Electric Arc furnaces re-melt scrap steel into new steel. The scrap steel mostly comes from demolished buildings and structures and some large equipment.
China does not have many buildings and bridges old enough to demolish yet, and only a small quantity of scrapped vehicles compared to the current number being sold, which is why its steel comes from reduction of iron ore, smelting, in blast furnaces. It's going into new structures, not replacements.
China necessarily uses coal-fired blast furnaces to smelt iron ore, as will African countries when they develop.
It will not be until China and all other developing countries have reached steady state in number of buildings, structures, and vehicles, that the majority of new steel will come from recycling old steel.
Until then, there will be carbon emissions, necessarily. The more, the better, for the welfare of the people in those countries.
There will never be a country with net zero carbon emissions as long as the growth imperative continues. Not even Switzerland. Doesn't matter how much developed they are or for how long. The sysrtem requires new toys and economic growth. As AI and deep learning once again proved, there is no decoupling of energy consumption and economics.
Then they are not very smart since emissions are well on the way to the "catastrophic" two degrees of global heating (which is a lot more for some regions considering this is a global average); cutting emissions 50 years from now on is not gonna cut it. In fact producing all the tech for that "green" energy requires more carbon burning than not. And this is reality, emissions have only been increased by the "green energy" industry.
Anything for ecology that's not decreasing the total output is therefore delusional.
"And this is reality, emissions have only been increased by the "green energy" industry."
Misleading. The science.org article is a closer approximation of reality. China's "green" energy revolution is now meeting the country's burgeoning new energy demand, so its emissions have stopped increasing. Emissions have to stop increasing before they can decline! And every decrement in emissions, or even slowing of their rate of growth, below what they would be without decarbonization policies, benefits everyone in the world equally. That means the USA is riding free on China's "green" transition costs. IMHO, that's a good enough reason for US citizens to vote Democratic, as the defacto US party of collective action for public good, in every election.
First off its extremely misleading to point to China as if that was an extensible example. China AND ONLY CHINA has both the manufacturing capability *in the public sector* and the mining, and enough free capital investment to pull that off. As for Europe and USA they have private contractors, that outsource the material and construction overseas, and need to import everything, and charge a premium. China actually did this because of their state-controlled economy not a "commitment to ecology" which is pretty much non existent, in fact China always asserted its right to consume more to be on par to the United States higher per capita income. Then again emissions remain monstrously high and have only stalled. In any case, it is not extensible; as you should know, there are no "solar ocean freighters", and those turbines won't import themselves.
And there is also the fact that carbon fetish is not the same as ecological. Carbon can at least be absorbed by plants and is not particularly harmful to life. But the cyanide used to mine rare earth and heavy metals, particularly in strip mining, is highly noxious. And strip mining itself destroys entire provinces, tons of land has to be stripped, processed and destroyed only to get a few grams of metal. With the metals needed for (fake) "green" energy, this is only going to worsen. Yes, entire towns have been emptied and strip mined into giant holes. Not just a few of them, either, and not just in China but also in the US or Germany. Enjoy leaving Earth as a barren Swiss cheese. Even then, lithium production has to ramp up like 120x for just electric cars full replacement to be moderately viable (currently 1,4% in the US), something all analysts consider impossible (unless we just drain up the entire oceans to get the deposits on the sea floor? At this point, I wouldn't be too surprised).
"First off its extremely misleading to point to China as if that was an extensible example."
Sure, but neither the Science article nor I are doing that. China is obviously unique in this context. Not only is it a more collectivist society than the USA, but its rulers are more powerful than those of other large nations. And it is 1.4 billion people, all busy building the renewables+storage infrastructure as directed by the CCP (Britannica) or CPC (Wikipedia) leadership.
Having surpassed the USA twenty years ago (https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions), China now emits more carbon annually than any other nation, accounting for 1/3 of the global annual total. Yet while its emissions have risen along with its economic growth, they now appear to have stopped rising, as the country's crash buildout of carbon-neutral energy catches up with new demand. AFAICT, China's primary significance is in showing that collective (democratic or otherwise) intervention in the otherwise-"free" market can take the profit out of selling fossil fuels, without sacrificing economic growth. And now that it's the biggest emitter, any policy that slows the rate of its emissions growth causes a proportional decrement in the rate of global warming below what it would be otherwise.
Meanwhile, 6.9 billion other people and counting are surviving and pursuing happiness by socializing as much of their environmental cost as they can get away with; a few nations have already reached peak annual emissions. The USA, still dragging its collective feet, must take its own path to decarbonization: I, for one, don't wish to live under the CCP. And the CPC's primary motives for investing in carbon-neutral energy are strategic (energy security, economic dominance, and avoidance of climate risk), not "ecological". That's true of all common-pool resource tragedies: any collective intervention is motivated by each individual's concern for themselves and their families, and the recognition that only "mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon" (G. Hardin) can avert greater tragedy. Say what you will, China's top-down political structure makes coercion, mutually agreed or not, relatively easy to implement.
As to your 2nd paragraph, you sound like a professional disinformer. Despite your insistence that "clean" or "green" energy is "fake", you don't own those words any more than I do. Any English-speaking adult can infer from context that they are simply convenient, short labels for "marginally less destructive than transferring fossil carbon to the atmosphere by the gigatonnes annually". Perfectly clean is the enemy of cleaner-than-it-is-now! We shouldn't have to spell that out every time.
Yes, every market transaction socializes some cost between buyer and seller. And so far, no one connected to the global marketplace, however tenuously, can escape responsibility for some fossil carbon emission. But it's clear to everyone but you that the marginal social cost of every kWh of fossil fuel sold, is greater than that of current renewable alternatives. Those costs will need to be collectively minimized to the extent feasible. But every decrement in global fossil carbon emissions, whether in gigatonnes, gigatonnes per year, or gigatonnes/year/year, buys everyone more time. I'd personally prefer that, to ever faster global warming. And I'd prefer the USA not ride free on other nations' collective efforts.
You, OTOH, are a motivated obstructionist, and a tar baby. I've said enough.
We have heard of the successes of renewable energy in China, but I would also like to know of their activities in other countries, where they are building coal plants, e.g. i Africa. With the future population growth being mainly in Africa, this is a concern.
What about imported emissions? from my calculations they are over a billion tco2 equivalent and growing much from methane from coal. ? If one were to calibrate deforestation properly with its impact on the hydrological cycle and soil degassing especially peat land then this could be much higher.
I think you should check some other sources on China. You are most likely not getting anything that the CCP has not designated as "truthful," and that means it's all coming from the Communist Mouthpieces, which seem legitimate at first glance, but are all funded by the CCP--directly or indirectly. Steel your will to look at some opposing viewpoints on this subject and you may find that you're being misled--unless you are willingly engaged in misleading others?
The people who are normally providing the data are bought and paid for by the CCP and those who are supportive of them. You will have to look at some truly independent sources if you want to even come close to the truth. Take a look at the human rights organizations and see what they’re saying.
I don't think you actually read that Science article. Maybe you're not familiar with the publication, but trust me, its readers are trained not to be fooled. The reporter, Paul Voosen, has a track record of following the evidence where it leads, and the journalistic accolades to show for it. He goes into detail about all sources of uncertainty. It doesn't sound like he trusts the CCP's public data all that much either, so unless you can point me at probative documentation, I won't believe his sources are all bought and paid for by the CCP, unbeknownst to him! And why would you credit your human rights organizations more than the premier venue of record for American peer-reviewed science? Now if you can cite equally verifiable sources of other data, you'd have an argument. Otherwise, I'm done.
Uh. The Epoch Times is not a credible source. It shows up uninvited in my mailbox from time to time. Whoo boy! According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epoch_Times):
"The Epoch Times is a far-right[1] international multi-language newspaper and media company affiliated with the Falun Gong new religious movement.[9][10][11][12]".
Close enough. Your linked opinion piece doesn't absolve the CCP of anything, but is hardly probative of their perversely wicked intent either. I have high confidence in Dr. Ritchie and Science.org, and none at all in your source. Try harder. Or not. I've stopped paying attention.
Wikipedia was hi-jacked by leftists many years ago, so it cannot be trusted. If you want the truth about things, you will have to look at some of what the leftists call “far-right” stuff, because the left is what is hijacking the truth. Of course, if you don’t believe that, then you will just go along with whatever the left wants you to believe. Maybe you will come across something “on your own” that will help you. I am truly sorry that I could not. Good luck to you.
Please share those sources you're talking about. Otherwise you're just making claims without proof. All respectable analysts are reporting similar results as Hannah
You are mistaken. You are also not looking elsewhere for other predictions and forecasts. It isn't my job to help you figure out the truth. It is your job to find it for yourself. I am just asking you to try harder. It is up to you to do it. If you feel confident that you are getting the truth, then no sources I might provide you would change your mind--if you even bothered to look at them. The truth is out there, but each of us is responsible to look for it ourselves. Good luck to you.
You just regurgitate propaganda and have not provided any single of those "sources"
In any case, the CPC (there is no such thing as the "CCP") is just playing catch up in the US-led capitalist world order that necessitates complete subordination to the profit motive.
You are just regurgitating Communist propaganda. ;) Do some more research; I've been doing this for 25+ years. And, yes, the Chinese Communist Party is the illegitimate government of China and has been in power for 75+ years. And, any country that would use human beings as unwilling organ donors--FOR PROFIT--is wicked at its very foundation.
Did I say I was done? I lied, sue me. "Do some research"? How do you know we'll discover something Mr. Voosen didn't? I'm reasonably confident neither he nor Ms. Ritchie are wicked. Wickedness aside, Ms. Gay, it's incumbent on you to cite some evidence for your claim that all the sources for Mr. Voosen's Science article are manipulated by the CCP (a widely-used alternative to 'CPC', though not preferred by the party itself). If you've been doing this for 25+ years, surely you can link us to your most trustworthy sources. I for one don't have 25 years to become an expert. I'm inclined to trust the article more than I trust you. The ball's in your court.
Thanks Hannah: I'm a facilitator for Climate Fresk workshops and during the "Orders of Magnitude" section before I get to the bit about why its important for Canada to reduce GHG emissions (~1.5% of global), I also state it's extremely important what the "big guys" do, like China. at 26.0%, Great insight.
I’m curious as to how one can call mass-produced industrial products and all the hydrocarbon-based and ecologically-destructive processes that are required for their production ‘clean’?
Agree "clean" and "dirty" can be misleading labels. The underlying reality is always a sliding scale of carbon intensity, and difficult trade-offs.
But if a one-off burst of carbon-intensive industrial activity produces a product like an EV that is much more energy-efficient than a gas-burning car over a 15-20 year lifespan, then we know it's a significant net emissions reduction across the whole system.
So we don't need to wait for the EV factories to switch to renewables to access big emissions savings now, but yes they do need to go green, to make the savings bigger.
And consumers need some simple label like "clean" or "dirty" to understand that an EV is massively less carbon-intensive across its lifespan than a gas car.
You’re viewing the issue through what is known as carbon tunnel vision that completely ignores all the other ecological destruction that accompanies industrial production. There’s significantly more to consider than just what is emitted from an ICE vehicle’s tailpipe. Labelling an EV ‘clean’ is a wonderful marketing simplification to help alleviate cognitive dissonance but it distorts reality in the extreme.
I agree there's significantly more than climate change to consider before the global economy can actually be sustainable in the long term. But this is a blog post about energy and climate in China. Dr. Ritchie didn't write the post you thought she should? You could always write your own, and post it on your own substack.
I, for one, learned in the 1970s that humanity's aggregate impact on the biosphere is a function of our population size, per-capita income, and per-capita technological force multipliers. Just because we're talking about anthropogenic climate change, doesn't mean we're ignoring all the other impacts humanity has, on every scale. It just means we're not including everything we know in a single post or comment. That really would be TL;DR!
Beyond that, I'm pretty sure everyone here but you agrees that "clean" is a relative judgement. Decarbonization by itself will only cap the otherwise open-ended rise of global heat content, while all our other impacts will continue until collective intervention mitigates them one by one, or until our population shrinks enough. That's because everyone alive, including you, consumes resources, excretes waste, and socializes every transaction cost they can get away with on the global "free" market. The only way to be "clean" in your absolute terms is to die now, leaving no offspring. You first!
You've constructed a strawman. I did not argue for 'absolute cleanliness'. My point is precisely about relative judgement and honest communication.
Labelling an EV or non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies 'clean' is marketing simplification that obscures the very real, non-carbon ecological costs of the production of these technologies. This isn't about demanding perfection, it's about demanding honest, systemic thinking and language that reflects this. The use of the word 'clean' to describe these technologies does not do this; not even close.
Calling something 'clean' when it is no such thing (and especially without qualification) misleads the public into thinking the sustainability issue is solved via such technologies when in reality we've only shifted part of the burden.
My broader point is this: if we are to make truly sustainable decisions, we need labels and narratives that reflect multidimensional impacts, not just the one we're currently focussed upon. That's how we might mitigate one crisis without exacerbating others.
By framing my critique of a misleading label as a demand for impossible purity, you're avoiding the more important discussion about how language shapes our perception of sustainability.
And if you'd like to read my Substack with many posts oriented towards these issues, you can find it here: https://stevebull.substack.com/
Ah, you're not here for dialogue, but for clicks. I, for one, will not be visiting your substack, having seen all of you I need to. But as Dog is my witness, I can't help making a parting shot here:
"You've constructed a strawman. I did not argue for 'absolute cleanliness'. My point is precisely about relative judgement and honest communication."
Then be honest. Previously you said: (my emphasis):
"You’re viewing the issue through what is known as carbon tunnel vision that *completely ignores* all the other ecological destruction that accompanies industrial production."
That doesn't sound relative to me, and it's false, as I just got through explaining. Then you say (my emphasis again):
"Calling something 'clean' when it is *no such thing*"
We've already agreed 'clean' energy means 'quantifiably cleaner than fossil fuels', and literally no one here is claiming solar, wind and batteries are completely without some environmental cost! Lastly:
"By framing my critique of a misleading label as a demand for impossible purity, you're avoiding the more important discussion about how language shapes our perception of sustainability."
Please be honest, at least with yourself. Or not: I doubt anyone's paying attention by now anyway. Nonetheless, my framing was accurate. You came here with with demands for impossible purity, and have made more since then!
More substantively: I don't actually disagree that a "truly sustainable society" requires much more than just decarbonization, and I said so previously. Where we differ, as I've also said, is on what the "more important" discussion is for 8-10 billion people in the next 25-30 years, relative to other specific global "environmental" impacts modeled within I = fn(P,A,T). Neither you, I, nor Dr. Ritchie can decide what's important for everyone, but global warming is global, and already tragic!
This OP and comment thread are specifically discussing collectively capping the rising trend of global heat content as quickly as political feasible. If we don't do that, we're facing open-ended disaster, with ever-mounting casualties in homes, livelihoods and lives around the world, and we'll won't have time to collectively address the broader sustainability problem. From my perspective, your insistence on making that the center of every discussion is obstructing an effective response to the clear immediate threat!
Whew. It feels good to vent, even if nobody else cares. I sure hope we're done here, if we weren't already.
Interesting that you begin with a personal attack that dismisses me as a self-promoter, when my inclusion of a link to my Substack is a direct response to your initial comment that challenged me to write my own articles and post them.
Regardless, you've again misrepresented my position. At no point have I argued against urgent decarbonization or claimed that non-carbon impacts are more important than climate change (although some might be—check out the Stockholm Resilience Centre’s work on planetary boundaries). My argument is that honest accounting of all impacts is necessary for effective long-term mitigations. The choice is not 'decarbonize now OR think systemically later.' It is possible and necessary to pursue the former while preparing for the latter, precisely to avoid the problem-shifting you acknowledged.
Calling an industrial product 'clean' is a form of dishonest accounting. It's a marketing term that, by design, narrows the public's focus. My critique is that this linguistic framing is counterproductive to the very systemic resilience we need.
We clearly agree on the staggering urgency of the climate crisis. Where we seem to differ is my belief that public understanding of trade-offs and full-system impacts makes decarbonization efforts more robust and durable, not less. Framing this as 'obstruction' is a profound misunderstanding.
Finally you are correct, we are done; however, I do hope that what appears to be our shared goal of a livable planet is advanced by all available means.
Electric Arc furnaces re-melt scrap steel into new steel. The scrap steel mostly comes from demolished buildings and structures and some large equipment.
China does not have many buildings and bridges old enough to demolish yet, and only a small quantity of scrapped vehicles compared to the current number being sold, which is why its steel comes from reduction of iron ore, smelting, in blast furnaces. It's going into new structures, not replacements.
China necessarily uses coal-fired blast furnaces to smelt iron ore, as will African countries when they develop.
It will not be until China and all other developing countries have reached steady state in number of buildings, structures, and vehicles, that the majority of new steel will come from recycling old steel.
Until then, there will be carbon emissions, necessarily. The more, the better, for the welfare of the people in those countries.
There will never be a country with net zero carbon emissions as long as the growth imperative continues. Not even Switzerland. Doesn't matter how much developed they are or for how long. The sysrtem requires new toys and economic growth. As AI and deep learning once again proved, there is no decoupling of energy consumption and economics.
Energy consumption can't be decoupled from economics, but any number of smart somebodies think it can be decoupled from fossil carbon.
Yes, given sufficient time, it will be. But 'sufficient time' is of the order of a century, maybe two.
Then they are not very smart since emissions are well on the way to the "catastrophic" two degrees of global heating (which is a lot more for some regions considering this is a global average); cutting emissions 50 years from now on is not gonna cut it. In fact producing all the tech for that "green" energy requires more carbon burning than not. And this is reality, emissions have only been increased by the "green energy" industry.
Anything for ecology that's not decreasing the total output is therefore delusional.
"In fact producing all the tech for that "green" energy requires more carbon burning than not"
False. All China's new energy demand is now being met by green energy. That includes the energy used to manufacture new carbon-neutral sources. That is, their *annual* emissions are no longer increasing (https://www.science.org/content/article/global-carbon-emissions-will-soon-flatten-or-decline).
"And this is reality, emissions have only been increased by the "green energy" industry."
Misleading. The science.org article is a closer approximation of reality. China's "green" energy revolution is now meeting the country's burgeoning new energy demand, so its emissions have stopped increasing. Emissions have to stop increasing before they can decline! And every decrement in emissions, or even slowing of their rate of growth, below what they would be without decarbonization policies, benefits everyone in the world equally. That means the USA is riding free on China's "green" transition costs. IMHO, that's a good enough reason for US citizens to vote Democratic, as the defacto US party of collective action for public good, in every election.
First off its extremely misleading to point to China as if that was an extensible example. China AND ONLY CHINA has both the manufacturing capability *in the public sector* and the mining, and enough free capital investment to pull that off. As for Europe and USA they have private contractors, that outsource the material and construction overseas, and need to import everything, and charge a premium. China actually did this because of their state-controlled economy not a "commitment to ecology" which is pretty much non existent, in fact China always asserted its right to consume more to be on par to the United States higher per capita income. Then again emissions remain monstrously high and have only stalled. In any case, it is not extensible; as you should know, there are no "solar ocean freighters", and those turbines won't import themselves.
And there is also the fact that carbon fetish is not the same as ecological. Carbon can at least be absorbed by plants and is not particularly harmful to life. But the cyanide used to mine rare earth and heavy metals, particularly in strip mining, is highly noxious. And strip mining itself destroys entire provinces, tons of land has to be stripped, processed and destroyed only to get a few grams of metal. With the metals needed for (fake) "green" energy, this is only going to worsen. Yes, entire towns have been emptied and strip mined into giant holes. Not just a few of them, either, and not just in China but also in the US or Germany. Enjoy leaving Earth as a barren Swiss cheese. Even then, lithium production has to ramp up like 120x for just electric cars full replacement to be moderately viable (currently 1,4% in the US), something all analysts consider impossible (unless we just drain up the entire oceans to get the deposits on the sea floor? At this point, I wouldn't be too surprised).
"First off its extremely misleading to point to China as if that was an extensible example."
Sure, but neither the Science article nor I are doing that. China is obviously unique in this context. Not only is it a more collectivist society than the USA, but its rulers are more powerful than those of other large nations. And it is 1.4 billion people, all busy building the renewables+storage infrastructure as directed by the CCP (Britannica) or CPC (Wikipedia) leadership.
Having surpassed the USA twenty years ago (https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions), China now emits more carbon annually than any other nation, accounting for 1/3 of the global annual total. Yet while its emissions have risen along with its economic growth, they now appear to have stopped rising, as the country's crash buildout of carbon-neutral energy catches up with new demand. AFAICT, China's primary significance is in showing that collective (democratic or otherwise) intervention in the otherwise-"free" market can take the profit out of selling fossil fuels, without sacrificing economic growth. And now that it's the biggest emitter, any policy that slows the rate of its emissions growth causes a proportional decrement in the rate of global warming below what it would be otherwise.
Meanwhile, 6.9 billion other people and counting are surviving and pursuing happiness by socializing as much of their environmental cost as they can get away with; a few nations have already reached peak annual emissions. The USA, still dragging its collective feet, must take its own path to decarbonization: I, for one, don't wish to live under the CCP. And the CPC's primary motives for investing in carbon-neutral energy are strategic (energy security, economic dominance, and avoidance of climate risk), not "ecological". That's true of all common-pool resource tragedies: any collective intervention is motivated by each individual's concern for themselves and their families, and the recognition that only "mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon" (G. Hardin) can avert greater tragedy. Say what you will, China's top-down political structure makes coercion, mutually agreed or not, relatively easy to implement.
As to your 2nd paragraph, you sound like a professional disinformer. Despite your insistence that "clean" or "green" energy is "fake", you don't own those words any more than I do. Any English-speaking adult can infer from context that they are simply convenient, short labels for "marginally less destructive than transferring fossil carbon to the atmosphere by the gigatonnes annually". Perfectly clean is the enemy of cleaner-than-it-is-now! We shouldn't have to spell that out every time.
Yes, every market transaction socializes some cost between buyer and seller. And so far, no one connected to the global marketplace, however tenuously, can escape responsibility for some fossil carbon emission. But it's clear to everyone but you that the marginal social cost of every kWh of fossil fuel sold, is greater than that of current renewable alternatives. Those costs will need to be collectively minimized to the extent feasible. But every decrement in global fossil carbon emissions, whether in gigatonnes, gigatonnes per year, or gigatonnes/year/year, buys everyone more time. I'd personally prefer that, to ever faster global warming. And I'd prefer the USA not ride free on other nations' collective efforts.
You, OTOH, are a motivated obstructionist, and a tar baby. I've said enough.
Great information as always, Hannah. Take care.
We have heard of the successes of renewable energy in China, but I would also like to know of their activities in other countries, where they are building coal plants, e.g. i Africa. With the future population growth being mainly in Africa, this is a concern.
What about imported emissions? from my calculations they are over a billion tco2 equivalent and growing much from methane from coal. ? If one were to calibrate deforestation properly with its impact on the hydrological cycle and soil degassing especially peat land then this could be much higher.
Would love your support with our new invention to fill the gaps of renewables. Energy storage. austsecology.com
I think you should check some other sources on China. You are most likely not getting anything that the CCP has not designated as "truthful," and that means it's all coming from the Communist Mouthpieces, which seem legitimate at first glance, but are all funded by the CCP--directly or indirectly. Steel your will to look at some opposing viewpoints on this subject and you may find that you're being misled--unless you are willingly engaged in misleading others?
I too am inclined to be, uh, skeptical of data coming from China. But this feature article in Science describes the pains taken by international emissions monitoring groups to reduce uncertainty in their data: https://www.science.org/content/article/global-carbon-emissions-will-soon-flatten-or-decline.
The people who are normally providing the data are bought and paid for by the CCP and those who are supportive of them. You will have to look at some truly independent sources if you want to even come close to the truth. Take a look at the human rights organizations and see what they’re saying.
I don't think you actually read that Science article. Maybe you're not familiar with the publication, but trust me, its readers are trained not to be fooled. The reporter, Paul Voosen, has a track record of following the evidence where it leads, and the journalistic accolades to show for it. He goes into detail about all sources of uncertainty. It doesn't sound like he trusts the CCP's public data all that much either, so unless you can point me at probative documentation, I won't believe his sources are all bought and paid for by the CCP, unbeknownst to him! And why would you credit your human rights organizations more than the premier venue of record for American peer-reviewed science? Now if you can cite equally verifiable sources of other data, you'd have an argument. Otherwise, I'm done.
Here's a bit: https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/green-china-runs-on-dirty-coal-5883054
Uh. The Epoch Times is not a credible source. It shows up uninvited in my mailbox from time to time. Whoo boy! According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epoch_Times):
"The Epoch Times is a far-right[1] international multi-language newspaper and media company affiliated with the Falun Gong new religious movement.[9][10][11][12]".
Close enough. Your linked opinion piece doesn't absolve the CCP of anything, but is hardly probative of their perversely wicked intent either. I have high confidence in Dr. Ritchie and Science.org, and none at all in your source. Try harder. Or not. I've stopped paying attention.
Wikipedia was hi-jacked by leftists many years ago, so it cannot be trusted. If you want the truth about things, you will have to look at some of what the leftists call “far-right” stuff, because the left is what is hijacking the truth. Of course, if you don’t believe that, then you will just go along with whatever the left wants you to believe. Maybe you will come across something “on your own” that will help you. I am truly sorry that I could not. Good luck to you.
Please share those sources you're talking about. Otherwise you're just making claims without proof. All respectable analysts are reporting similar results as Hannah
here's a bit: https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/green-china-runs-on-dirty-coal-5883054
You are mistaken. You are also not looking elsewhere for other predictions and forecasts. It isn't my job to help you figure out the truth. It is your job to find it for yourself. I am just asking you to try harder. It is up to you to do it. If you feel confident that you are getting the truth, then no sources I might provide you would change your mind--if you even bothered to look at them. The truth is out there, but each of us is responsible to look for it ourselves. Good luck to you.
You just regurgitate propaganda and have not provided any single of those "sources"
In any case, the CPC (there is no such thing as the "CCP") is just playing catch up in the US-led capitalist world order that necessitates complete subordination to the profit motive.
You are just regurgitating Communist propaganda. ;) Do some more research; I've been doing this for 25+ years. And, yes, the Chinese Communist Party is the illegitimate government of China and has been in power for 75+ years. And, any country that would use human beings as unwilling organ donors--FOR PROFIT--is wicked at its very foundation.
The american democrat-republican party (yes they were once the same party) has been in power for 100+ years. I have no interest in whatever you puke
here's a bit: https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/green-china-runs-on-dirty-coal-5883054
"you puke"? LOL! OK, you obstructionist, you!
Did I say I was done? I lied, sue me. "Do some research"? How do you know we'll discover something Mr. Voosen didn't? I'm reasonably confident neither he nor Ms. Ritchie are wicked. Wickedness aside, Ms. Gay, it's incumbent on you to cite some evidence for your claim that all the sources for Mr. Voosen's Science article are manipulated by the CCP (a widely-used alternative to 'CPC', though not preferred by the party itself). If you've been doing this for 25+ years, surely you can link us to your most trustworthy sources. I for one don't have 25 years to become an expert. I'm inclined to trust the article more than I trust you. The ball's in your court.
What portion of reduced oil usage in transport is due to adoption on LNG and CNG is heavy vehicles?
Thanks Hannah: I'm a facilitator for Climate Fresk workshops and during the "Orders of Magnitude" section before I get to the bit about why its important for Canada to reduce GHG emissions (~1.5% of global), I also state it's extremely important what the "big guys" do, like China. at 26.0%, Great insight.
I’m curious as to how one can call mass-produced industrial products and all the hydrocarbon-based and ecologically-destructive processes that are required for their production ‘clean’?
Agree "clean" and "dirty" can be misleading labels. The underlying reality is always a sliding scale of carbon intensity, and difficult trade-offs.
But if a one-off burst of carbon-intensive industrial activity produces a product like an EV that is much more energy-efficient than a gas-burning car over a 15-20 year lifespan, then we know it's a significant net emissions reduction across the whole system.
So we don't need to wait for the EV factories to switch to renewables to access big emissions savings now, but yes they do need to go green, to make the savings bigger.
And consumers need some simple label like "clean" or "dirty" to understand that an EV is massively less carbon-intensive across its lifespan than a gas car.
You’re viewing the issue through what is known as carbon tunnel vision that completely ignores all the other ecological destruction that accompanies industrial production. There’s significantly more to consider than just what is emitted from an ICE vehicle’s tailpipe. Labelling an EV ‘clean’ is a wonderful marketing simplification to help alleviate cognitive dissonance but it distorts reality in the extreme.
I agree there's significantly more than climate change to consider before the global economy can actually be sustainable in the long term. But this is a blog post about energy and climate in China. Dr. Ritchie didn't write the post you thought she should? You could always write your own, and post it on your own substack.
I, for one, learned in the 1970s that humanity's aggregate impact on the biosphere is a function of our population size, per-capita income, and per-capita technological force multipliers. Just because we're talking about anthropogenic climate change, doesn't mean we're ignoring all the other impacts humanity has, on every scale. It just means we're not including everything we know in a single post or comment. That really would be TL;DR!
Beyond that, I'm pretty sure everyone here but you agrees that "clean" is a relative judgement. Decarbonization by itself will only cap the otherwise open-ended rise of global heat content, while all our other impacts will continue until collective intervention mitigates them one by one, or until our population shrinks enough. That's because everyone alive, including you, consumes resources, excretes waste, and socializes every transaction cost they can get away with on the global "free" market. The only way to be "clean" in your absolute terms is to die now, leaving no offspring. You first!
You've constructed a strawman. I did not argue for 'absolute cleanliness'. My point is precisely about relative judgement and honest communication.
Labelling an EV or non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies 'clean' is marketing simplification that obscures the very real, non-carbon ecological costs of the production of these technologies. This isn't about demanding perfection, it's about demanding honest, systemic thinking and language that reflects this. The use of the word 'clean' to describe these technologies does not do this; not even close.
Calling something 'clean' when it is no such thing (and especially without qualification) misleads the public into thinking the sustainability issue is solved via such technologies when in reality we've only shifted part of the burden.
My broader point is this: if we are to make truly sustainable decisions, we need labels and narratives that reflect multidimensional impacts, not just the one we're currently focussed upon. That's how we might mitigate one crisis without exacerbating others.
By framing my critique of a misleading label as a demand for impossible purity, you're avoiding the more important discussion about how language shapes our perception of sustainability.
And if you'd like to read my Substack with many posts oriented towards these issues, you can find it here: https://stevebull.substack.com/
Ah, you're not here for dialogue, but for clicks. I, for one, will not be visiting your substack, having seen all of you I need to. But as Dog is my witness, I can't help making a parting shot here:
"You've constructed a strawman. I did not argue for 'absolute cleanliness'. My point is precisely about relative judgement and honest communication."
Then be honest. Previously you said: (my emphasis):
"You’re viewing the issue through what is known as carbon tunnel vision that *completely ignores* all the other ecological destruction that accompanies industrial production."
That doesn't sound relative to me, and it's false, as I just got through explaining. Then you say (my emphasis again):
"Calling something 'clean' when it is *no such thing*"
We've already agreed 'clean' energy means 'quantifiably cleaner than fossil fuels', and literally no one here is claiming solar, wind and batteries are completely without some environmental cost! Lastly:
"By framing my critique of a misleading label as a demand for impossible purity, you're avoiding the more important discussion about how language shapes our perception of sustainability."
Please be honest, at least with yourself. Or not: I doubt anyone's paying attention by now anyway. Nonetheless, my framing was accurate. You came here with with demands for impossible purity, and have made more since then!
More substantively: I don't actually disagree that a "truly sustainable society" requires much more than just decarbonization, and I said so previously. Where we differ, as I've also said, is on what the "more important" discussion is for 8-10 billion people in the next 25-30 years, relative to other specific global "environmental" impacts modeled within I = fn(P,A,T). Neither you, I, nor Dr. Ritchie can decide what's important for everyone, but global warming is global, and already tragic!
This OP and comment thread are specifically discussing collectively capping the rising trend of global heat content as quickly as political feasible. If we don't do that, we're facing open-ended disaster, with ever-mounting casualties in homes, livelihoods and lives around the world, and we'll won't have time to collectively address the broader sustainability problem. From my perspective, your insistence on making that the center of every discussion is obstructing an effective response to the clear immediate threat!
Whew. It feels good to vent, even if nobody else cares. I sure hope we're done here, if we weren't already.
Interesting that you begin with a personal attack that dismisses me as a self-promoter, when my inclusion of a link to my Substack is a direct response to your initial comment that challenged me to write my own articles and post them.
Regardless, you've again misrepresented my position. At no point have I argued against urgent decarbonization or claimed that non-carbon impacts are more important than climate change (although some might be—check out the Stockholm Resilience Centre’s work on planetary boundaries). My argument is that honest accounting of all impacts is necessary for effective long-term mitigations. The choice is not 'decarbonize now OR think systemically later.' It is possible and necessary to pursue the former while preparing for the latter, precisely to avoid the problem-shifting you acknowledged.
Calling an industrial product 'clean' is a form of dishonest accounting. It's a marketing term that, by design, narrows the public's focus. My critique is that this linguistic framing is counterproductive to the very systemic resilience we need.
We clearly agree on the staggering urgency of the climate crisis. Where we seem to differ is my belief that public understanding of trade-offs and full-system impacts makes decarbonization efforts more robust and durable, not less. Framing this as 'obstruction' is a profound misunderstanding.
Finally you are correct, we are done; however, I do hope that what appears to be our shared goal of a livable planet is advanced by all available means.