The Inevitability of Global Warming

I'm one of the few Americans who hasn't seen and doesn't plan to see Algore's An Inconvenient Truth. Perhaps I am close-minded. Perhaps short-sighted. I refuse to base my opinions on scientific matters on some third rate movie by some hypocritical dilettante hack who is vying to be to eco-matters what Jimmy Carter was to foreign policy. And is succeeding.

Recently I have been attending local "lectures" on various business topics which have been quite useful. I signed up for one this evening on the environment thinking it would cover....I'm not sure what. Obviously I was asleep at the wheel. In China, efforts toward the mitigation of environmental damage are well founded. China is a cesspool. The air is dirty, the water is dirtier and it just goes down hill from there. So when groups and individuals talk about cleaning up the environment here, even the seal clubbers jump up and down.

But the environmentalists don't present well. I was pleased to see that this group was cleaner than most and dressed appropriately for the occasion. They had forgone the usual effort to commune with nature by appearing unwashed, unshaven, ill-kept and wearing hemp skirts and a troika of earrings through their nostrils. Yet, quite typically these environmentalists lack perspective. The lecture began with "clearly we are all on the same page with respect to global warming...". Sorry, miss, but you just lost me, and you haven't even gotten to the part about turning off your cell phones. There is sufficient evidence of pollution and environmental disasters in China that it isn't necessary to invoke the end of the world speech or take the obligatory swipe at the frighteningly naive, poorly educated, ill-spoken President of the United States.

Within the first 5 minutes, she'd laid out her credentials. Which were, as with all hardcore environmentalists, sketchy. She recently graduated from MIT - I assume with a masters of some sort as she appeared to be in her mid to late 30's - and she embarked on her career as gifted environmental prodigy within the last year. She appeared to have formed many of her opinions on the condition of the environment from her professors whose names she invoked often and unnecessarily.

The second problem with environmentalists is that they have the liberal habit of being condescending and patronizing. Her new group has developed a system for approaching the "environment crisis" which begins by appointing a "brain trust" which consists of . . . her and her buddies on stage for starters. The other members of the Brain Trust were public figures (including members of the Administration that she had just taken a shot at) private sector industry leaders (no doubt selected for their deep pockets rather than for their sense of impending doom) and the scientific community that peddles the eco-propaganda.

One of the many goals of the Brain Trust was to educate the Chinese and American publics on ways to forestall or reduce the inevitable effects of carbon monoxide gases and other deadly threats to humanity. Of course it would also be necessary to educate the press, because they don't write enough about global warming, climate change, and whatever the new tag line is today. If we just had more stories on global warming, more people would get on board.

Oddly enough, she was able to recruit a Hollywood film producer who is also ... a professor at New York University - an amazing coincidence and an unusual combination - to assist in putting together a documentary for the Chinese audience that will be the "Chinese equivalent of An Inconvenient Truth". Fantastic. Can't wait to stand in line for a pirated copy of that gem. Perhaps Susan Sarandon will narrate.

She explained that we needed a holistic approach to environmental change and energy conservation that addressed each major segment of society: transportation, construction, public education including requiring a number of courses in green building for architects, education of the press, education of governments, developers, manufacturers, hotel management and other service sectors. Their mantra is "Strategy, yet tactical". There are 300,000 buses in China (each spewing more filth in a nano second than a pasture full of cows). This group is dedicated to putting 10 green buses on line in 2007.

They had a number of catch phrases: jump-start cooperation, online matchmaking, EE Building Multi-use Excellent Centres, etc. The problem is they need sponsors. Big sponsors. She seemed to grasp the financial consequences of the group's big thoughts.

The issue that I have is not with the group's goals. China needs help with the environment. Clean air, clean water, pastoral scenes - these are luxuries of developed nations. Comfortable, wealthy nations. China is a third world nation struggling to keep it's head above water. It has 1.3 billion people, many of whom could teach the underclass in Europe and the United States a thing or two about starvation. It is a country still struggling to attract jobs to feed people while getting wacked over the head on WTO compliance issues, an insolvent banking system, systematic corruption throughout all levels of government, trade imbalances, an opaque legal and regulatory system, geo-political issues (good luck finding anyone in China who thinks Taiwan is a sovereign nation), environmental crises, currency issues and on and on. It doesn't have the resources or the expertise to mess with green technologies, and the government has no desire to impose heavy-handed expensive regulations that will drive businesses to Vietnam and India.

Having said that, major cities have been moving polluters to the burbs and beyond. There are few coal burning plants in Shanghai or Beijing proper and some localities are requiring environmental assessments as part of a business license. But nowhere is the water potable and the air quality is abominable in many places. Even Hong Kong which has virtually no manufacturing left is troubled by pollution as severe and at some times worse than Shanghai due to all the factories in southern China.

Educating the Chinese government and Chinese businesses in the value of energy saving construction and technology is worthwhile, particularly when it ultimately saves money or has a nominal cost. But knock off the Brain Trust nonsense and lose the attitude. China doesn't need An Inconvenient Truth and other over-the-top eco-slobber.