I have a friend who swears its getting hotter in the summer. And he says that it’s warmer in the winter as well. I have repeatedly told him that anecdotal evidence is worthless, as is short term data. Nothing can convince him otherwise. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see. But, because he says he is a patriot, the latest from the (“always objective”) United Nations has really got his undies in a bunch.
It seems that UN Climate Chief Christiana Figueres said on January 13, 2014, that democracy is a poor political system for fighting global warming, that Communist China is instead the best model. She actually said that!
According to Figueres, Communist China is “doing it right” when it comes to fighting global warming. This even though China is the world’s top emitter of carbon dioxide. According to Figueres, Communist China is able to implement policies because its political system avoids some of the legislative hurdles seen in some countries, including the U.S. Figueres continued, “The political divide in the U.S. Congress has slowed efforts to pass climate legislation and is ‘very detrimental’ to the fight against global warming.” I guess that’s what she means by Communist China “doing it right.”
Figueres and environmental global warming activists say that Communist China is a “leader” in renewable energy. Perhaps they should check their sources and/or figures before making rash, provably false statements. For example, Communist China, in 2012, got 9 percent of its power from renewable energy sources. The U.S., during the same period, got 11 percent of its power from renewable energy sources.
Communist China gets 90 percent of its power from fossil fuels, primarily from coal. In fact, Chinese coal demand is expected to explode as the country continues to develop. China has approved 100 million metric tons of new coal production capacity in 2013 as part of its government’s plan to bring 860 million metric tons of coal production online by 2015. Communist Chinese coal production of 3.66 billion tons at the end of 2012, accounted for nearly half the world’s total coal production. That amount is far larger than US coal production in 2012 of 1 billion tons. Helen Lau, senior commodities analyst with UOB Kay Hian in Hong Kong, said, “Given that China’s total energy consumption is still growing along with the economy, then coal production will continue to grow.” While efforts to curb pollution mean coal’s share of the Communist China’s energy mix is expected to fall, the total amount of the coal burned will still increase.
The Wall Street Journal said that Communist China’s air quality was so bad that it had about 1.2 million people die prematurely in 2010 as a result of air pollution. Government figures say that lung cancer is now the leading cause of death from malignant tumors, even though many of those dying are nonsmokers. Still, Figueres said, “They actually want to breathe air that they don’t have to look at.”
But wait, all you global warming Kool-Aid drinkers! I thought coal was one of the primary sources of greenhouse gasses, a leading source of global warming. Am I beginning to smell a UN agenda here?
While we’re at it, let’s examine what communism has done for the environment. Although not cited as a cause of global warming, this is good reading. In (communist) East Germany, at the time of reunification with (non-communist) West Germany, an estimated 42 percent of moving water and 24 percent of still waters were so polluted that they could not be used to process drinking water. Further, almost half of East Germany’s lakes were considered dead or dying and unable to sustain fish or other forms of life. And only one-third of industrial sewage along with half of domestic sewage received treatment. Forty percent of East Germany’s population lived in conditions that would have justified a smog warning in West Germany. Only one power station in all of East Germany had the necessary equipment to clean sulphur from emissions.
The USSR fleet (at that time the world’s largest) often chose to dispose of nuclear reactors by simply dumping them into the ocean.
And let’s not forget the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. But what’s more disturbing is that, in 1957, an explosion at the Mayak nuclear reactor, a plutonium production reactor for nuclear weapons and nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, resulted in “long-term contamination of an area of more than 800 to 20,000 square kilometers,” with 10,000 people forced to evacuate and an unknown number of deaths related to the accident. Environmental concerns were not taken seriously during the plant’s construction.
So, Christiana Figueres, before saying that communism is best for global warming, perhaps you will want to do some research. That goes for global warming believers, environmentalists, communism supporters, and my friend as well.
Cross-posted at The Pot Stirrer, my personal, very conservative web site!