BBC News - US and China leaders in 'historic' greenhouse gas emissions pledge
On the surface of this, this appears to be great news for those who see CO2 emissions as the biggest threat. Now, it may be - I am not a scientist, just a generalist who knows enough about a lot of things to be sufficiently skeptical about a host of threats - but having said that, after reading the article, there are a few warning bells being set of in the old skeptical brain.
First item is the agreement that the US will cut its emissions by 25 to 28 percent below 2005 levels in the next 10 years (by 2025) while China will stop increasing its emissions in those same 10 years.
Now, there are two ways of looking at that: First is that it is a plus that the Chinese have promised to do anything about their carbon emissions, now that they are the world's largest emitter of CO2, and that they have actually set a deadline on it. They second way to look at that is that the Chinese can front-load their emissions over the next 10 years (I read somewhere they are bring a coal-fired energy plant on-line at the rate of one per week).
If they did that, the Chinese could really significantly increase their energy output as well as emissions and make the reductions in the American emission rate actually superfluous in the effort to stem climate change. Of course, the Americans could pat themselves on the back, while feeling morally superior, while watching their own energy needs go unmet.
Understand, I am not a "global warming denier"; I am a global warming skeptic, especially the claim that it is anthropomorphic. Be that as it may, reducing pollution always is something that is in our own enlightened self-interest but it must be balanced against the potential costs. You see, the only way to eliminate anthropomorphic generated pollution is to eliminate the anthro part of the equation. You possibly can reduce some of the pollution, but pretty much anything that humans do is going to create some pollution ... actually, just by existing we humans pollute the planet.
With 7 billion and increasing, humans are in a fix. Why? Because most of the world lives in what Americans would perceive as abject poverty and those people aspire, for the most part, to bring their standards of living up to something equivalent to what they see on their mass media. The problem with that is that is that it takes energy to do that, and lots and lots and lots of energy.
Unfortunately for the world, most people get that needed energy from evil, polluting, carbon-based sources. Yes, there are other ways to generate energy, but unfortunately - for various and sundry reasons, at least to my knowledge - they are either unacceptable or just not ready for the major leagues yet (or in many ways, dependent on our carbon-based energy sources to be created).
I just wonder how many people these adherents to crushing the carbon-energy-based world want to die, because they will die when the distribution systems collapse for the lack of fuel, and manufacturing economies die because of lack of raw materials and energy. But that will not be my problem as I probably will die before it becomes a problem for my neck of the woods.
The second thing in that article that really disturbed me was way down at the end when it said that President Obama told the Chinese leadership that the US would not intervene in any of China's territorial disputes with its neighbors in the South China Sea. Does anyone remember how the US got itself involved in the Korean War or the First Persian Gulf War (aka Desert Shield/Desert Storm)? Well, I do.
For those who don't remember, in 1950, the Truman Administration made the announcement that the Korean peninsula was outside the areas of American interest ... and the North Koreans promptly invaded the South. In 1990, the Bush I administration essentially told Saddam Hussein that US would not intervene in its border dispute with Kuwait and the Iraqis promptly invaded. OOOPSIE!
Now, President Obama is telling the Chinese that its disputes with our friends and allies who border the South China Sea that we will not intervene to assist them as we are obligated to do by treaty in some cases. Now, you can argue the wisdom of said treaties, but they do exist and saying that we are no longer interested in supporting our friends in the area, well ... that does not engender a lot of trust in the US ... not that most of them trust all that much anyway, given the fickleness of of American leadership.
Still, these things bother me. I can't do anything about them, except maybe express my concern and vent those concerns here.
