China, US, Kyoto, the petrol and the Ozone Layer…

Until a few years ago, except for a very few people worried about the environment and being pointed at bloody lunatics or catastrophists, nobody used to give a toss about the health of our planet.

Dubya* was drilling Alaska, Australia was polluting the air with its cows’ farts, Europe was compromising with the Green Parties a bit here and there but, effectively, before Kyoto (and even after) nobody has really given a shit about the planet’s health.

The little atolls in the Pacific were complaining about the end being nigh (for them), some islands being abandoned after the exploitation of minerals had made them unlivable. Mangroves forests reducing more and more and not protecting places from high tides and so on…Anyway… We, in Europe and in America couldn’t care less.

In the meantime China was growing and following the Confucian principles that man can control nature opposed to the Taoist approach, thanks to the support given to Confucius by the local Communist Party, this country started exploiting more and more… Buying minerals, energy, metals… you name it! They were buying, diverting rivers, flooding villages with population in the millions just to grow…

Funny enough until China came on the picture nobody had cared about the environment. Our arrogance made us think that they would have never grown, especially under a Communist regime like Beijing’s one. We were used to the Asian Tigers that were on our side anyway and would not have survived without us… Well the Asian Mammoth was frozen in a cryogenic state, just waiting to wake up when nobody would have expected it…

The first signs were not seen. China buying steel making factories from Europe and US and move them to China and create cities out of nothing… The sew covers started disappearing from the streets a bit everywhere in Europe and America and so the copper… all directed to China or to the market where prices were going up. The Us saw their Tbills and bonds flying toward the Great Wall from Wall Street and felt that China was going to be domesticated like any other country in the world that has come out of communism… Well well… Things didn’t go that way… not precisely…

Now we have a super power that has created wealth and is putting in serious troubles the rest of the world that is running out of ideas, resources and energies… the old world that thought to be the ultimate system, the closest to perfection mankind could think of. Communism failed were Capitalism succeeded… nobody thought ones that there could have been another form of ruling that could have been successful at the point of impoverish the richest countries. If not economically, certainly socially. With a sense of defeat… the same one that communists must have felt when the Berlin Wall collapsed at the end of 80’s.

The neo liberals’ defeats in Argentina opened the road to a new leftist movement in Latin America and the current governments ruling that subcontinent seem to be in good health and do not show signs of tiredness at the moment. Even Lula’s Brazil performed a miracle (not for me) when he managed to pay back the IMF (the biggest loser in this moment) all the outstanding debts and outperforming any liberal or capitalist government ever ruled in Brazil… Brazil with the IMF was destined to follow Argentina’s steps into chaos…

The world is changing, the world is becoming more and more aware of the dangers we are heading towards. Even in the States, Governor Schwarzenegger and other States and Cities have embraced the Kyoto philosophy while Dubya is now taking a two sabbatical years to verify whether America is going to adopt some measures as a Nation to reduce the sufferance of the Nature. Australia has just switched to Kyoto after years of draught and farmers reduced to misery and hundreds of thousands of cows downed for the lack of water.

China is setting a new standard… China is showing how bad the world can go if we don’t do anything to protect the environment. China has been like a computer simulation where you can run 10 20 100 years in a few seconds and see the effect of cigarettes on your lungs or of a million cows on the CO2 in the atmosphere…

China has become the mother of all computers simulators…

But this doesn’t justify by itself the change in approach. The true reason is that China has gained far too much power and when a new player gets better than the old ones, the old players tend to change the rules but, this is a game that cannot be won by the old players unless they have enough money to continue playing… And, frankly, I do not see how, placing China in the WTO (a useless organization discredited by the US protectionist behaviors since it was created) would have pushed China to play by the rules. Uncle Sam didn't abide by the rules and preferred, and still prefers, paying fines rather than play fairly... But now China has got the money and the position of the US, still very much on the saddle though, is not as safe as it used to be. At those offering prices even Europe could become a bigger consumer market than currently is and run a bit behind China bootlicking...

So, in a period of credit crisis we are giving more and more power to those countries that have been seen for decades as the problem of the world, China and the Arabs on top of the list, while we are becoming more and more dependent on them, financially and economically, and using the climate changes as an excuse to stop their power but, I am afraid, it’s far too late… the Chinese are in our houses already. They are on our children under the form of shoes and clothes, they are in their bags and they even are between you and your sex partner when in the few moments of peace you have, you enjoy some intimate moments… enjoy them, till they last…


*Seems rather unbelievable that the words below are from the same man that until recently wouldn't care less about the environmental issues. Read on...
"On Wednesday morning, Bush signed into law a major energy bill that cleared the House on Tuesday. It will require automakers to increase vehicle fuel efficiency by 40 percent, to an average 35 miles per gallon by 2020. It also will greatly increase production of ethanol, the fuel derived from switchgrass and other plant material.
The president, in a ceremony at the Energy Department, called the bill a major step toward "reducing our dependence on oil, fighting global climate change, expanding the production of renewable fuels" and creating a cleaner country with greater fuel security. The House passed the bill by a 314-100 vote". (IHT - 20 December 2007 )