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<font size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b>April 9</b></i></font><font
size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b>, 2024</b></i></font><font
face="Calibri"><br>
</font> <br>
<i>[Commentary of history]</i><br>
<b>Ancient Chinese climate change whispers a warning to the world’s
green-energy leader</b><br>
With no second-chances left, we can’t repeat the mistakes of the
past — if we lose this history, we lose the future<br>
By RAE HODGE, Staff Reporter<br>
APRIL 8, 2024 <br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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. <br>
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).<br>
<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.salon.com/2024/04/08/ancient-chinese-climate-change-whispers-a-warning-to-the-worlds-green-energy-leader/">https://www.salon.com/2024/04/08/ancient-chinese-climate-change-whispers-a-warning-to-the-worlds-green-energy-leader/</a><br>
<br>
[ From the Guardian ]<br>
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.”<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
“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.”<br>
<br>
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.”<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
<br>
“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.”<br>
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.<br>
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.”<br>
<br>
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.’”<br>
<br>
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”.<br>
<br>
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.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/07/the-french-aristocrat-who-understood-evolution-100-years-before-darwin-and-even-worried-about-climate-change">https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/07/the-french-aristocrat-who-understood-evolution-100-years-before-darwin-and-even-worried-about-climate-change</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
<i>[ unspoken truths and key concepts - feedback ]</i><br>
<b>The most important yet misunderstood concept in climate science -
Tim Lenton</b><br>
Metabolism of Cities<br>
Mar 27, 2024 Circular Metabolism Podcast<br>
There is an essential and yet poorly understood concept in climate
science: tipping points.<br>
<br>
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".<br>
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. <br>
<br>
Tim Lenton is Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science at
the University of Exeter. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZrErfqDwTA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZrErfqDwTA</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
<i>[ 1 of 2 --- thoughtful scholarship --- this is a big deal ]</i><br>
<b>Capitalocene: How Capitalism Created the Climate Crisis - Jason
W. Moore pt 1/2</b><br>
theAnalysis-news<br>
Apr 5, 2024 #capitalism #climatechange #PaulJay<br>
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. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOyHMHPcq0k">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOyHMHPcq0k</a><br>
<br>
- -<br>
<br>
[ Part 2 ]<br>
<b>The Assertion of Popular Power: A Climate Movement Imperative -
Jason W. Moore pt 2/2</b><br>
theAnalysis-news<br>
Apr 5, 2024 #capitalism #climatechange #PaulJay<br>
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.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-DrpHvQWKg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-DrpHvQWKg</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<font face="Calibri"><br>
</font><font face="Calibri"> <i>[The news archive - ]</i></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> <font size="+2"><i><b>April 9, 2007 </b></i></font>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> </font> 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.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041900650.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041900650.html</a><br>
<br>
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