China

Meet this year’s winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize

The winners (left to right): Silas Kpanan’Ayoung Siakor, Yu Xiaogang, Tarcísio Feitosa da Silva, Anne Kajir, Olya Melen, and Craig Williams. Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize.  Though the connection between people and their surroundings is undeniable — a serving of clean air, anyone? — defense of the environment is still sometimes considered antisocial behavior. But this […]

An interview with the founder of Worldwatch and Earth Policy Institute

There are few titans remaining in the environmental world — figures that command respect not only inside the movement but in the larger global political milieu as well. Lester Brown is one of them. In 1974, he founded the Worldwatch Institute, one of the first think tanks to focus on the global environmental situation (its […]

WSJ: China’s oil-demand surge slackens

Peak-oil enthusiasts and skeptics alike will find much to chew on in this page-one piece from today's Wall Street Journal.

By all accounts, China's explosive energy-demand growth over the past several years has strained the ability of OPEC and other oil producers to keep up. Now, the Journal claims, that pressure shows signs of easing:

This year, China is on track to account for about 16% of the world's new oil consumption, little more than half last year's share. The Centre for Global Energy Studies estimates that Chinese demand will rise by about 230,000 barrels of oil a day this year -- a large increase, but a far cry from the 860,000-barrel-a-day jump of 2004 and a much more manageable pace for global suppliers.

The article also features the spectacle of a big-time oil exec engaging in a bit of what's known on Wall Street as "jawboning" -- trying to influence the market (in this case talking it down) with mere words. The Journal reports:

Though most market watchers were caught off guard by last year's steep run-up in China's oil demand, [Exxon Mobil CEO Lee] Raymond said that its consumption growth has been generally in line with industry expectations. "Speculation" accounts for about $20 of the current per-barrel price of oil, Mr. Raymond estimated. "The fundamentals" of supply and demand, he said, "support something like $35 or $40." The Exxon chief said that, in about a decade, it will be likelier that oil prices will be below $35 than they will be to stay at today's level of about $60 a barrel. [Emphasis added.]

Might outrage over last quarter's startling profits, as well as the Congressional price-gouging hearings, have influenced Raymond's desire to describe a frothy, puffed-up oil market?

Pharmaceuticals may be saving species

You may have heard that measurable levels of pharmaceuticals have been turning up in water supplies, causing concern about the potential effects on wildlife. But did you hear that they may also help preserve endangered species?

As noted today on Green Media, a recent study shows that, in China at least, widespread availability of Viagra-type drugs has decreased the demand for endangered animal body parts used to treat erectile dysfunction in traditional Chinese medicine. In all, the study names eight animals that stand to benefit from this trend, including seals and green sea turtles.

Sadly, tigers and rhinos are not on the list, because their body parts are used in the treatment of many, many other ailments.

Clearly Pfizer needs to come out with pills to address these other disorders, so that other endangered species can be saved as well. Maybe they could combine effects into one pill, depending on which animals' parts are usually used:

Got arthritis? Suffer from insomnia? Ulcers, rheumatism, epilepsy, hemorrhoids, skin disease? Tooth ache, fever, acne? Alcoholic? Try our little orange-and-black striped pill! It's grrrreat!

Will hard-won environmental and social gains survive China’s economic rise?

The way China has catapulted itself onto the Monopoly board of global capitalism has caught most Western leaders on the hop. Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid looking back at their pursuers, top U.S. and European Union businesspeople are wondering, “Who are those guys?” Yuan-a make a deal? After all, how much do we […]

Stats on the biggest kid on the Asian block.

Our fascination with China around these parts is well-known. However, we're not so fascinated that we want to read long, number-filled reports about it. I mean, it's Friday fer chrissake.

So, we let Joel Makower do that work for us. He waded through WorldWatch's just-released "Vital Signs 2," a compendium of info on worldwide environmental trends, and found lots of tasty (and, okay, some terrifying) tidbits on the world's fastest growing big economy. Read his summary and be enlightened.

Here's a taste, from WW:

The depopulation bomb, or, 40 million guys with no one to date

Not sure if anyone else noted this story in The New York Times early this week: "Fearing Future, China Starts to Give Girls Their Due." The piece says the powers that be in China just might be considering a shift from the controversial one-child policy (enacted in the 1970s to help control population growth) to a two-child policy. Why? Well, for one, there's a grave shortage of girls in the country, due to selective abortion (or worse):

In early January, the government announced that the nationwide ratio had reached 119 boys for every 100 girls. Studies show that the average rate for the rest of the world is about 105 boys for every 100 girls. Demographers predict that in a few decades China could have up to 40 million bachelors unable to find mates.

These figures may bring to mind some sort of hideous plot for a reality show. (Oh, wait, isn't that a tautologous statement? Someone throw me a bone.) But the dismal issues of selective abortion and female infanticide aside, the story also hints at a topic being discussed in other parts of the world, too, one that ought to concern environmentalists but hasn't received much attention thus far in the United States: Does there come a point at which declines in fertility rates advance too far? The Times piece alludes to a "looming baby bust" in China. Who will provide for the country's "rapidly aging population"?

How scary that the world's most populous country might be considering -- never mind enacting -- policies to encourage people to have more kids. While such a possibility may be a ways off in China, the discussion has been more fully joined in parts of Europe.  I just returned from a trip with three French citizens, progressives all, who voiced deep concern that their country's population was leveling off. They talked with passion about the need for France and Europe as a whole to find a way to fuel population growth, whether through immigration or E.U. expansion or whathaveyou. Rather than celebrating success at approaching zero population growth or, better yet, a decreasing population -- with all the imaginable pluses for resource consumption, CO2 emissions, and other forms of pollution -- they focused on the need for population growth.

I have greatly simplified the Times piece here (and also somewhat my friends' perspective) to call attention, however inarticulately, to this underreported debate. Seems to me that environmentalists should be working furiously to show that a country with a declining population can still be competitive economically and provide a high level of social services (Scandinavian or French style). It's beyond me at the moment to make this argument -- I confess I'm new to the topic, too -- but I wonder whether anyone out there can do so. Anyone? Anyone?

China

Here's a worthwhile David R. Francis editorial about China's growing demand for oil. It's another reminder that environmentalists who really care about the fate of the earth -- the entire earth, not just their favorite camping spot out West -- can do nothing more valuable than trying to make sure that China does not follow the same development path as the U.S. and Europe. This means lobbying the Chinese government not only to adopt aggressive conservation and renewable energy programs, but also to open up the free flow of information, in the press and particularly on the internet. A vigorous exchange of information inside the country can lead, through the distributed efforts of thousands of concerned citizens who experience those problems directly, to the development of innovative energy, resource, and conservation solutions. Despite the fond hopes of China's ruling elite, sustainable economic development is not feasible without the simultaneous development of an open democratic culture. Bottom-up, distributed, openly shared solutions are China's best hope of leapfrogging.

Big Trouble in Big China

News flash: China’s environment is bad and getting worse A Washington Post exploration of China’s environmental problems confirms all the sorry tales you’ve been hearing. The country contains at least six of the world’s 10 most polluted cities, experts say, leading to respiratory problems for millions of citizens. Deforestation in north and central China means […]