[✔️] April 9, 2024 Global Warming News | China history, Key understanding, How Capitalism Created the Climate Crisis, 2007 Laurie David and Sheryl Crow

Tue Apr 9 11:27:59 EDT 2024

/*April 9*//*, 2024*/

/[Commentary of history]/
*Ancient Chinese climate change whispers a warning to the world’s 
green-energy leader*
With no second-chances left, we can’t repeat the mistakes of the past — 
if we lose this history, we lose the future
By RAE HODGE, Staff Reporter
APRIL 8, 2024
To survey the vast body of Chinese archeological and cultural 
antiquities is to forget every fragmented parchment record you’ve ever 
seen tucked behind European museum glass. Shifting in territorial shape 
and political contour, China’s 3,500 years of written history trails 
behind it like a magnificent bridal train across the sweep of human 
civilization in a marriage to the land which has outlasted the rise and 
fall of Byzantine, Incan and Ottoman empires. Before the first Roman 
levee was ever fortified against the Tiber River, a Chinese sage-king 
had already so artfully tamed the ravaging waters of the Yangtze that he 
became known as Yu the Engineer.

Most recently, Chinese researchers have unearthed evidence that the 
country’s relationship to climate change has been fatal to not only many 
of its dynasties but to the cross-border Silk Road itself — shifting the 
borders of commerce for the entire early world, shaping the path we now 
see among its cities and kingdoms. Climate change didn’t stop there, of 
course. Further studies have shown that climate change from 4,000 ago in 
the country prompted mass civil disruptions — a discovery hinting at 
current global protest — and that a Venice-like Chinese city built on a 
sprawl of canals was yet another victim.
Yet, within the grand tapestry of this legacy, China’s greatest 
historical foe — responsible for the collapse of dynasties from 9th 
Century Tang to those of present day industrial princes — has returned. 
Threatening to unravel not only the country but the world itself, the 
merciless forces of climate change now bear down on China without 
restraint, and have called it into what could become the nation’s final 
battle. But amid the roaring devastation of the elements which now rip 
through the country’s people and homes, a chorus of voices sing out from 
the pages of China’s history. And above the din of modern political 
clamor, we can hear them — shouting from the literal rooftops — issuing 
a warning which there is still time to heed, and a hope for ingenious 
resolve for which there are new reason to believe.
Last year, brutal weather extremes dogged China, as destructive events 
rose in frequency and intensity through the hottest year on record. 
Relentless heatwaves swept through the country, with catastrophic floods 
leaving more than a million people displaced, bringing provinces to 
their knees and the nation itself to a tipping point on climate change 
action. 2024 is poised to be a watershed year for climate change in a 
country which now risks suffering the economic chaos of a 3% 
climate-driven GDP loss as heatwaves bite into its powerful supply 
chains. China stands at a tense and terrifying crossroads, singularly 
equipped to become either the world’s greatest climate hero — or its 
most dangerous foe.
Our most recent hint at which way it will tilt came March 11. The 
official report from China’s annual lianghui or “two sessions” 
government meeting has perplexed climate scientists and activists at the 
country’s radically mixed messages about green energy plans. Leaders 
failed to meet critically important 2023 targets for reducing the amount 
of energy consumption per unit of GDP, blaming it on surging economic 
growth. They also announced a disappointingly ambitious goal for 2024 — 
setting a benchmark for a meager 2.5% energy intensity reduction — much 
lower than the yearly 6% it needs in order to meet its 2025 target of a 
13.5% energy-demand drop. And the 18% drop in carbon intensity others 
say it needs to meet by the same year. These numbers seem so tiny — but 
China produces more greenhouse gasses than any other country in the 
world. At that scale, every half-percent could make or break its plan.
The Biden administration has been pushing the country to ditch coal 
quicker, despite China’s decision to keep it in the energy mix. China 
reportedly has more coal power capacity than the rest of the world 
combined, worsening the near-term outlook when coupled with its plan to 
expand oil and gas drilling. China’s coal-burn rate has dropped 70% 
since 2011, but coal plants still account for around 2.7 million jobs in 
the country where plant-construction is a common way to boost local 
economies (whether the plants ever get used).

These are terrifying numbers. Which is why the similarly extreme measure 
of China’s green-energy heroics are enough to raise the hairs on the 
back of your neck.
For instance, that 2023 energy-goal failure offers an extraordinary 
reason: 40% of China’s voracious economic growth last year was in the 
clean energy sector. Meanwhile, the world’s renewable energy capacity 
overall only grew 36% (I say “only” — but that’s breaking the record for 
22 years in a row). That also means China more than doubled its 
renewable energy capacity last year, compared to 2022 increases.

Its solar power capacity alone in 2023 was as much as the entire world’s 
in 2022, with Chinese companies now making 90% of the world’s solar 
cells — plus 60% of the world’s lithium-ion batteries for the world’s 
electric vehicles (which it now makes 50% of, with exports hitting a new 
high and 77% year-over increase.) Meanwhile, China’s wind power capacity 
reportedly rose by 66% year-on-year. Known as the “new three” in China, 
the above green energy manufacturing products accounted for 4.5% of the 
country’s total 2023 exports. This is driving down consumer costs and 
Chinese consumption is surging — which is fantastic.
The clock is ticking, though. And just as it did in ancient times, 
weather extremes driven by climate change are again threatening to 
destroy the Silk Road today, where some of the world’s greatest art and 
architecture rely on modern leaders to protect it. Perhaps even more 
pointedly, climate change threatens to destroy the very parts of China 
which offer some of its most potent wisdom for weathering climate, which 
tell the story of the country’s resilience through the ages — as rising 
waters now creep into heritage sites.
The modern re-balancing of mercantile scales in China — shifting the 
weighty duty of economic-production from one energy sector to another — 
is a precarious moment for the entire world. Leaders must act with 
potentially market-rattling speed, ingenious precision and, above all, 
unflinchingly altruistic discipline. This is, after all, an existential 
crisis.

But if anyone can turn the fight into a win, it’s not going to be the 
U.S., nor the European Union. Only China is positioned to lead the 
world’s charge — either into the safety of a flourishing green-energy 
economy, or straight over the burning edge. I’m not the only one who 
sees it, and new research is arriving every week offering strategies on 
how China can own the moment like the world so needs it to.

In doing so, it stands to teach the U.S. and everyone else how a nation 
which deeply tenders its history may stand on the shoulders of it, that 
its children might reach high-ground. But whether or not China answers 
the world’s cry, it’s already teaching America a harder lesson. If we 
don’t learn from our history on climate change, we aren’t doomed to 
repeat it — that would be the luxury of a second chance we no longer 
have. This time it’s for keeps. We learn from our history or we lose it 
altogether.
https://www.salon.com/2024/04/08/ancient-chinese-climate-change-whispers-a-warning-to-the-worlds-green-energy-leader/

[ From the Guardian ]
Similarly, Buffon’s observations about reproduction anticipated the 
discovery of DNA: “He suggested there had to be some kind of internal 
shaping mechanism – that life exists on an organic cellular level and 
there has to be some kind of recipe or ‘internal mould’ that 
reproduction follows, to assemble the building blocks of cells into a 
particular kind of organism.”

After inheriting a fortune from a distant relative, equivalent to about 
£28m today, Buffon used some of his wealth to turn a 100-acre park he 
owned in Burgundy into an “environmental laboratory”, where he “let 
things go wild and then observed what happened”, Roberts said.

“He has actually been described as the world’s first ecologist, because 
he was the first person to really study a species in its own 
environment, and not just a specimen of a dead organism.”

Buffon observed everything that happened in his park, from the breeding 
habits of the foxes to the patterns of the birds and the trees they 
chose to nest in. “He was the first scientist to study life in its 
context and make live contextual observations,” said Roberts. “He would 
pay huge amounts of money for specimens of live animals so he could see 
them and interact with them.”
Instead of evolution, Buffon used the term “degeneration” to refer to a 
natural process “outside the regular reproductive process” that brought 
about change to a species. The term did not have negative connotations 
at the time.

But Buffon never figured out how this species change actually took 
place: it took Darwin, and his theory of natural selection, co-developed 
with Alfred Russel Wallace, to shed light on the process.
Even without this key insight, Buffon postulated that new species must 
have come into existence and changed over time, while some species must 
have gone extinct. “That was a very, very radical idea at the time, and 
Buffon was censured for it by the Sorbonne: he had to write a statement 
publicly renouncing everything he had written,” said Roberts. Buffon was 
later formally accused of heresy for implying that Earth was older than 
the biblical record.

“Buffon suspected it was a matter of millions, if not billions, of 
years,” said Roberts. “He pioneered the idea of time on a geological scale.”
Unlike his contemporary Carl Linnaeus, who believed that nature was 
static and every species had stayed exactly as God created them, Buffon 
believed nature was too complex and changeable to be easily categorised.
He was even concerned about the impact of human-caused climate change. 
“Buffon had enemies, because his message – that nature cannot be 
conquered, that humans were, in fact, part of nature – was essentially 
disconcerting to other people.”

Roberts said he quickly realised that the world wasn’t receptive to his 
ideas. “He would make a statement like: ‘For species to change, one must 
imagine that the earth is millions of years old’, hoping that one day 
people would be ready to hear that. But then he would have to add a 
sentence: ‘But of course, that’s ridiculous speculation. The Bible tells 
us otherwise.’”

Since Buffon had to keep undermining his own observations, it was easy 
for Victorian naturalists to brush aside his contributions, suggesting – 
as Darwin did – that Buffon’s opinions “fluctuated greatly”.

Roberts hopes his book will help to reassert Buffon’s rightful place in 
history: “The outrage that greeted Darwin in 1859 is well known,” he 
said. “Imagine if those ideas had been asserted in 1759.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/07/the-french-aristocrat-who-understood-evolution-100-years-before-darwin-and-even-worried-about-climate-change

/[ unspoken truths and key concepts - feedback ]/
*The most important yet misunderstood concept in climate science - Tim 
Lenton*
Metabolism of Cities
Mar 27, 2024  Circular Metabolism Podcast
There is an essential and yet poorly understood concept in climate 
science: tipping points.

Several climate tipping points (such as the ice loss in Greenland and 
Antarctica or the slowdown of the Atlantic circulation) are dangerously 
close and run the risk of triggering a "tipping cascade".
To understand these risks and know how to keep us in a safe space 
through positive tipping points, we are talking with Professor Tim Lenton.

Tim Lenton is Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science at the 
University of Exeter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZrErfqDwTA

/[ 1 of 2 --- thoughtful scholarship ---  this is a big deal  ]/
*Capitalocene: How Capitalism Created the Climate Crisis - Jason W. 
Moore pt 1/2*
theAnalysis-news
  Apr 5, 2024  #capitalism #climatechange #PaulJay
The current climate crisis emerged out of a specific set of historical 
and economic factors which have maintained capitalist accumulation and 
class inequalities to this day. Jason W. Moore, geographer and Professor 
of Sociology at Binghamton University, explains how the development of 
capitalism fueled European colonialism and Western imperialism, 
resulting in a novel form of climate destruction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOyHMHPcq0k

- -

[ Part 2 ]
*The Assertion of Popular Power: A Climate Movement Imperative - Jason 
W. Moore pt 2/2*
theAnalysis-news
Apr 5, 2024  #capitalism #climatechange #PaulJay
In part 2, historian and geographer Jason W. Moore explains why climate 
and revolutionary struggles must understand capitalist dynamics and 
deploy a language of universal class solidarity to overthrow 
transnational power structures perpetuating the climate crisis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-DrpHvQWKg

/[The news archive -  ]/
/*April 9, 2007 */
April 9, 2007: Environmental activist Laurie David and singer Sheryl 
Crow begin a brief tour of colleges and universities across the United 
States to raise awareness about climate change. Later in the month, the 
Washington Post reports on the David/Crow tour.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041900650.html

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