Latest comments posted about Ecological civilisation is the way forward on ChinaDialogue en-gb http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/1440-Ecological-civilisation-is-the-way-forward http://staging.chinadialogue.net/images/cdlogo.gif http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/1440-Ecological-civilisation-is-the-way-forward Only when the notion of the minority becomes thought of the majority can the improvement of the society become reality. Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:54:42 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-5872 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-5872 As an environmentalist who have been working for more than 10 years , I realize that Chinese are facing a strong temptation, which requires strong will to resist. Affluent life can be seen in a more convenient and comfortable way of travelling- by air and in private car, and a more relaxed home environment- rooms with comfortable temperature, modern appliance and other commodities. Those are nothing new to people in the West, but still appear to be alluring to Chinese.I don't have a private car, and I cycle to places nearby or take a bus to those far away. Years ago, I couldn't afford a car while in recent years, I have been trying to resist the temptation of buying one. More and more people I know possess their own cars, which forms a sharp contrast in terms of life quality and consequently, buying a car appears to be more alluring. To save time and be comfortable, I choose travelling to other provinces by air on occasion,but this is because the journey may take more than 20 hours by train; my home in central China doesn't have heating facilities and neither do most of cities in this region. In winter, the indoor temperature is lower than 10 degree, and it feels much warmer and more comfortable if people turn on their air-con or use furnace,raising the temperature to 22 degree. this can be affordable, thus it requires great will power not to do so ....I am trying my best to resist the temptation of living a more comfortable life (at the cost of environment), and I would like to see more people doing so. Jiayue Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:20:58 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-5724 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-5724 I have to say, comment 3 does a very good job to represent some mindsets of arrogance and ignorance in the developed (or early developed) world which exactly lead the world to the situation today. Go to the developing world and have a look of the under poverty families, you will then understand why those nasty, humble, dirty and horrible jobs that you don't want to do anymore are the lifeline of these families and has hope for their future. In the free capital free trade market undergoing globalisation, developing countries with cheap material and labour, lax regulation and high return of investment of course becomes a natural choice for many, so they can maximize the profit and keep raising arrogant minds that you have. It is clever to see what China would say about the transferred pollution. But refuse to take responsibility and push the blame to who suffers it is simply just coward! Look at Africa, look at Latin America, where is the alternative path you are pointing for China? Let alone the other examples being blamed together with China, India and Brazil. Should they just remain lagging behind and only poor tourist hot-spot of "civilized" people so you can still be proud of yourself? Climate change and other environmental threats are emergency that needs dealing with right now. But what is even more urgent for many people in developing world is how to feed their family tomorrow. Without understanding their “immediate emergency” and do real things to help getting rid of them, you can get no one supporting you but just keep shouting to the air, hot air!! Yes you are right; putting 1000 car on road a day is a big thing to China, that means 1000 Chinese are having their first car ever in their lives. But it may be nothing at all in your country, because many of you already get bored with your second car, or third! Wake up from your self-righteous dream! Step down to the ground of reality and try to think from the others side before you start blaming!! Thu, 08 Nov 2007 14:21:19 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-4564 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-4564 I am very sorry to see your new comment goes back to the position you had before. In order to reduce the unnecessary translation workload for chinadialogue, I will keep this short and hope to draw an end. 1. You definitively need to learn again the meaning of "have to", especially its meaning when you are facing billions of hungry mouths! 2. I repeat here, no one said developing countries should target at those consumerist and wasteful lifestyle of developed world today, and none have taken it as a granted right of people in developing countries, only except you keep assuming that and make it ground of your argument. 3. A nation has a whole lot of emergencies and priorities to be dealt with, and therefore cannot afford to throw all its resources at one basket. Although individuals like you with sufficient living conditions can, which we appreciate, please be more considerate to other's decision. I don't want to comment on THE war, it will have its own fair judgement and consequence at the end. The other points you raised should have been answered by my previous comment. Hope that is helpful to you, only if you so wish too. Tao Wang Fri, 09 Nov 2007 10:32:58 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-4569 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-4569 Your close concern to China is really appreciated, so are your own efforts to reducing individual ecological footprints. If you had lowered your voice and fingers in your previous comment and starting from understanding and consideration to developing world, as you did in the later comment, I would not have been so hostile to you, for what I would like to apologise now. I can see now our points start merging. However, as pointed out in the other comment, no one is saying China or developing world wants to copy the development path of west until they reach the development aims. That simply requires more than ten Earths to support, and no one is foolish enough to aim at that, nor can they. I hope you have heard of "common but differentiate responsibility". Facing global challenges such as climate change (but not only this), it is important to have clear duty and responsibility for every actor in participation. It is simply not right to treat everyone in the same way, and for this reason I urged you to think more from developing world's side and understand their immediate concern. Pumping hot air with splendid slogan really doesn't help in this case. Face the fact and realise the difference is the first step to a widely accepted long term framework of action, but no one is saying developing world will do no contribution to this and just pushing that to west. There has been a lot effort done in developing countries to tackle climate change and trying to slow down their emission growth, even though some of them are not for climate change directly. The developing world is the most vulnerable to environmental threats and they even take it more seriously than many developed countries as that is a matter of life or death to them. If you lower your position and pay attention, you can find many reports on that too, including the car issue you raised. They might not be as obvious as those in developed countries, but you have to stand at their side, not yours before you can appreciate that. Again, there is a question mark, as highlighted by pollution transfer, on how much west has really done, and how much the effort in developing countries has been overshadowed by that. Finally, I would emphasise that again, it is a very complicated world and an even more complicated issues for climate change and other environmental threat, don't be simplistic as you appear in the first comment. China is not playing victim, nor are other developing countries. Everyone is victim of degraded environment, and even more so for people in developing world. The fact is that, they have not been treated as victims as they are for centuries! Tao Wang Fri, 09 Nov 2007 08:40:38 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-4568 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-4568 Tao, Firstly, thanks for the apology. I hoped I've demonstrated here that not all westerners are rapacious capitalists who only care about money. I think also it's important for you to understand that the transfer of dirty jobs to the developing world is not as simple as being just a case of handing down the work we didn't want to the poor. For instance, my uncle was for years a very well paid miner. He's now a not-so-well paid lorry driver. Him and hundreds of thousands of others, laobaixing if you like, in Britain fought hard to stop their jobs going to the developing world. Britain virtually has no manufacturing sector nowadays because it has all been transferred. This isn't because ordinary people didn't want the dirty industries (in fact they did, because jobs in the steel and mining industries were well paid), it is because the unaccountable leaders in our capitalist economies colluded with equally unaccountable post communist leaders among others in the developing world. The losers, as we both know, are the ordinary people who have to suffer the pollution in the developing world and the skilled workers in the west who've had to take lower paid jobs in the service sector. If we carry on with free market capitalism in its current form, in a hundred years or so China, India and Brazil, will be transferring their dirty jobs to Africa, and the debate we're having now will be repeated. As for "common but differentiated responsibilities", I agree with that standpoint. The west has to use its wealth advantage to develop climate change-tackling technology and do the decent thing and transfer that technology free of charge, or at least at cost price, without patents to developing countries. However, developing countries cannot wait until they're fully industrialised before making drastic cuts in CO2 emissions, or shall we say 不可以两天钓鱼三天晒网！ Fri, 09 Nov 2007 10:59:45 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-4570 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-4570 I agree the west is massively at fault. There are many selfish people there who will not give up luxuries, such as flying or buying the latest TV set, for the sake of the planet. Then again, if they did China would be massively affected. All those people in Guangdong and other places producing goods for our consumerist societies would be out of work. But you need to look at the science. The required reductions in CO2 do not permit one side to reduce its pollution and allow the other side to grow until it meets its development aims. We're in a crazy situation where people in the west are saying: "Why should I give up my car because my CO2 reductions will be replaced by what China produces in two years at its current rate of growth." At the same time the Chinese are saying: "The west has got to reduce its pollution first because it's all its fault." We're in a state of paralysis. As for the Chinese having their own cars for the first time, this is an empty dream. Again, look at the science. And look at the sky in Beijing most days. It's leading us nowhere but to the destruction of our planet. These cars won't be any use in the kind of world we are going to leave to our grandchildren, will they? Or don't you believe it will get that bad? You rightly point out that the western, capitalist nations (which China also is now) have caused and are causing the damage, but bizarrely you think you should copy it because you have the right to. Put simplistically, you're saying: "Your mistakes are terrible, but nevertheless, I'm going to repeat them whether you like it or not." This is a strange proposition. As for your assumptions about my character, I don't own a car for environmental reasons. I don't fly on holiday for environmental reasons. I recycle everything I can recycle and turn off computers, TVs etc when not in use. I am also a member of the British Green Party, and consider myself to be a socialist. I agree with everything you say about how the developing world is being exploited by the developed world. The reason I only talk about China on here is because this is called chinadialogue, not indiadialogue or brazildialogue. China also represents a fifth of humanity, so is particularly important. China has a huge problem with its environment and I believe it is quite right that pressure needs to be brought, just like with the US, India etc, over its track record. I'm sure the Chinese government understands this but like I said, stop playing the victim. Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:42:38 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-4565 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-4565 "Sorry but I'd say at least I do not see China is "playing the victim", because it IS indeed one the victims." So what you're suggesting is that China has been forced at proverbial gun point to accept western polluting industries. What I'm saying is in the absence of alternative technology, the west has to seriously ration the amount of car and air journeys it makes and rapidly increase its use of renewable energy (it is currently failing at that). At the same time I'm saying that given the current technology it would be globally catastrophic for China and India to have the same ratio of population/car ownership as the west. According to the most up-to-date science, we have to stabilise CO2 emissions by 2015 and then start to reduce them. If the combined 2.5 billion population of India and China strive for and achieve the car ownership ratios you mentioned earlier then the above target will not be possible. I know that's unpalatable but it's the truth. China's just spent 1.6 billion yuan on Chang'e 1 and is spending a similar amount on the new CCTV tower in Beijing. Surely given the science presented to us by the IPCC the money would have been better spent on developing technology to tackle climate change? This philosophy also goes for the much more money Britain and the US have spent on the devastating wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, just so you don't think I'm demonising China. Fri, 09 Nov 2007 08:36:23 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-4567 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-4567 Sorry but I'd say at least I do not see China is "playing the victim", because it IS indeed one the victims. And as a reader I don't think the comment No.4 is saying "Your mistakes are terrible, but nevertheless, I'm going to repeat them whether you like it or not", as you understood, but simply just arguing about the fact. First of all, the reductions of Carbon emission from developed countries are actually partly being transferred to developing countries, who are producing goods for global consumptions, and suffering the emissions. I can hardly agree that this is the "proper way" to reduce "national" emission. I can't agree with you more about looking at the science really. Let's review the UNSD figures of Passenger Cars being used per Thousand People (in 2002): Australia 515; Canada 560; UK 445; India 7; Kenya 8; China 10. And USA’s level was 739, in the year of 1980! No I'm NOT saying that "You have huge amount of cars so Chinese/Indian should have as same as yours", but just point out the fact. For individuals, to change lifestyles, as far as what you did, is appreciated. Climate change has becoming one of the hottest issues in the world and I truly believe more homework would be helpful to make the debate more meaningful. Fri, 09 Nov 2007 07:31:09 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-4566 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-4566 "Global capitalism has transferred the most polluting, resource-intensive and high-risk manufacturing industries to developing countries. This has allowed developed countries to alleviate the pressure on their own environments, without making any changes to their model of growth." Stop playing the victim, Ma. China doesn't have to pursue the capitalist model of growth, but that's what it's doing - rapaciously. It can't blame others for the path it has chosen. Your comments seem to be in preparation for the Chinese government's next position on climate change: when it can no longer point out that the US is the biggest emitter of CO2 it will start to blame the west for bringing capitalism to China and spoiling its environment. This is a very petty, but predictable response. We don't have time to argue who's at fault. We face an emergency that needs dealing with - right now. "China is acting responsibly, and taking environmental issues very seriously indeed." Is adding 1,000 new cars a day to the roads in Beijing "acting responsibly"? Come on China, stop treating the rest of the world like fools. Wed, 07 Nov 2007 22:13:59 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-4561 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1440#comment-4561