Of course this means more downside when they finally decide to clean up the mess, as inevitably they will.

We can also blame the World trade Organisation and free traders generally for paying insufficient attention to labour practices and environmental outcomes.

I think I forgot to mention that 80% of the rivers by length now are too polluted to contain fish, thus destroying a food source and a cultural practice as well as the welfare of the fish.

The toxicity of the environment is causing direct harm to the people. The State has to take responsibility for preventing this.

More generally Virginia Trioli had an interesting chat with John Pomfret on Lateline the other night. Pomfret thinks that in the long run having the Olympics will be good for the Chinese and that pressure for political change will coalesce around environmental issues.

No comment needed on King Canute.

I think the problem is that in many instances now we buy Chinese goods or nothing. And I wouldn’t be totally confident in any assurances given me by The Forest Stewardship Council about my guitar if I was Paul N (see comment 6). According to the article there is a racket going on through Malaysia whereby illegal logs are given false certificates.

A few years ago we added a deck to the house, as you do in Brisvegas, and arranged for French doors to be installed from our dining room to match the silky oak paneling which was cut from Queensland timbers in the 1930s. We found after installation that the timber came from Borneo and was probably home to some orangutan before it was cut. I wonder whether there was any other option. It’s almost impossible for private consumers to research these things.

So, China could cut 30% of it’s emissions by NOT exporting stuff to the west, and most western countries no longer have the means to manufacture replacement items.

So, those complaining about pollution in China can do something merely by curing themselves of affluenza and the “need” for the latest gizmo.

Global warming and capitalism solved with the same (in)action?

(2) On your point about the (short term) weather being subject to government will, it’s worth remembering that King Canute/Knut ordered back the tide to prove to his panderers that there are some things even divinely-ordained kings can’t do

(3) Recent studies have shown that sea-level rises take some time to flow around. Apparently, even if the Greenland glaciers all melted tomorrow, it’d take a few decades for this to contribute to any significant change in the Indian or Pacific oceans because it would be trapped in the Atlantics by the way surface currents work around tips of South Am and Africa. Trapping the rises to the North Atlantic would be poetic justice.

Terrible, terrible post. What a litany of disaster. I wonder how many Chinese lives have been lost to stage the ‘games’ and for the benefit of China ‘looking’ good. (Which it clearly doesn’t, indeed nothing’s clear at all). Just another woeful case of . . . Vanity, vanity all is but . . .etc

The temporary diversion of water is enough to make life difficult, if not seriously so–for how many millions?

Who’s to say what to do? But the greatest communist country in the world is surely having the last laugh as the rest of us buy its crappy goods en masse. There’d hardly be a household on the planet that can claim to be completely devoid of goods ‘Made in China’. (Unless of course you’re obsessed about avoiding them, but to do so must mean you’re either rich or very spartan.)

The only upside to this dire situation is that should the Chinese regime ever decide to seriously address the shit in their own nest, we can rest assured that it will happen–for the good of Chinah. At the moment however, they seem like the rest of us gripped by fear and greed. No doubt some of us will be telling them what is the good of China. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone (and kill the capitalist monster?) Not holding my breath and gladly not in Beijing and having to.

“The little children chant, in the hope that the land will turn green again…. Chinese children have the same hopes and dreams that we do…. the sparrows are falling from the sky, they sing…. the ice caps are melting…. a message of global warming.”

Oh, dear.

Can you really blame China, just because they have 20% of the world’s population?

Why not? Countries with high per capita emissions are constantly berated for their over-consumption. Why shouldn’t countries that have over-populated get a serve?

After all, as Nicholas Stern notes: Key Elements of a Global Deal, p. 3 http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/granthamInstitute/publications/KeyElementsOfAGlobalDeal_30Apr08.pdf

The developing countries, which by 2050 will account for around eight billion out of a world population of nine billion, and the greater part of global emissions, will have to be fundamentally involved in achieving global emission reductions.

Note: That could be 10.6 billion out of world population of 12 billion if UN forecasts are correct: “UN Predicts 12 Billion if Family Planning Falters” http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43156

Ross Garnaut notes that: Draft Report, p. 28 http://www.garnautreview.org.au/CA25734E0016A131/WebObj/GarnautClimateChangeReview-DraftReport-Ch2/File/Garnaut%20Climate%20Change%20Review%20-%20Draft%20Report%20-%20Ch%202.pdf

A new era began in the fourth quarter of the last century, with the rapid extension of the beneficent processes of modern economic development into the heartland of the populous countries of Asia, including China, India and Indonesia. From this has emerged what can be described as the Platinum Age of global economic growth in the early 21st century (Garnaut 2007). Incomes are growing rapidly in a large proportion of the developing world. In the absence of a major dislocation of established trends, this is likely to continue for a considerable period.

Analysis presented in the draft report points to the Platinum Age contributing a greater absolute increase in annual human output and consumption in the first two decades of the 21st century than was generated in the whole previous history of our species, and then adding almost that much again in the next following decade to 2030 (chapters 4 and 9). (Emphasis added).

But don’t worry about the effects of all that extra “human output and consumption”. According to Garnaut, everything will be fine, even “the expansion of education and choice for women” is assured. (I’m looking forward to that happening throughout the Middle-east, Africa etc…)

Increasingly through the 21st century, the expansion of production will be associated with rising output per person, rather than increase in population. In all of the economically successful countries, higher incomes, together with the increased expectation of survival of children and the expansion of education and choice for women with which it is associated, are leading to marked falls in fertility and declining rates of population increase. Before the end of the 21st century, a continuation of these processes is expected to have led to stabilisation (by about 2080), and then, at least for a while, gradual decline in global human population (Chapter 4). But by that time, nearly three billion will have been added to the global population. (Emphasis added).

My concern is whether the environment can survive human population growth of “nearly three billion” to nine billion (or maybe even 12 billion?) before all the woes of society are magically sorted by 2080…

Dream on…

Perhaps if back in Rio in 1992 the architects of our current climate change agreement hadn’t focused simply on fossil fuel emissions in developed countries, and hadn’t excluded consideration of vital issues such as the impact of population growth and deforestation, we wouldn’t be in the deep doo doo we’re in now. (Which I’ve already argued here http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/06/09/penny-peter-marn-and-the-professor/ - posts 41 and 42 )

Let’s hope they do a better job in Copenhagen in 2009.

Can you really blame China, just because they have 20% of the world’s population?

Sure, it’s a problem, but what can they do to stop it? They’re in the process of industrialisation, and they’re determined, for example, to give all the Chinese people access to electricity. Who are we to suggest that they can’t have access to electricity? They’re pushing ahead with efforts to use plenty of nuclear power and hydroelectricity, displacing the use of coal - in that sense, they put Australia to shame.
Of course, most of the rest of the developed world effectively outsources their pollution from manufacturing to China.
For all of us who have ever bought manufactured items from Chinese factories, because they’re a bit cheaper than the Australian or European (or whatever) alternatives, then that’s contributing to that problem. If you want to help mitigate that, then try not to demand cheaper Chinese manufacturing, and pay a little more for the alternatives.

The only explanation I can think of for the lack of public health and safety enforcement is that this is a country with a vested interest in reducing its population.

Basically, at the moment the dust is counteracting the effects of the CO2 emitted from China’s power plants. However, the dust will probably reach saturation point in a few years time, both as a result of it “naturally” falling out of the atmosphere, and China’s efforts to clean up its local pollution.

When that occurs, the implications for global temperatures are not pretty.