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What it means is that we face an actual tragedy. The world, as it turns out, cannot afford two countries behaving like the United States. It lacks the atmosphere (and it also may lack the resources, as this summer's scramble for control over oil makes clear. We can't let the Chinese buy Unocal, because we need its reserves for us). And the reason it's an actual tragedy is because, right now, a rapidly growing China is actually accomplishing some measurable good with its growth. People are enjoying some meat, sending their brothers to school, heating their huts. Whereas we're burning nine times as much energy per capita so that we can: air-condition game rooms and mow half-acre lots, drive SUVs on every errand, eat tomatoes flown in from Chile. I understand that our country has people living in poverty, some of whom are now losing their jobs to Chinese competition, but that's simply our shame - we have all the money on earth, and we haven't figured out how to spread it around. China has hundreds of millions of people too poor to have clean water, and they sense that a few decades of burning coal might do something about that.
Which is why it seems intuitively obvious when you're in China that the goal of the twenty-first century must somehow be to simultaneously develop the economies of the poorest parts of the world and undevelop those of the rich - to transfer enough technology and wealth that we're able to meet somewhere in the middle, with us using less energy so that they can use more, and eating less meat so that they can eat more. (Indeed, baby steps toward such transfers of technology and wealth are enshrined in the Kyoto formula.)
One name for this kind of statistical mean is "Europe" or "Japan", whose citizens use half the energy of Americans. But try to imagine the political possibilities in America of taking Chinese aspirations seriously - of acknowledging that there isn't room for two of us to behave in this way, and that we don't own the rights to our lifestyle simply because we got there first. The current president's father announced, on his way to the parley in Rio that gave rise to the Kyoto treaty, that "the American way of life is not up for negotiation". That's what defines a tragedy.
I don't think in the end it's a real promise - I'm not sure that if the Chinese someday got as rich as we are they'd be any happier than us. That's why meeting in the middle makes so much sense."
And Mark Crispin Miller writes:
—Arctic sea ice is melting fast. There was 20 percent less of it than normal this summer, and as Dr. Mark Serreze, one of the researchers from Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center, told reporters, "the feeling is we are reaching a tipping point or threshold beyond which sea ice will not recover." That is particularly bad news because it creates a potent feedback effect: instead of blinding white ice that bounces sunlight back into space, there is now open blue water that soaks up the sun's heat, amplifying the melting process.
—In the tundra of Siberia, other researchers report that permafrost has begun to melt rapidly, and, as it does, formerly frozen methane—which, like the more prevalent carbon dioxide, acts as a heat-trapping "greenhouse gas"—is escaping into the atmosphere. In some places last winter, the methane bubbled up so steadily that puddles of standing water couldn't freeze even in the depths of the Russian winter.
—British researchers, examining almost six thousand soil borings across the UK, found another feedback effect. Warmer temperatures (growing seasons now last eleven days longer at that latitude) meant that microbial activity had increased dramatically in the soil. This, in turn, meant that much of the carbon long stored in the soil was now being released into the atmosphere. The quantities were large enough to negate all the work that Britain had done to switch away from coal to reduce carbon in the atmosphere. "All the consequences of global warming will occur more rapidly," said Guy Kirk, chief scientist on the study. "That's the scary thing. The amount of time we have got to do something about it is smaller than we thought."
Now consider that the current administration is fully aware of these scenarios. They know that the release of methane, a gas that is several times more capable of retaining heat than carbon dioxide, will be highly destructive of the planet. They know that the living standard in the US is so utterly beyond the carrying capacity of the planet that no other nation can be allowed to enjoy it as we do. And they know that in order to preserve their power and control over all the resources of a dying planet they must use all available military force. The only thing that can stop them is the population of the US, and thus Bushco must control the population. The suspension of the US Constitution in order to save the US (the rich elite who must maintain their standard of living at all costs to the rest of the planet) Bushco must create a militarized security state in the US. We will not be allowed to move forward to initiate downward use of resources. We will not be allowed to protest the abuse the US lifestyle perpetrates on the Earth. We must not be permitted to dissent and converse and critique the behavior of this government. Those who choose to suggest change and improvements and alternative behaviors will be marginalized.
Simply put, we the citizens, have the power to remove these people before it is too late. They in turn will do everything they can, including controlling the media, using technology to invade the privacy of citizens, beatdown all resistance, and hope that people choose to not pay attention. They dare us to look behind the curtain!!
