Finding Silver in the Cloud of CO2
by Larry Mongoss, guest blogger
China has taken the lead as the world’s biggest producer of carbon dioxide. Actually, according to some estimates, that title should have been granted in 2006, a year in which China’s CO2 emissions increased 9%. More important than the quickness with which China managed to pass the United States for this dubious honor is that speed with which emissions of CO2 are increasing. That is exponential – in the mathematically correct sense of the word – and 9% per year is a very big number.
The implications of this for global greenhouse gases are staggering. Were China to continue at a 9% exponential growth rate, and every other country hold to current output levels, worldwide output of CO2 would double from the levels of today in about 18 years. Of course what everyone is looking for is a way to decrease total CO2 output. If the rest of the world manages to reduce CO2 production by 5% per year then world output won’t double for 22 years. Little comfort that.
These calculations are very back-of-the-envelope, though these days it is an email-envelope. Others, with fancier, or at least more convoluted, math have concluded that we have at more like 35 years to a doubling. But while developed countries are looking at, if not embracing, technology to reduce carbon emissions, the developing world is trying to develop. When those lesser developed countries were economically tiny, how they developed did not much matter, but it does now. China is not going away, India is riding close behind, and the rest of the underdeveloped world would love to be on the same trajectory. The pressures to grow economically are stronger than those to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and, most importantly, they are driven from within. If good things are going to happen for the environment, it will take more than thoughtful science and demands from the international community.
My purpose in pointing this out is not to be an alarmist, however strongly the warning bells may be clanging. Rather, I am looking for opportunity – a silver lining in the billowing clouds of coal smoke and concrete dust. Continue to read here>>
The author has a way of delivering pathos that leaves a pang in the chest.
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—Time Out
About Xujun
Xujun Eberlein is the author of the award-winning story collection Apologies Forthcoming. A native of Chongqing, China now living in the Boston area, she is also a widely read essayist and blogger on China. Her stories and essays have appeared in many...
Connections
The Jury is still out
Ni Hao!
Very nicely balanced piece on the pollution problem in China. I saw the PBS series on that recently.
I think we need to realize that London during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution was every bit as polluted as China; the writings of Charles Dickens describe it pretty well. Now, London is a reasonably clean city.
I have no doubts that China will become cleaner as the technology becomes available. Since they have, quite literally, entered the twenty-first century overnight, there will be some growing pains. Considering the sheer magnitude of the enterprise, I don't see how anyone else could have done it any differently. I am reminded of Proverbs 14:4...."Where there are no oxen, the crib is clean." Progress is messy, it's an immutable law of the universe. The wealth that results from industrial progress, despite its "soiling the crib" is what, ultimately will allow China to afford the cleaner technologies.
The answer is simple, but hard to swallow. Just give them some time. At least the same amount of time we afforded London and Germany and any other country trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. It took London 300 years to clean up their act. We can afford to give China a decade or two. They have much more incentive to do so than anyone else....the air they have to breathe is a lot closer!
Eric Nichols
North Pole, AK
Thanks for the note, Eric.
Thanks for the note, Eric. You speak Chinese?
Indeed China is going through a phase quite reminiscent of the industrial revolution in England - not only the smog but the conditions in the coal mines. Unfortunately, there is a difference both in scale - China's economy is about two orders of magnitude bigger than England's was at that time, and in timing - China's output is on top of that from everywhere else in the world. Global atmospheric change is like a train in that it take a long time to stop, but it can still plummet off a broken bridge.