writeaboutwarming

March 5, 2017 - China's coal consumption dropped for the third year in a row in 2016.  This, coupled with the country's shift away from heavy industry, could well portend cleaner air and water. As you know, cleaner air in China means cleaner air everywhere. With a population of 1.35 billion people, China currently produces twice as much carbon dioxide in the form of emissions as the United States. Given that the US has a population less than 1/4 the size of China's, their emissions would quadruple our own, if their standard of living matched ours. Thank goodness it doesn't. Be aware, however, that the government of China is transitioning to an economy based on consumer spending. That could spell trouble. In the meantime, China's National Bureau of Statistics indicates that China's coal consumption fell by 4.7 percent in 2016. Coal's share of total energy consumed fell to 62% in 2016, from 64% in 2015. In the United States, by contrast, the government ple...

June 15, 2013 – The political fallout resulting from global warming is ever more in evidence. Countries as diverse as Syria and China are both dealing with a dissatisfied populace that has taken matters into its own hands. Loss of faith in the government’s willingness to deal with environmental havoc resulted in 50,000 protests last year in China. I wrote recently of the climatic-political origins of the war in Syria. Where else might the climate change tinderbox ignite? The Inter Press Service News Agency recently wrote that flooding has come to stay in Europe. Central and Eastern Europe, after an extremely long winter that was followed by weeks of strong storms (sound familiar?), has seen the Danube and Elbe Rivers rise to record levels. Twenty-one people died as a result, and thousands were evacuated. Mudslides closed down roads and train lines in Austria, and in the Czech Republic, 20,000 people were evacuated from 700 different locations. Damage in the CR is thus far estimated ...

November 7, 2011 - Now here's a word I definitely think is destined to become a part of everyone's vocabulary: ecomobility. Meaning, of course, getting around in an environmentally friendly way. You know what the examples would be - things like walking, biking, taking the bus or a train. In fact, Inter Press Service, in their article titled "EcoMobility Gaining Ground, Step by Step," defines it according to what it is not : mobility without private cars. I think that's quite elegant, actually. Cities as geographically disparate as Berlin, Tokyo, New York and Bogota have all decided that the cost of cars and their pollution, noise and congestion is a price they are eager to forego. (Paris is allegedly on this list, too, but I have to say that when I was there last year, I saw lots of the publicly available bicycles lined up in their bike stands, very ostentatiously being ignored.) Perhaps that was the rub, because it's not as simple as merely making bikes, buse...