The Guardian brings us the reason this winter was unusually awful for the US.
China's air pollution could be intensifying storms over the Pacific Ocean and altering weather patterns in North America, according to scientists in the US. A team from Texas, California and Washington state has found that pollution from Asia, much of it arising in China, is leading to more intense cyclones, increased precipitation and more warm air in the mid-Pacific moving towards the north pole.
As we suffer through a winter of discontent (it is still snowing here in the north east) do you actually believe that China will change policies, or will they continue to "stop global warming" through extensive use of coal?
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(Score: 3, Funny) by Kilo110 on Thursday April 17 2014, @04:56AM
Or we can just go the way of the "climate-deniers", plug our ears, and yell that none of this is actually happening.
(Score: 2, Funny) by fishybell on Thursday April 17 2014, @05:03AM
LA LA LA!!! Can't hear you! LA LA LA!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 17 2014, @07:18AM
But who is ultimately to blame? Clinton for opening up to red China, Walmart and the Waltons for shifting production there and killing US jobs, production and enterprise. And behind them, every exec who farmed out production to China - Apple, Dell, HP, Canon, Nikon, ...........
When you had production - making widgets - in 1st world countries, you had control over pollution. Yes, it cost money and the people cost money. To save that money, the greedy piglets took it all away, out of sight, to China. And now the smoke from those unregulated, even greedier fires, is blowing in the face of the original perpetrators. Or at least, their victims (er, customers?, consumers?).
Its too late, the horsie is long from the farm, and good luck trying to reign it in.
(Score: 2) by umafuckitt on Thursday April 17 2014, @02:44PM
Walmart and the Waltons for shifting production there and killing US jobs,
And in doing so they're just following the principles of the "free market", which politicians and capitalists love so much.
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday April 17 2014, @06:42AM
The correct question would be: "Do you believe China will be willing/able to implement their policies?"
Links
. Managed to reduce this intensity by 3.5% in 2012 [reuters.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Thursday April 17 2014, @06:49AM
it's clear to me that China WANTS and talks about changing the source of motive power. Renewables would be best since they would not have to pay to import them. THat's why they are investing in solar, wind, damn near anything..
but something is wrong. instead of setting up local solar generation. the panels are getting sold outside the country. often subsidised to force other countries solar manufactures out of the business.
so, is it malicious?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday April 17 2014, @07:08AM
Depends on who judges the "malice": they still need to get a good chunk of their population out of poverty. And other countries seem happy to outsource their production to China - so China can afford to use an old US-invented business model [wikipedia.org].
Thinking how aggressive US "defends its interests" on various geographies, I can't quite blame China for "economic aggression". After all, China's economy forced-growth keep many countries afloat over GFC (US included: in spite of seeing its currency reserve devaluated by a falling USD, China continued to buy US bonds).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Thursday April 17 2014, @01:32PM
well, a funny thing happens when you outsource manufacturing of a product like a solar panel to China.
for some reason a Chinese owned company seems to release a near identical product just after you scale up. Now China talks about using this domestically; but if that's the case then they should be buying and setting up solar right? Support businesses inside the country? (that they have already paid a subsidy?)
But the panels get on a boat, and get sold in the US instead. Sure the market will pay a lot more for those panels in the US; but they are getting sold at prices that will close down solar panel manufacturing in the US just like we lost the steel mills.
it stinks of economic warfare.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday April 17 2014, @01:48PM
Well... a bit of perspective... I think I still prefer their "warfare" (with the lost of probable 10K jobs) over $6T spent in pure destruction [globalresearch.ca].
Besides, even after eliminating competition, they are selling them at the same price, so you can still pocket the difference as "a present from the people of great china"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by lx on Thursday April 17 2014, @07:10AM
We have had the mildest winter and are having the warmest spring in decades, so it's not all bad.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday April 17 2014, @09:43PM
It is if you were looking forward to building a snowman
(Score: 2) by lubricus on Friday April 18 2014, @06:31AM
This could easily go the other way!
We had a mild winter in Europe while the US had an extreme winter, with freezes as far south as Atlanta. The important thing is to realize why: The polar vortex was the result of the cold artic air breaking through the arctic fence, and moving down into North America.
In essence, climate change allows the cold arctic air to "wobble" off the pole, which warmed Europe as it froze North America.
The important thing to realize is that this wobble could occur in any direction, and the unpredictability of this is the scary part.
... sorry about the typos
(Score: 4, Funny) by everdred on Thursday April 17 2014, @02:48PM
...is a great example of why we need summaries in the RSS feed. The title actually got me a little excited. :\
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Dr Ippy on Thursday April 17 2014, @03:05PM
Another study based on computer modelling.
Until weather-climate models* improve their prediction accuracy, it's best to take their findings with a large pinch of salt. They're not necessarily wrong, but they're not necessarily right either.
Anyone who's done much computer modelling knows that parameters can be tweaked, sometime unconsciously, to confirm one's prejudices.
* The UK Met Office uses a unified model [metoffice.gov.uk] for both short-term and long-term (climate change) forecasting.
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