[Vision2020] The Last Empire: Can the World Survive China’s Rush to Emulate the American Way of Life?

[Ted Moffett]

Bottom line (my wording) quote from article:

"Per-capita income in China is less than 1/10 of America's and its
per-capita greenhouse gas emission is less than 1/5 of ours. But if
1.3billion Chinese were to consume at the level Americans do, we'd
need several
more Earths."

Text of article:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/01/the-last-empire.html

Statistics from article:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/01/china-eats-the-world.html

An excerpt:

"China has steadily maintained that the developed countries bear primary
responsibility for global warming and must be the first to counter it. The
argument has some merit: After all, the United States alone is responsible
for a quarter of the man-made greenhouse gases pumped into the earth's
atmosphere over time, while China's cumulative contribution is still less
than a third as much. And even today, China's per-capita carbon dioxide
emissions are less than a fifth of America's. Yet China's refusal to curb
emissions could single-handedly wipe out reductions made elsewhere,
crippling the international effort. ...

"The United States passed up the opportunity it had at the beginning of
China's economic transformation to guide it toward sustainability, and the
loss is already incalculable. All that is left is the one option that would
have served Americans (and the world) best all along, which is to model
environmental sanity. Stop buying products made from illegally cut wood.
Stop building coal-fired power plants. Instead of subsidizing oil companies,
invest government funds in research on sustainable-energy technologies.
Build effective mass-transit systems in every city. Cut greenhouse gas
emissions. Show China the benefits of responsible behavior."

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Vision2020 Post Ted Moffett
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