As China Boomed, It Didn't Take Climate Change Into Account. Now It Must. (nytimes.com) 82
China's breathtaking economic growth created cities ill-equipped to face extreme weather. Last week's dramatic floods showed that much will have to change. From a report: China's breakneck growth over the last four decades erected soaring cities where there had been hamlets and farmland. The cities lured factories, and the factories lured workers. The boom lifted hundreds of millions of people out of the poverty and rural hardship they once faced. Now those cities face the daunting new challenge of adapting to extreme weather caused by climate change, a possibility that few gave much thought to when the country began its extraordinary economic transformation. China's pell-mell, brisk urbanization has in some ways made the challenge harder to face.
No one weather event can be immediately linked to climate change, but the storm that flooded Zhengzhou and other cities in central China last week, killing at least 69 as of Monday, reflects a global trend of extreme weather that has seen deadly flooding recently in Germany and Belgium, and severe heat and wildfires in Siberia. The flooding in China, which engulfed subway lines, washed away roads and cut off villages, also highlights the environmental vulnerabilities that accompanied the country's economic boom and could yet undermine it. China has always had floods, but as Kong Feng, then a public policy professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, wrote in 2019, the flooding of cities across China in recent years is "a general manifestation of urban problems" in the country.
The vast expansion of roads, subways and railways in cities that swelled almost overnight meant there were fewer places where rain could safely be absorbed -- disrupting what scientists call the natural hydrological cycle. Faith Chan, a professor of geology with the University of Nottingham in Ningbo in eastern China, said the country's cities -- and there are 93 with populations of more than a million -- modernized at a time when Chinese leaders made climate resiliency less of a priority than economic growth. "If they had a chance to build a city again, or to plan one, I think they would agree to make it more balanced," said Mr. Chan, who is also a visiting fellow at the Water@Leeds Research Institute of the University of Leeds.
No one weather event can be immediately linked to climate change, but the storm that flooded Zhengzhou and other cities in central China last week, killing at least 69 as of Monday, reflects a global trend of extreme weather that has seen deadly flooding recently in Germany and Belgium, and severe heat and wildfires in Siberia. The flooding in China, which engulfed subway lines, washed away roads and cut off villages, also highlights the environmental vulnerabilities that accompanied the country's economic boom and could yet undermine it. China has always had floods, but as Kong Feng, then a public policy professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, wrote in 2019, the flooding of cities across China in recent years is "a general manifestation of urban problems" in the country.
The vast expansion of roads, subways and railways in cities that swelled almost overnight meant there were fewer places where rain could safely be absorbed -- disrupting what scientists call the natural hydrological cycle. Faith Chan, a professor of geology with the University of Nottingham in Ningbo in eastern China, said the country's cities -- and there are 93 with populations of more than a million -- modernized at a time when Chinese leaders made climate resiliency less of a priority than economic growth. "If they had a chance to build a city again, or to plan one, I think they would agree to make it more balanced," said Mr. Chan, who is also a visiting fellow at the Water@Leeds Research Institute of the University of Leeds.
The thing is - it's not (Score:5, Insightful)
What China does generally, is say they are going to do a thing, in order for other countries to get into a weaker position - then china ignores whatever it is they said they would do, and does what it wants to instead.
In this particular case, they said they were cutting back on coal but boy are they building out coal plants instead [yale.edu].
So you can say what China "must" do but how will you make them listen? They are very much in control of what they will and will not do, and at this point who has any real leverage over them?
Re: The thing is - it's not (Score:1)
Have to do more to make it possible... (Score:4, Interesting)
Stop buying chinese crap and stop making your crap there
I think a lot of companies would like to stop, but in some cases manufacturing whatever it is might be near impossible outside China...
We need to figure out how to bring back the things China is doing into other countries so that companies can have real options, at scale. But it would take a very long time to really get such an effort moving.
Even then China has a bit of a leg up because while the rest of the world has been dancing around China has been snarfing up a lot of raw materials - like the fact that China is the source of 85% of rare earths [scmp.com], soon to be higher as they take over Afghanistan [foreignpolicy.com] (the U.S. at any time could have taken a similar path to win over Afghanistan by making them rich, and chose not to).
Afghanistan has roughly 3 Trillion dollars in rare earths [thehill.com] alone... and lots of other resources that could be mined.
Re: Have to do more to make it possible... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Means Tested Basic Income of $12.00 / hr Lower Minimum Wage to $3.00 / hr
Nationwide, poorest workers get a huge raise, this includes service workers. Mandate full bennies for these workers, even for part time. Healthcare through extending single-payer / medicare, PTO, sick leave, etc.
Mandate 10% over salary paid in stock grants or other forms of company ownership.
Pay for this by restructuring existing non-healthcare related welfare programs under the single umbrella, ga
Re: Have to do more to make it possible... (Score:2)
Inflation would skyrocket. As would unemployment. What's the incentive to work that minimum wage job?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately there is the ingrained mentality among many Chinese, when something is available for free, to take as much as possible for yourself without regard to others.
This is true especially amongst older Chinese who experienced the hardships of Mao's cultural devolution and have the survival instinct to hoard as much as possible in their DNA. Whoever saw how a group of Chinese tourists behaves at the buffet of a restaurant knows this to be true.
If you apply this mentality to the exploitation of the env
Re: The thing is - it's not (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah this bit "instinct to hoard as much as possible in their DNA" super racist. To be in the DNA it must have repeated over many generations with the non hoarders being eliminated and not breeding and the hoarders breeding. Simply insufficient generational cycles for that to happen. However with the White Anglo Saxon, there have been many generations of the monarchy raping the peasantry, actually raping juveniles (to avoid STDs) and in large number, for that psychopathic monarchy gene to spread (refuse and
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah this bit "instinct to hoard as much as possible in their DNA" super racist. To be in the DNA it must have repeated over many generations with the non hoarders being eliminated and not breeding and the hoarders breeding.
Well obviously that would be silly! Have you never heard "in their DNA" used as a metaphor before? I thought is was abundantly clear.
It is an idiom: https://idioms.thefreedictiona... [thefreedictionary.com]
It was however an unfortunate choice of idiom, as we have readers here for whom English is not their first language, and others disposed to see "racists under the bed" (another idiom) at every opportunity. No "racial" character was actually implied, if you read the context.
Re: (Score:3)
but how will you make them listen?
Perhaps by stopping the hypocrisy and setting an example.
America's per capita CO2 emissions are twice that of China's.
Seems like we've ben trying to set a good example. (Score:2)
America's per capita CO2 emissions are twice that of China's.
Maybe true in absolute terms, but the thing is the U.S. has in recent years been on a steady decline in CO2 emissions [eia.gov] - while China has been increasing [iea.org] over the same period.
The U.S. is cutting back, even as China ramps up.
How is that not already setting an example?
It's not realistic to expect a country to drop CO2 emissions in half overnight.
Re:Seems like we've ben trying to set a good examp (Score:4, Insightful)
The U.S. is cutting back, even as China ramps up.
It is easier for a glutton to cut back than a thin man.
It's not realistic to expect a country to drop CO2 emissions in half overnight.
There are still plenty of 4-ton SUVs rolling off American assembly lines. Perhaps we should fix that before we preach to others.
Re: (Score:2)
There are still plenty of 4-ton SUVs rolling off American assembly lines. Perhaps we should fix that before we preach to others.
The heaviest SUV in the USA is a loaded Suburban at 6,585 lb. The Hummer H1 was over 8k lb at the curb, but it's been out of production since 2002 (the only year even vaguely worth owning without modification due to having a real motor, not that Detroit 6.5 pile of shit.) They are still making humvees for the military, but only 100 per year — they are in the process of replacing them with M-ATVs, which are armored and weigh 27,500 lb.
With that said... yeah, this whole light truck loophole is stupid an
Re: (Score:2)
They are world leaders in solar and probably going as fast as they can to make and install renewables.
China's problems are like trying to turn a tanker, its huge and will take a long time to turn.
Re: (Score:2)
You got it backwards. They are ramping up because everyone started instituting rules on environmental damage. So industries offshored to where this doesn't happen. For example, there are plenty of rare earth deposits in US. None are exploited to any meaningful extent because of just environmentally damaging separation processes are.
And their "world leadership in solar and wind" comes because they need ALL the power they can get. Which is why they're also world leaders in coal, natgas, nuclear, hydro and so
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on who is the one caring and what are the intentions of the one caring. Communists? The singe most genocidal, enslaving and torturing form of governance in our history? You're just fucked if they care.
Luckily for Han Chinese people, CCP doesn't really care that much about typical Chinese person for now. Unlike for example ethnic Uighurs, Mongols and Tibetans. Those people, it does care about a lot. And so, they get the treatment that Communists reserve for people they care for a lot. Genocide.
Re: (Score:2)
And here's what Chinese Han nationalists think about minorities. In case anyone was unclear why it is that genocide of minorities is widely accepted in China. Their very right to exist and have their divergent cultural base is the same thing as "threat of civil war" and genocide is the acceptable remedy to such a threat.
This is the totalitarian mind at work, totalizing the problem to its most extreme possibility, and therefore convincing itself of most extreme solutions being acceptable.
Re: (Score:2)
Official CCP sanctioned propaganda in a nutshell.
"Genocide in those places is a conspiracy theory. Also here are some points that tell you that it's real, but it's not as bad as you think. Also it's real but we're not genociding ALL of the minorities, just some of them that we Communists care a lot about right now".
Even your denials are chabuduo as fuck. It's hilarious.
Re: (Score:2)
Why go digging when you literally admitted to it happening above?
Re: (Score:2)
It's good that I don't need to make the claim, as you did it for me, isn't it?
Re: (Score:2)
You're just so fundamentally chabuduo in your trolling efforts, it's genuinely hilarious to me. You couldn't be more stereotypically "lowest grade Chinese worker" if you tried.
You don't just bring shame to your parents. You bring shame to your whole nation.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought US approach of cutting back on CO2 was to make everything in China. So you move production to China and then accuse them of generating too much CO2. Work for me.
Re: (Score:3)
Sure the average Joe would like manufacturing to come back to their country, but in order to actually accomplish that they would have to make pretty large-scale changes to their polit
Re: (Score:1)
It would be difficult but not impossible to change.
For years I've said that the issue is perverse incentive structures that only the upper class has. Change those structures and everything else follows. Example:
We can eliminate the corporate and overseas taxation altogether (with its reams of tax code and loopholes) if we:
permanently harmonize labor with capital gains
outlaw stock buy-backs as a form of manipulation. It was illegal up to the 1980's.
outlaw executive stock compensation and mandate cash salary
Re: (Score:1)
What was that old line? (Score:3)
"A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths (is) a statistic."
Somehow I doubt the CCP give's a damn about the number of people dying in their country due to climate-related issues.
Maybe they're preparing for sea level rises... (Score:1)
2050 (Score:2)
It's clear the CCP is never honest about their efforts toward Paris Accords but this is a remarkably brazen act to just flip the universe the bird, just because they can.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
https://www.washingtontimes.co... [washingtontimes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Moonie alert.
Gee (Score:2)
Maybe if we'd considered China way back in the Tokyo accords, eh?
ie as if it was REALLY a problem, and not circumscribed by politics.
Why should they? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not like anyone will ever personally be held accountable for their actions.
Re: (Score:3)
The same could be said of Covid-19.
Really is there anything since world war two that people have personally been held accountable for?
Fortunately nature itself doesn't have any of these difficulties for we ALL will be held accountable for our actions.
What's up with all the China articles... (Score:2, Insightful)
The question is simply this, WHICH COUNTRIES ACTUALLY DID TAKE ACCOUNT OF CLIMATE CHANGE? Because from what I can see no country took into account climate change.
Liberalism stops climate change (Score:1)
Behold the power! (Score:1)
Really? (Score:1, Funny)
China is a world leader in renewables. They're having their industrial revolution emitting a fraction of the pollution any of the established economies did. We should look to them for guidance instead of "America, fuck yeah"
Re: (Score:2)
Are they still turning away British "renewables"? [theguardian.com]
Found the CCCP plant (Score:4, Informative)
Right here.
China has the WORST pollution of any country. Twice as much as the USA.
Rank Country CO2 emissions (total)
1 China 10.06GT
2 United States 5.41GT
One of those times I'm glad the US isn't in first.
Source: https://www.ucsusa.org/resourc... [ucsusa.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Unfortunately, wumaos are legion [wikipedia.org], and /. is no exception.
There are also the apologists that think they will get rich quick sucking CCP cock Wall Street style - they're even worse.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
1 person takes 2 shits.
6 people take 1 shit each.
Which pile of shit is bigger in reality? Which pile of shit is bigger "Per Capita"
Per capita has nothing to do with which country produces more pollution. We have every right to point out that China has the biggest piles of shit.
Re: (Score:2)
And what is the population numbers for China?
The evil in the mirror is YOU! (Score:3)
Listen to the engineers. (Score:2)
Don't "follow the science", that doesn't tell us what we need to do. Engineering tells us what we need to do. An engineering analysis of the solutions before us tells us that without nuclear fission power we will fail in lowering CO2 emissions.
It took only 50 years but we have an agreement from both major political parties in the USA that we need nuclear power. That tells me that the US federal government is finally taking global warming seriously. I'm seeing the UK not give up on nuclear power in spite
Don't build on a flood plain. (Score:2)
videos of devastation leaked out of china (Score:1)
This video contains many shocking clips of the damage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
7:09 in the video shows authorities trying to hide the flowers left as tributes for the dead, because they would reveal the official death statistic is a lie.
As America boomed.. (Score:3)
Douglas Adams said it best: (Score:2)
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."
U.S. Got there first (Score:2)
The US didn't care about the climate when it did its major growth. So why can't others?
Build Drains for greenhouse byproduct H2O (Score:2)
Why China has existed for so long (Score:1)
China has been a country for centuries because of one main reason. Their #1 focus is the survival of China. The health and welfare of other countries, other people, hell, even their OWN people, are secondary to that. There is no one who can make them change, and it is not in their own interest to change, so they will not change.