Where is the Copenhagen Summit Going to Be Held?
November 24th, 2009
Get this answer right and you may qualify to replace the world leaders who cannot seem to come to grips with the dramatic rate of global climate change. In particular, the Obama administration has not been able to meet a deadline for coming to agreement with the Chinese on emissions goals; actually, the Chinese have dropped the ball, too. So, instead of announcing at the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change a summary policy, the two greatest contributors to climate change in the world will declare victory by mumbling something about agreeing to a staged approach to tackling what has now become consensus: human industrialization of the world has created momentous adjustments to our ecosystem.
It seems the United States government right now is most concerned about the Chinese making an announcement about emissions targets for 2020 before the States can take the spotlight. It’s thought the Chinese will propose they look for reductions of 40% to 45% relative to economic growth by 2020. And since Hu Jintao in 2007 already made it a national goal for China to double the size of its economy by 2020, today’s reduction goals may leave the net effect at zero or less ten years from now.
Oh, well, there’s a good chance the raw materials the Chinese economy needs in order to grow will have become so expensive by that time that a slowing Chinese economy will be pumping less pollution into the environment as a matter of necessity. Not choice.
Read more: Guardian
November 24th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
You do realize that the earth is in a cooling trend right now, right? Your post implies that you think that China and the U.S. are causing a warming trend.
See Karl Denninger’s blog for more on the recent release of emails (that were pilfered) from key people in the “global warming” camp that shows they are not looking at the science, but instead have an agenda.
I enjoy your blog. Sitting here in San Diego, I have no sense of what goes on in China. Your posts help me to get a little feel for what goes on there.
November 25th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Hi, Charlie;
I’m glad you enjoy the blog. Actually, I never use the word “warming” in the blog entry, and instead use the word “change”, which, I suppose, can be interpreted in a multitude of ways depending on your religion. I read about the exposed emails several days ago in the Guardian (online); it reminded me of why I got out of physics: a lot of egos, a lot of opinions, a lot of consensus building – facts are tough to get at. At least the business world is a bit more honest about “collusion”.
I did not, however, get the impression from the Guardian article the scientists on the outside were implying the earth was warming; I think the data the “outliers” wanted printed could have countered anything from the rate of warming through historical temperature trends through what their grandma once said during the winter of ’38. However, it is a fact that the ice at the poles as well as the Himalayan glaciers (and the Peruvian ones, too) are melting at an unprecedented pace – that leads some of us to believe that the current stage of climate change has involved dramatic warming. Chinese and Indian scientists are concerned that the Himalayan glaciers could be gone by 2035. The effects on the social system here in China will be huge, especially in light of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers already drying up, and north China drought-stricken. Look for my blog post on the water issues in China to come out soon.
Nature, though, observes power laws, not Gaussian curves that say the world “on average” is this way or that way. It’s easy to say the earth is not warming (or even that it is warming) when looking at a particular region or slice of time or excluding various variables. Power laws, however, point to far more complex phenomena that culminate in dramatic events. China will certainly be affected by those dramatic climactic changes, both hot and cold.
November 26th, 2009 at 7:04 am
Bill,
Well, I’m certainly not a scientist, and I don’t follow the whole ‘climate change’ thing closely.
But I do remember the predictions in the 70s of an impending ice age. Then there was the Stanford biologist who said that by the 1980s a billion people would starve to death because of food shortages. He sold lots of books. The same guy predicted raw materials would be in short supply and much more expensive. He lost a bet on that one, which was collected 10 years later.
In 1990, this scientist received a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award for having promoted “greater public understanding of environmental problems.”
Hey, I’m not making this stuff up, it was chronicled in a Wired magazine article in the early 90s. I actually found it in the Wired archives:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffsimon_pr.html
Bill, with your background, I think you’d find this interesting.
So, all I’m saying is, I’ve been around the block a couple of times, and I’ve noticed that saying “the sky is falling” sells, whereas saying, “eh, things are basically OK” doesn’t sell anything.
Anyway, I’ll cease and desist with this stuff and let you get back to telling us about life in China.