China Puts Economy First!

China promises to better control emissions of greenhouse gases, unveiling its first national program to combat global warming, but rejects mandatory caps on emissions as unfair to countries still trying to catch up with the developed West. So to the Chinese, climate targets should in no way spoil their economic growth.

China Conquers Africa

From "Der Spiegel:"

China imports everything the continent produces: tropical hardwoods, oil, metals and even a small amount of cotton. Africa's five most resource-rich countries - Angola, South Africa, Sudan, Equatorial Guinea and Congo - account for more than 80 percent of all African exports to China.

In return Africa gets cheap, mass-produced items, basic consumer goods like household devices, television sets and clothing. From South African supermarket shelves to Uganda's flea markets, the products with the strange characters printed on their packaging are available everywhere. In fact the flood of cheap Chinese goods has already destroyed the textile industries in Swaziland and Lesotho.

NEW GORE BOOK The Assault on Reason

From the book via TIME Magazine:

"The democratization of knowledge by the print medium brought the Enlightenment. Now, broadband interconnection is supporting decentralized processes that reinvigorate democracy. We can see it happening before our eyes: As a society, we are getting smarter. Networked democracy is taking hold. You can feel it. We the people—as Lincoln put it, "even we here"—are collectively still the key to the survival of America's democracy."


"THE ASSAULT ON REASON" is a visionary analysis of how the politics of fear, secrecy, cronyism, and blind faith has combined with the degration of the public sphere to create an environment dangerously hostile to reason
At the time George W. Bush ordered American forces to invade Iraq, 70 percent of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was linked to 9/11. Voters in Ohio, when asked by pollsters to list what stuck in their minds about the campaign, most frequently named two Bush television ads that played to fears of terrorism.

We live in an age when the thirty-second television spot is the most powerful force shaping the electorate's thinking, and America is in the hands of an administration less interested than any previous administration in sharing the truth with the citizenry. Related to this and of even greater concern is this administration's disinterest in the process by which the truth is ascertained, the tenets of fact-based reasoning-first among them an embrace of open inquiry in which unexpected and even inconvenient facts can lead to unexpected conclusions.

How did we get here? How much damage has been done to the functioning of our democracy and its role as steward of our security? Never has there been a worse time for us to lose the capacity to face the reality of our long-term challenges, from national security to the economy, from issues of health and social welfare to the environment. As The Assault on Reason shows us, we have precious little time to waste.

Gore's larger goal in this book is to explain how the public sphere itself has evolved into a place hospitable to reason's enemies, to make us more aware of the forces at work on our own minds, and to lead us to an understanding of what we can do, individually and collectively, to restore the rule of reason and safeguard our future. Drawing on a life's work in politics as well as on the work of experts across a broad range of disciplines, Al Gore has written a farsighted and powerful manifesto for clear thinking.

North Pole Swimming within 13 Years

The Arctic ice cap is melting much faster than expected and is now about 30 years ahead of predictions made by IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

CO2 and Information Technology

The global IT industry accounts for 2 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions - the same amount the world's aviation industry churns out, according to analyst house Gartner.

Click here to read the full article.

Greenhouse Effect Predicted in 1953

Click on the picture to enlarge.
The source is here.

Intelligent Energy

Sense some differences in approach between Europe and the US.

Today is Earth Day

Check EarthDay.Net, calling for urgent climate action.

Google had this picture:

Boston Consulting Group Positive on China's Global Potential

Boston Consulting Group's Jim Hemerling says China is emerging as a global R&D and innovation hub in its own right. Sourcing execs take note!

Also read: 'Asia to spawn tech breakthroughs', which lays out Bill Gates's opininion.

Friedman on Green Offshoring

Go read the Friedman interview with YaleGlobal on March 30. The question is who gets to do the work. “If whatever can be done will be done,” he says, “the biggest competition is between you and your imagination.” In the latest edition of his book, Friedman lists nine categories of jobs available to citizens of the flat world. One of those categories, he says, will be green jobs, anything green.

With millions of people pursuing the consumer dream, he says, “we’re going to burn up, heat up, choke up the planet faster than even Al Gore predicts.” According to Friedman, this development has implications: “Green design, green consulting, green manufacturing, green science, is going to have a huge new middle opportunity.”

First Commercial Quantum Computer

D:Wave Systems, the Quantum Computer Company presented the first commercial QC machine on February 13, and made it to the New York Times on Easter Day.

IPCC: Millions at Risk

The first and worst impacts of climate change are being felt by the poor in the developing world. Drought in sub-Saharan Africa, floods in China and India, and a near tripling of people affected by extreme weather and other natural disasters globally in the last two decades, almost all in the developing world, affecting those who are most vulnerable and least able to cope.

A nice two-page overview together with several links is this Greenpeace briefing.

Don't miss the British Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change.

April 6: A new IPCC climate report warns time is running out:

Huge numbers of people will be at risk due to sea level rise, storm surge and river flooding in the Asian Megadeltas such as the Ganges-Brahmaputra (Bangladesh) and the Zhujiang (Pearl River).

Warming of more than another degree could commit the world to multi-metre sea level rise over several centuries from the partial or total loss of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets.

Huge coastal dislocation would result and could be triggered by emissions made in the next several decades.