You know, China's starting to piss me off. And I don't feel comfortable saying that because all the reasons I have for being pissed off at them are things that the U.S. could rightly be accused of. I suppose that's one reason they make me angry. They've been very critical of the West for a long time and yet they are now doing many of the things they've criticized us for.
I read today that they are now the world leader in CO2 emissions. This was expected because of their population and economic growth. But it was expected 15 years from now. And they didn't just pass us by a little. They passed us by 8% with no slowdown in sight. If all the EU countries conform to the Kyoto protocols, Europe is expected to decrease CO2 emissions by less than 200 million tons annually. China is expected to pump 600 million tons or more into the atmosphere. So, why should EU countries even bother to hurt themselves economically trying to meet standards that don't matter as long as China thumbs its nose?
Again, the U.S. is the second leading CO2 emitter and we're not working that hard either. We didn't sign Kyoto and our industries fight even single step towards fuel economy and emission standards. But this is exactly my point. For years China has accused the West of not caring about global warming. They have, rightly, said they we built our economy while polluting the planet and we didn't give a damn about anyone else. America can't deny some of these charges. Still, during the industrial revolution and early 20th century, when most of America's infrastructure was built, no one knew anything about the potential effects of CO2 on the climate. While we certainly have to accept blame for what we have done, and continue to do, at least for a good period of time we didn't know any better.
This is not about the environment to me. As you can see from my last post, that ship has sailed. I think humans will continue to alter their environment and challenge evolution to keep up. This is about the fact that today we know better. We have more science. We have more alternatives. Yet China, who has never had a problem painting the U.S. as an evil empire, is rushing headlong into developing more coal-fired powerplants and producing harmful emissions of all kinds at unprecedented levels. That to me is inexcusable and abhorrent. While ignorance is not always an excuse, if you do something harmful without knowing it is harmful, you can at least be forgiven a bit. But to have all the facts at your fingertips and still pursue your own goals at the expense of the rest of the world is not even civilized.
China accuses us of being polluters. They've now surpassed us. They accuse us of being imperialist but they continue to maintain their hold over Tibet and persist in the buildup of their military. They consider us dogmatic but they prevent free speech, restrict internet usage, and deny many basic freedoms to their citizenry. My point is not the the U.S. is a perfect place. Rather, I simply think it's time that China stop criticizing anyone else in the world. They are now the leading offender on so many fronts that they no longer have credibility to comment on environmental, social, or moral issues. I'd like to see our leaders, and those in the rest of the world, start asserting this position.
2 comments:
I'm totally sick of China, too, and I think they're getting dangerously loopy. There are the dissidents who are rounded up, imprisoned, and then executed, and then there are dissidents who are rounded up, imprisoned, tortured, and then executed.
I think when the IOC was tooling around a few years back and decided to pick Beijing for these games, a little mouse probably scurried across my brain with a banner that read, "This will turn out badly." But I basically forgot all about it. Now I can't figure out how in the living hell the IOC squeaked this through. Tibet will milk this (Yak's milk, of course) for all its worth, and they should. Still I feel very badly for the athletes. They've all worked hard for the opportunity to compete, and now this mess.
A woman who was born and raised in China works in our office. She and her sister are two of the most talented women I've ever met. The school they went to as girls in the mountains had dirt floors; the teachers were miserable, mean people. Only the love and dedication of their parents and their own determination got them the hell outta there.
This is what is different about China. At least as the US started to become a superpower we had some sort of moral compass. It wasn't always on (e.g, civil rights abuses, the death penalty, workers rights in the early 20th century) but we don't generally imprison people without due process or torture them or kill them merely for being dissenters. Frankly, I think it will be interesting to see what happens as a country amasses the kind of power China is developing yet still acts in a tyrannical fashion towards its citizenry. If they spread around a bit of the wealth, it'll probably work okay because people are sheep but if they continue to keep their feet on people's throats it seems like there are going to be big problems.
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