun Mountains fell by 1,500 metres over the same period.

Melting glacier water will replenish rivers in the short term, but as the resource diminishes drought will dominate the river reaches in the long term. Several major rivers including the Yangtze, Mekong and Indus begin their journeys to the sea from the Tibetan Plateau Steppe, one of the largest land-based wilderness areas left in the world.

Read On

I first realized the magnitude of the Himalayas' melting glacier problem from Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." In the documentary, Gore explained that Himalayan glaciers are the source of the the most important rivers in Asia, and thus billions of people.

The melting of the glaciers is going to feed the rivers with more water in the short term, but dry them out in the long term. Because the water is melting quickly, the next twenty years or so should see raging rivers flowing down from these glaciers. But because the glaciers are losing so much water, they are going to be gone before too long.

As I've talked about before on my blog, North China is drying up. Deserts are spreading, water tables are receding, rivers are polluted and dying, and rain is sporadic. Adding in this new caveat that the remaining rivers will dry up in a few decades and then the sustainability of North China becomes very grave.

One can only hope that it is not too late to reverse things and that societies across the globe will begin seriously addressing the toll unrestrained CO2 emission is having on the environment.

The realist in me says that it probably is too late to reverse course on these melting glaciers and that humanity isn't ready to put curbing CO2 emissions at the top of the problems that we need to solve though.