China Crisis: threat to the global environment

[Ned]

Arcite, the threat of tarriffs might do the trick. Real tarriffs might sink the global economy, killing millions in the process.

[Ecthy]

Ned, the main problem we have with nuclear power is the unsolved question of the nuclear waste. It's not like we make weapons out of it.

[Jon Miller]

but it is soo much less

and the new ones make much less than the old ones

JM

[Pekka]

"Both China and India are having unequal growth. A small 'elite' are benefiting while the vast majority of the population remain in squalor. "

False.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Ned, the main problem we have with nuclear power is the unsolved question of the nuclear waste. It's not like we make weapons out of it.

No doubt. But that is at least manageable.

Nuclear power is the cleanest practical power source now available.

[Pekka]

Cleanest real option, yes, but naturally not the long time solution most likely. I mean China needs/is going to build what.. another 50 to 100 more? The thing is, this doesn't sound very sustainable.

IF they need it, IMO they have all the rights to do it if they guarantee they will be built properly and taken cared of. This is not my concern, my concern is rather the "what happens after that".

[Ecthy]

It is cleaner in the short term but as long as you don't know what to do with the waste it's unreasonable long-term. Germany is just now planning to put it in long term storage, IIRC they still haven't found a proper place. All we have now is "preliminary" depositing.

From an economic and geostrategic point of view it is however more reasonable than buying yourself into the Russian influence sphere by relying on their gas only.

[Arcite]

Originally posted by Pekka
"Both China and India are having unequal growth. A small 'elite' are benefiting while the vast majority of the population remain in squalor. "

False.

Actually its quite true.

Here's some info on the problems...soon to be a catastrophe...

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World is running out of water, says UN adviser


Randeep Ramesh in New Delhi
Monday January 22, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Ganges, Varanasi
The Ganges, India's most famous river, is now stagnant, according to Jeffrey Sachs. Photograph: Getty Images


The world is running out of water and needs a radical plan to tackle shortages that threaten the ability of humanity to feed itself, according to Jeffrey Sachs, director of the UN's Millennium Project.

Professor Sachs, who is credited with sparking pop star Bono's crusade for African development, told an environment conference in Delhi that the world simply had "no more rivers to take water from".

The breadbaskets of India and China were facing severe water shortages and neither Asian giant could use the same strategies for increasing food production that has fed millions in the last few decades.

"In 2050 we will have 9 billion people and average income will be four times what it is today. India and China have been able to feed their populations because they use water in an unsustainable way. That is no longer possible," he said.

Since Asia's green revolution, which began in the 1960s and saw a transformation of agricultural production, the amount of land under irrigation has tripled. However, many parts of the continent have reached the limits of their water supplies. "The Ganges [in India] and the Yellow river [in China] no longer flow. There is so much silting up and water extraction upstream they are pretty stagnant," said Prof Sachs.

The US academic said that the mechanisms of shrinking water resources are not well understood. "We need to do for water what we did for climate change. How do we recharge aquifers? What about ground water use? There's no policy anywhere in place at the moment."

The US academic said that the rise of Asia was altering the world's resources in an unprecedented way - for the first time humans were shaping the environment rather than nature.

"China is on course to be the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide by 2010 in the world. India is building eight 4,000MW power plants - are they ready for carbon capture? I don't think so."

The British government has been trying to persuade a reluctant New Delhi to embrace green technology. Officials in India still talk about the need for accelerating growth and see tackling climate change as a brake on the economy.

David Miliband, the environment minister, said he was confident that the country would join a scheme for managing greenhouse gas emissions after the present Kyoto protocol runs out in 2012.

"India is already the fourth largest emitter [in the world]. It is already being affected by climate change and I have been encouraged to see that ministers here are engaging with the issue," said Mr Miliband

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From NASA



China's Brown Cloud:
NASA satellite image of eastern Asia shows a dense blanket of polluted air over central eastern China -- dense enough that the coastline around Shanghai virtually disappears. The "Asian Brown Cloud" is a toxic mix of ash, acids and airborne particles from car and factory emissions, as well as from low-tech polluters like wood-burning stoves. The Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) on board the Orbview 2 satellite captured this image January 10, 2003. Credit: NASA


And regarding India


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Gap between rich and poor widens in China

The World Today - Friday, 10 March , 2006 12:40:00
Reporter: John Taylor
ELEANOR HALL: To China now and the growing official concern about wealth inequality in the country.

The leader who began modern China's economic reform era, Deng Xiaoping, famously declared that "to get rich is glorious".

But the problem authorities are facing now is that some people have become extremely wealthy, while the great majority of Chinese people remain desperately poor.

In Beijing, Correspondent John Taylor reports.

JOHN TAYLOR: On Beijing's streets it's not unusual now to see a Ferrari cruise by.

In the time of Mao this would have been unimaginable. After all, this was Red China and a red sportscar would have been a joke, a symbol of hated class superiority. The driver would have been destined for a life of suffering.

And besides all that, everybody was poor except the few political leaders at the top.

Twenty-five years of reforms have transformed China. In Beijing alone last year, about 1,000 new cars merged onto the roads every day. Many of them were luxury vehicles.

But China is still a developing country, with more than half its people leading rural lives. But as a new class of super-rich emerge and the ranks of the middle class swell, the gap between the rich and the poor in China has become a yawning chasm.

Economist Li Zhining says it's getting greater as China gets richer.

"The income of farmers and low-income urban people is actually becoming lower and lower," he says.

The wealth gap isn't just between town and country.

A recent report from the National Development and Reform Commission, China's main economic planning agency, said inequality just in China's cities was now
"unreasonable".

A survey found the poorest fifth of urban residents received only 2.75 per cent of total income in urban areas, whereas the richest fifth commanded 20 times as much.

Communist China's new five-year plan, due to be approved by this year's session of the National People's Congress, stresses the importance of creating a more equal society.

The Government wants to improve medical care and social welfare for ordinary people.

Income tax thresholds have been changed, and a centuries-old farm tax has been scrapped.

Economist, Mao Yushi, is careful not to go too far in his statements lest he land in political trouble. But he says Chinese politics is part of the problem.

"The wealth in China is not only allocated by the market," he says, "but also by power."

"The people with power have money. The marriage between power and money allows people to make money by using illegal methods. It increases further the income gap between the rich and the poor beyond the market itself," he says.

But it's hard to check corruption and abuse of power when the public really has no way to hold leaders or institutions to account, because that's seen as threatening Communist rule.

Economist Li Zhining also believes the worsening gap between the rich and the poor in China won't be addressed until there's structural change.

Independent trade unions are an obvious start.

"Worker unions are actually economic organizations, not political ones," he says. "But I don't understand why the Government is so worried about them. They are worried about the workers being organised to make trouble."

"But what trouble will they make? What the workers want is just higher salaries, which is right.

"Otherwise, if the wealth is concentrated only in the hands of the capitalists, it will shrink consumption in society."

Independent trade unions don't exist in China because of history. Poland's Solidarity movement helped toppled authoritarian rule. China has carefully studied what happened in the former USSR.

The Party's commitment to a more equal society only extends as far as it can maintain control.

This is John Taylor in Beijing for The World Today.
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No point in denying it.

[Ned]

Just a thought, but are the Chinese going coal and not nuclear because of cost?

[Jon Miller]

I have said for quite some time that water will be a bigger worry than carbon dioxide.. and I would say bigger than fuel resources or food resources (which we have plenty of).

Jon Miller

[Kuciwalker]

That's silly. The water isn't going away.

[Jon Miller]

It's being made unusable/difficult to use.

Jon Miller

[Arcite]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I have said for quite some time that water will be a bigger worry than carbon dioxide.. and I would say bigger than fuel resources or food resources (which we have plenty of).

Jon Miller

Canada has 20% of the world's fresh water. We'll be the new water mafia.

[Arrian]

No, someone will just take it from you.

-Arrian

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Ned
Just a thought, but are the Chinese going coal and not nuclear because of cost?

Until 2020 they plan to increase their nuclear production to 6% of their consumption of energy. Coal is immensely available and cheap.