Saturday morning
World Politics
How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power
G: One more interesting aspect to the upcoming election?
"
Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president
"
Med/Tech/Science
Bad Air and Water, and a Bully Pulpit in China
G: I applaud Mr. Pan for not being a ostrich in the sand. Perhaps this type of thinking is the reason why Toyota has decided to assemble the Prius in China?
"
FOR the untold thousands of bureaucrats in the Chinese Communist Party, a cardinal rule of political self-preservation might be this: best not stand out too much, certainly not in public. A government official marching too far ahead of the parade of acceptable opinion runs the risk of finding himself dangerously alone.
So it is always a surprise to see what comes out when Pan Yue opens his mouth, as he did one afternoon this summer at his office at the State Environmental Protection Administration. The afternoon sky was clotted with the usual soup of haze and pollution as Mr. Pan ticked off one doomsday statistic after another.
Acid rain, he says, now falls over two-thirds of China's land mass. Of 340 major Chinese cities surveyed last year, 60 percent had serious air pollution problems. In China's seven major waterways, pollution is so severe that vast stretches are not suitable for fish.
"Problems that were supposed to be future problems are now problems in the present," warned Mr. Pan, 44, as he smoked a cigarette.
If he is blunt in identifying the problems, he sounds almost radical in offering a solution: China must change the way it is developing to prevent an environmental crisis and a depletion of natural resources. Environmental protection must become a national priority. And, for good measure, public participation must be encouraged - the sort of language that in China usually means more democracy.
"The pressures China is now facing simply can't be sustained, the population and resource pressures," Mr. Pan said. "They cannot be ignored."
Well known for years in intellectual circles, the outspoken Mr. Pan has become a national figure in a country where environmental awareness is rising, even as environmental degradation is widespread and severe. His job as a deputy director of China's top environmental agency, if low on the totem pole of power in China, has given him a bully pulpit to help put environmentalism on the agenda - apparently with the silent blessing of higher leaders.
"
Burp vaccine cuts greenhouse gas emissions
G: Topic that is near and dear to Samson and Johns' hearts!
"
You cannot stop a sheep belching or farting, but you can make sure its eructations are less damaging to the environment.
Belches and, to a far lesser degree, farts from sheep, cows and other farm animals account for around 20% of global methane emissions. The gas is a potent source of global warming because, volume for volume, it traps 23 times as much heat as the more plentiful carbon dioxide.
"
How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power
G: One more interesting aspect to the upcoming election?
"
Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president
"
Med/Tech/Science
Bad Air and Water, and a Bully Pulpit in China
G: I applaud Mr. Pan for not being a ostrich in the sand. Perhaps this type of thinking is the reason why Toyota has decided to assemble the Prius in China?
"
FOR the untold thousands of bureaucrats in the Chinese Communist Party, a cardinal rule of political self-preservation might be this: best not stand out too much, certainly not in public. A government official marching too far ahead of the parade of acceptable opinion runs the risk of finding himself dangerously alone.
So it is always a surprise to see what comes out when Pan Yue opens his mouth, as he did one afternoon this summer at his office at the State Environmental Protection Administration. The afternoon sky was clotted with the usual soup of haze and pollution as Mr. Pan ticked off one doomsday statistic after another.
Acid rain, he says, now falls over two-thirds of China's land mass. Of 340 major Chinese cities surveyed last year, 60 percent had serious air pollution problems. In China's seven major waterways, pollution is so severe that vast stretches are not suitable for fish.
"Problems that were supposed to be future problems are now problems in the present," warned Mr. Pan, 44, as he smoked a cigarette.
If he is blunt in identifying the problems, he sounds almost radical in offering a solution: China must change the way it is developing to prevent an environmental crisis and a depletion of natural resources. Environmental protection must become a national priority. And, for good measure, public participation must be encouraged - the sort of language that in China usually means more democracy.
"The pressures China is now facing simply can't be sustained, the population and resource pressures," Mr. Pan said. "They cannot be ignored."
Well known for years in intellectual circles, the outspoken Mr. Pan has become a national figure in a country where environmental awareness is rising, even as environmental degradation is widespread and severe. His job as a deputy director of China's top environmental agency, if low on the totem pole of power in China, has given him a bully pulpit to help put environmentalism on the agenda - apparently with the silent blessing of higher leaders.
"
Burp vaccine cuts greenhouse gas emissions
G: Topic that is near and dear to Samson and Johns' hearts!
"
You cannot stop a sheep belching or farting, but you can make sure its eructations are less damaging to the environment.
Belches and, to a far lesser degree, farts from sheep, cows and other farm animals account for around 20% of global methane emissions. The gas is a potent source of global warming because, volume for volume, it traps 23 times as much heat as the more plentiful carbon dioxide.
"
posted by G at 1:23 AM
<< Home