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Wednesday, May 30th, 2018

China’s Green Shift Positions It to Overtake U.S. in Energy, Security

Author:     JUAN COLE
Source:     truthdig
Publication Date:     MAY 27, 2018
 Link: China’s Green Shift Positions It to Overtake U.S. in Energy, Security
Stephan:   This is why China is in the process of becoming the dominant culture in the last half of the 21st century. America is now headed by what in my opinion amounts to a mafia family of grifters. And like all grifters they care only for themselves. China in contrast thinks in half centuries and has learned pragmatically that social wellbeing is the most efficient, healthiest, most productive and by far the cheapest way to run a nation. We, on the other hand, are being run by a congress and president who seem incapable of thinking beyond their own ideological fantasies and self-interest, and it is destroying us as as a nation, as anyone can see who has the courage to look unflinchingly at the social outcome data.

 

The Great Hall of the People Beijing
Credit: Juan Cole

The Guardian reports that air pollution in 62 Chinese cities fell by 30 percent between 2013 and 2016, according to the World Health Organization. Beijing, the capital, fell from a global fourth-place ranking on polluted air to 187th. (emphasis added)

I was in Beijing in March 2015 for a conference, and did a jaunt out to the Great Wall, bringing my camera. I needn’t have bothered. That day, at least, you couldn’t see more than 50 feet away from your face, and my dreams of photographs of the wall stretching out into the distance were dashed. I was there for a week and my throat got sore from just breathing the air. Things are quickly improving, though. The smog in those 62 cities was largely being caused by burning coal, for household heating and industrial purposes. Coal is the worst emitter of carbon dioxide among the hydrocarbon fuels, but it also puts out, when you burn it, lots of particulate matter that causes lung problems, heart […]

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