by Alex Evans | Aug 23, 2007 | Middle East and North Africa, North America
Writing in the Washington Post today, George Will poses a question that I’ve been wondering about lately: if political pressure on the Bush Administration forces a substantial withdrawal of troops sooner rather than later, just as conservatives in the US begin to hope that the tide is turning, what the hell will that do to any prospects for bipartisanship any time in, oh, the next couple of decades? As Will observes:
Come September, America might slip closer toward a Weimar moment. It would be milder than the original but significantly disagreeable. After the First World War, politics in Germany’s new Weimar Republic were poisoned by the belief that the army had been poised for victory in 1918 and that one more surge could have turned the tide. Many Germans bitterly concluded that the political class, having lost its nerve and will to win, capitulated. The fact that fanciful analysis fed this rancor did not diminish its power.
The Weimar Republic was fragile; America’s domestic tranquility is not. Still, remember the bitterness stirred by the accusatory question “Who lost China?” and corrosive suspicions that the fruits of victory in Europe had been squandered by Americans of bad character or bad motives at Yalta. So, consider this: When Gen. David Petraeus delivers his report on the war, his Washington audience will include two militant factions. Perhaps nothing he can responsibly say will sway either, so September will reinforce animosities.
by David Steven | Aug 10, 2007 | Conflict and security
Here’s a purported future trend that has some on the right salivating – a rapidly Christianizing China acting as a natural counterweight to Islam. According to National Review’s, Mark Krikorian (bio):
Christianity has much better prospects in Red China than in Taiwan or Hong Kong (or Japan). It’s not just cultural characteristics that determine how receptive a people might be to the Gospel (or any other religious or political message), but also the political and historical circumstances. Koreans were uniquely open to Christianity, for instance, because it wasn’t the religion of their oppressors (the Japanese) and its adoption could be seen as a patriotic act (kind of like sticking with Roman Catholicism in Ireland or Poland).
After being suppressed by the ChiComs for so long (something that didn’t happen in Taiwan or Hong Kong), Christianity may well have succeeded in earning real credibility among a significant number of Chinese, and could well be appealing to modernizing people in the big cities looking for something to believe in.
While I wouldn’t place any bets on a Chinese army razing Mecca, it seems perfectly plausible that China could have 200 million Christians in the not-too-distant future.
Read the article that started the discussion off and dissent from old-style Tory, John Derbyshire.
by Alex Evans | Aug 1, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, Conflict and security
Celebrated climate scientist James Hansen has blunt tidings in the last edition of New Scientist: “I find it almost inconceivable that ‘business as usual’ climate change will not result in a rise in sea level measured in metres within a century.”
(Wondering how a 5 metre rise would affect you? This excellent hacked version of Google Maps has the answer.)
Bottom line on what needs to be done to avoid this, according to Hansen:
The global community must aim to restrict any further global warming to less than 1 °C above the temperature in 2000. This implies a CO2 limit of about 450 parts per million or less.
(more…)
by Alex Evans | Jul 31, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, North America, South Asia
As the US-EU bidding war hots up over what should replace Kyoto when it expires in 2012, expect to hear plenty more about the ‘AP6’ – or, to give it its full title, the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (official website here). The AP6 group of countries (the US, Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea; Canada is reportedly also considering signing up) are all devotees of an approach based on technology partnerships and voluntary targets as an alternative to mandatory targets and timetables.
Of course, all of the countries involved are keen to demonstrate that their voluntary approach can generate real results; unsurprising, then, that the US State Department issued a chirpy press release last week headlined “Asia-Pacific Group Achieving Climate Results Through Partnership”. But there’s a small problem. The key part of the State Department press release is its contention that:
[The AP6 partnership] together with the diffusion of clean technologies to other regions could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by about 23 percent in 2050 compared with what would otherwise have been the case, according to a 2006 study by the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resources Economics (ABARE).
Sounds great, right? Only until you follow up the reference and take a look at the ABARE report itself, where “what would otherwise have been the case” turns out to be a whopping global increase in emissions between now and 2050: from around 8 gigatonnes of carbon equivalent (GtC-e) today to around 23 GtC-e in 2050.
So what the AP6’s touted 23 per cent reduction below business as usual really means is that global emissions in 2050 of about 17 GtC-e rather than the 23 GtC-e that would supposedly have happened otherwise. In other words: even according to the AP6’s own best case scenario, global emissions grow by more than a hundred per cent between now and 2050. It’s not looking like a lean, mean alternative to targets and timetables just yet…
by Alex Evans | Jul 7, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, Global system
From the FT today:
Food prices are set for a period of “significant and long-lasting” inflation because of demand from China and India and the use of crops for biofuels, according to the head of Nestlé . Peter Brabeck, chairman of the world’s largest food company, said rises in food prices reflected not only temporary factors but also long-term and structural changes in supply and demand.
The Nestlé chairman cited population growth, rising demand from “the phenomena of India and China” and the use of food products by biofuel producers as causes of pressure in international food markets.
Reports from two international organisations this week forecast food price rises of between 20 and 50 per cent over the next decade.
