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...

February 15, 2015 -NASA released a report on Friday the 13 th , detailing the effects of megadroughts they foresee occurring in the United States throughout the rest of this century.  I don’t think I need to tell you that the only way to mitigate these effects is by sharply reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE).  What might very well need saying is that our future and the future of humankind rests in the hands of the Chinese, and the people of India.             Don’t misunderstand: we must all do much better, and very, very soon.  However, the population of the United States is paltry when compared with the populations of either of these two countries.  Combine that fact with the increasing demands of rising middle classes in both, and you get bad news.  Combine that bad news with the fact that China burns staggering amounts of coal, and you get, according to NASA, megadroughts i...

October 22, 2012 - China surpassed the United States as the world's largest producer of carbon dioxide in 2006.  Three quarters of a million people died prematurely in China, that same year, from the effects of air pollution.  The Chinese government censored the World Bank report in which these data appeared, saying it was "too sensitive and could cause social unrest."  I find it hard to believe the Chinese people don't already know that they're choking to death on their own waste.  Unfortunately, I think they also believe that their pollution problem is no worse than that of other large countries.  It is, in fact, much worse.  For while per-capita energy consumption in the United States is five times as high as it is in China, China is the global leader in overall energy consumption.  Far too much of that energy is created by burning coal. China is the world's largest consumer - and producer - of coal.  According to the U.S.-China Economic and ...