China

Will bikes or cars win?

China has an environmental problem. No, I'm not talking about weathering huge dust storms, opening one coal power plant a week, surpassing the U.S. as the largest emitter of carbon dioxide, or flooding ecosystems with huge dam projects. I'm talking about something serious: If pollution does not get better in Beijing in time for the 2008 Olympics, the long-distance track events may be canceled.

According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, "China's new middle class in love with cars -- big cars":

The auto boom has dire implications for next summer's Olympic Games in Beijing because it contributes to the noxious cap of smog that makes it the world's most polluted capital city.

Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic Committee president, suggested at a ceremony in Beijing on Aug. 8 that events such as long-distance races might have to be postponed if the smog remains too heavy a year from now. "My concerns, which I believe are the concerns of everyone, are the climate and the environment, and especially the air environment," he said.

This weekend, in a test of the drastic anti-pollution measures expected for the eve of the Games next year, Beijing authorities are banning half of all vehicles from city streets, alternating days between odd-numbered and even-numbered license plates.

Also, Chinese car ownership is projected to increase dramatically:

The biggest car-buying boom in world history is under way in China as vast numbers of people join the middle class, abandon their bicycles for autos and sport utility vehicles -- and, in the process, add to China's already fast-growing emissions of greenhouse gases ... total car ownership is expected to surpass the U.S. level by 2025.

YearlyKos: Meyerson and Stern

Watching Harold Meyerson (editor in chief of The American Prospect) and Andy Stern (head of SIEU) chat about … stuff. Stern says of the 100 largest financial institutions in the world, 50 are countries and 50 are companies. He says all progressives are fighting against the same foes, these multinational corporations, and it’s high time […]

Toxic fun

Once again, it turns out plastic toys from China are more than just an eyesore -- they're a hazard. A toy recall of 86 Fisher Price products, including several branded toddler favorites like the Dora and Elmo, was issued yesterday because of a lead-paint hazard. After scrolling the list, I decided my kids were safe -- for now. At least I think so.

And demonstrations

One of punk's great anthems was one of the Clash's first great songs:

White riot
I wanna riot
White riot
Riot of my own.

This was a sincere wish on the late Joe Strummer's part, and to some extent, his wish came true.

The punk movement was a riot in music. His audiences were uncontrollable and he liked that, mostly. He saw a few riots and wanted more, to get people stirred up, showing their desires, demanding change.

Could the ferment in present-day environmental interest be showing up in spontaneous demonstrations?

I have seen a few examples in the news of what sounds -- at least from afar -- like environmental riots.

This kind of demonstration of environmental rage rarely, if ever, seems to happen in the this country, so perhaps we -- including reporters -- aren't primed to expect it and report on it.

But consider:

China’s emissions aren’t really China’s

If you want a Chinese perspective on global warming, a good place to start is this China Daily opinion piece, "Climate change is reshaping global politics." Pang Zhongying, a research fellow with the Joint Program on Globalization under the CRF-Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, makes some points worth remembering, especially:

Western countries and industrialized Asian nations like Japan and the Republic of Korea have moved many of their factories to developing countries such as China and India, where cheap labor allows them to manufacture at lower costs than at home. This globalization of production has resulted in the discharge of much more waste in poor nations that otherwise would have been released in developed countries. As a matter of fact, not all of the greenhouse gases released "in China" or "from China" are really "China's".

Think of our large and growing trade deficit with China as the U.S. exporting industrial greenhouse-gas emissions. Worse still, China has a more coal-intensive industrial base, so producing things there generates far more pollution than if we had produced the same goods here.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

A scary/funny post from China

I found this in my Google Reader feed this morning, a post from a British blogger named Charlie living in Beijing. Three weeks after it was reported that the Chinese government convinced the World Bank to suppress a report that over 700,000 Chinese citizens die every year of pollution-related ailments, due to the fact that it may lead to revolution social unrest among the populace, Charlie's post reads like a bittersweet valentine to the city he's lived in for four years:

Big changes, happening quickly

Don’t miss (occasional Grist contributor) Christina Larson’s piece on environmentalism in China, which contains this pithy sentence: To understand why Chinese officials are genuinely concerned about the country’s growing environmental problems, you must first remember that they live here. The dynamic she describes is pretty fascinating. Environmental problems are getting so severe that they’re causing […]

Planning ahead for Beijing, London, and Sochi

Today, On the Ball brings you Olympics, Olympics, Olympics! And, if you read far enough, a reflection on undergarments. Beijing photo: vizzo via Flickr As we are now officially more than halfway through 2007, Beijing is getting all geared up for its Olympic games, to be held Aug. 8-24, 2008. On Wednesday, there were numerous […]

Accuses us of ‘green imperialism’

More or less echoing what I said here, China is telling the West to shove its climate hectoring where the sun don’t shine: Asian business and government leaders have accused rich countries of hypocrisy, saying they run polluting industries with cheap labour in China and then blame the country for worsening climate change. “This is […]