open Democracy News Analysis - The Malthusian energy-trap: old Europe, new China, Christoph Neidhart - Comments

intermedusa on "The Malthusian energy-trap: old Europe, new China"

intermedusa — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 11:17:22 +0000

THE NEW POLLUTED CHINA By Larry Houle www.godofreason.com intermedusa@yahoo.com China ia one of the most polluted and polluting countries on earth. It is adding one dirty coal fired hydro plant every day spewing out poisoneous pollution. China is not spending not even one US dollar of its one trillion US dollar reserves on new energy saving technology. And its government is too busy robbing the economy to be bothered cleaning up the country. So much for New China.

spamlet on "The Malthusian energy-trap: old Europe, new China"

spamlet — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 21:39:36 +0000

Some interesting insights into historic energy crises here, but I don't really see how the fact that catastrophe was averted then, somehow determines that all such predicted catastrophes of similar kind must therefore be avoidable in the future, by similar divine or scientific intervention.

Malthus, as a scientist would only be projecting verifiable trends. As a devout man, he would not have been in the business of telling everybody 'not to worry, because something is bound to turn up'. Gambling with all of our futures is the stance of modern politicians and economists - usually at the same time as they are cutting the research grants of the very scientists they are relying on to save us all!

There are several billion more people on Earth now than there were when Malthus rightly pointed out the mechanisms that kick in when environmental limits are reached. In the event that 'China's' scientists do not manage to achieve the incredible feat of finding a new energy source of monumentally greater utility than the fossil fuels that Malthus 'failed' to assume would save us: how long exactly do you think it would take to burn all the remaining trees in the world?

Not long I suspect.

The Malthusian energy-trap: old Europe, new China, Christoph Neidhart

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:24:38 +0000

The price of oil is approaching $100 a barrel, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is accumulating faster than the most pessimistic scenarios are predicting, anthropogenic climate change is occurring. The recognition that the world's scientists, diplomats and media gathered at the Bali climate-change summit are arguing over - the necessity of moving beyond dependency on a fossil-fuelled, carbon-emission-based global economy - is becoming increasingly hard to ignore.

Christoph Neidhart is a Swiss writer and journalist based in Tokyo. He was previously a research fellow at Harvard's Davis Center of Russian Studies and (1990-97) Moscow bureau chief of Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche.

His books include Russia's Carnival: The Smells, Sights and Sounds of Transition (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002) and Ostsee, das Meer in unserer Mitte (Marebuchverlag, 2003)

Also by Christoph Neidhart in openDemocracy:

"Vladimir Putin, ‘Soviet man' who missed class" (24 October 2006)

"Tokyo's change, Moscow's echo" (28 September 2007)

Read the rest of this post...