The Axis Of Green
Smokestacks painting grey skies
Is it true that what is about to happen in China, will render anything that we in the west do to ‘combat’ climate change completely irrevelant?
Between 2004 and 2006, China’s wealth grew by one-third. Last year the Chinese exported nearly £1 trillion of goods, and it is predicted by some economists that by the 2040s the Chinese economy will outstrip that of America. There are now 40 cities in China with a population of over a million, and about a dozen are bigger than London.
Most Chinese people have yet to drive a car, and hundreds of millions of them live in homes without proper electricity or telephones, but China is growing.
…it is predicted by some economists that by the 2040s the Chinese economy will outstrip that of America.
In 2005 China added the equivalent of all the power plants in Norway and Sweden to its electricity-generating capacity. Most of their electricity is currently produced by burning dirty coal in old-fashioned power stations, the environmental effects of which kill 400,000 Chinese people every year.
When a country makes the transistion from poverty to wealth and moves towards a standard of living that we in the west have taken for granted for half a century or more, who are we to condemn their aspirations. If the Chinese want cars, foreign holidays and central heating then who are we to advise against it? We can only hope that with their new found prosperity China may once again become an intellectual and scientific giant, as well as an industrial one.
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The Axis Of Green
Smokestacks painting grey skies
Is it true that what is about to happen in China, will render anything that we in the west do to ‘combat’ climate change completely irrevelant?
Between 2004 and 2006, China’s wealth grew by one-third. Last year the Chinese exported nearly £1 trillion of goods, and it is predicted by some economists that by the 2040s the Chinese economy will outstrip that of America. There are now 40 cities in China with a population of over a million, and about a dozen are bigger than London.
Most Chinese people have yet to drive a car, and hundreds of millions of them live in homes without proper electricity or telephones, but China is growing.
In 2005 China added the equivalent of all the power plants in Norway and Sweden to its electricity-generating capacity. Most of their electricity is currently produced by burning dirty coal in old-fashioned power stations, the environmental effects of which kill 400,000 Chinese people every year.
When a country makes the transistion from poverty to wealth and moves towards a standard of living that we in the west have taken for granted for half a century or more, who are we to condemn their aspirations. If the Chinese want cars, foreign holidays and central heating then who are we to advise against it? We can only hope that with their new found prosperity China may once again become an intellectual and scientific giant, as well as an industrial one.
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