QUESTION:

If everyone but China did as much as they possibly could to combat climate change, how bad would things be?

ANSWER:

If everyone but China takes climate action to get rid of fossil fuels it would recreate THE COLONIALISM WORLD OF THE PAST but with China and not the Europeans in charge because it will move all industrial activity to China along with wealth and power.

IT WILL NOT CHANGE THE RATE OF WARMING BECAUSE THE EMISSIONS OF THE REST OF THE WORLD WILL NOT VANISH BUT SIMPLY MOVE TO CHINA JUST AS IT HAS BEEN DOING FOR DECADES.

LINKS TO RELATED POSTS:

A CLIMATE ACTION CATCH 22: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/05/22/climate-catch22/

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND CLIMATE CHANGE: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/01/08/the-industrial-revolution/

A SMALL SAMPLE (3%) OF THE LONG AND GROWING LIST OF WESTERN BUSINESSES THAT OPERATE THEIR FACTORIES IN CHINA

Abercrombe & Fitch, Abbott Laboratories, Acer Electronics, Adidas, AGI- American Gem Institute, Agrilink Foods, Inc., Allergan Laboratories, American Eagle Outfitters, American Standard, American Tourister, Ames Tools, Amphenol Corporation, Amway Corporation, Analog Devices, Inc., Apple Computer, Armani, Armour Meats, Ashland Chemical, Ashley Furniture, Audi Motors, AudioVox, AutoZone, Inc., Avon, Banana Republic, Bausch & Lomb, Inc., Baxter International, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Belkin Electronics, Best Foods, Big 5 Sporting Goods, Black & Decker, Body Shop, Borden Foods, Briggs & Stratton, Calrad Electric, Campbell ‘s Soup, Canon Electronics, Carole Cable, Casio Instrument, Caterpillar, Inc., CBC America, CCTV Outlet, Checker Auto, Cisco Systems, Chiquita Brands International, Claire’s Boutique, Cobra Electronics, Coby Electronics, Coca Cola Foods, Colgate-Palmolive, Colorado Spectrum, ConAgra Foods, Cooper Tire, Corning, Inc., Coleman Sporting Goods, Compaq, Crabtree & Evelyn, Cracker Barrel Stores, Craftsman Tools, Cummins, Inc., Dannon Foods, Dell Computer, Del Monte Foods, Dewalt Tools, Dial Corporation, Diebold, Inc., Dillard’s, Inc., Dodge-Phelps, Dole Foods, Dow-Corning, Eastman Kodak, EchoStar, Eclipse CCTV, Edge Electronics Group, Electric Vehicles USA, Inc., Eli Lilly Company, Emerson Electric, Enfamil, Estee Lauder, Eveready, Fisher Scientific, Ford Motors, Frito Lay, Furniture Brands International, Gateway Computer, GE General Electric, General Foods International, General Mills, General Motors, Gentek, Gerber Foods, Gillette Company, Goodrich Company, Goodyear Tire, Gucci, Haagen-Dazs, Harley Davidson, Hasbro Company, Heinz Foods, Hershey Foods, Hitachi, Hoffman-LaRoche, Holt’s Automotive Products, Hormel Foods, Home Depot, Honda Motor, Hoover Vacuum, HP Computer, Honda, Honeywell, Hubbell Inc., Huggies, Hunts-Wesson Foods, ICON Office Solutions, IBM, Ikea, Intel Corporation, J.M. Smucker Company, John Deere, Johnson Control, Johnson & Johnson, Johnstone Supply, JVC Electronics, KB Home, Keebler Foods, Kenwood Audio, Kimberly Clark, Knorr Foods, Kohler, Kohl’s Corporation, Kraft Foods, Kragen Auto, Land’s End, Lee Kum Kee Foods, Lexmark, LG Electronics, Lipton Foods, L.L. Bean, Inc., Logitech, Libby’s Foods, Linen & Things, Lipo Chemicals, Inc., Lowe’s Hardware, Lucent Technologies, Lufkin, Mars Candy, Martha Stewart Products, Mattel, McCormick Foods, McKesson Corporation, Megellan GPS, Memorex, Merck & Company, Mitsubishi Electronics, Mitsubishi Motors, Mobile Oil, Molex, Motorola, Motts Applesauce, Multifoods Corporation, Nabisco Foods, National Semiconductor, Nescafe, Nestles Foods, Nextar, Nike, Nikon, Nivea Cosmetics, Nokia Electronics, Northrop Grumman Corporation, NuSkin International, Nvidia Corporation, Office Depot, Olin Corporation, Old Navy, Olympus Electronics, Orion-Knight Electronics, Pacific Sunwear, Inc., Pamper’s, Panasonic, Pan Pacific Electronics, Panvise, Papa Johns, Payless Shoesource, Pelco, Pentax Optics, Pep Boy’s, Pepsico International, Petco, Pfizer, Inc., Philips Electronics, Phillip Morris Companies, Pierre Cardin, Pillsbury Company, Pioneer Electronics, Pitney Bowes, Inc., Plantronics, PlaySchool Toys, Polaris Industries, Polaroid, Post Cereals, Pfister, Pringles, Praxair, Proctor & Gamble, PSS World Medical, Pyle Audio, Qualcomm, Quest One, Ralph Loren, RCA, Reebok International, Reynolds Aluminum, Revlon, Rohm & Hass Company, Samsonite, Samsung, Sanyo, Shell Oil, Schwinn Bike, Sears-Craftsman, Sharp Electronics, Sherwin-Williams, Shure Electronics, Sony, Speco Technologies, Skechers Footwear, SmartHome, Smucker’s, Solar Power, Inc., Stanley Tools, Staple’s, Steelcase, Inc., STP Oil, Sunkist Growers, SunMaid Raisins, Sunkist, Switchcraft Electronics, SYSCO Foods, Sylvania Electric, 3-M, Tamron Optics, TDK, Tektronix, Inc, Texas Instruments, Timex, Timken Bearing, Tommy Hilfiger, Toro, Toshiba, Tower Automotive, Toyota, Toy’s R Us, Inc., Tripp-lite, Tupper Ware, Tyson Foods, Uniden Electronics, Valspar Corporation, Victoria ‘s Secret, Vizio Electronics, Volkswagen, VTech, WD-40 Corporation, Weller Electric Company, Western Digital, Westinghouse Electric, Weyerhaeuser Company, Whirlpool, Wilson Sporting Goods, Wrigley, WW Grainger, Inc., Wyeth Laboratories, X-10, Xelite, Xerox, Yamaha, Yoplait Foods, Yum Brands, Zale Corporation.

AND THEN THERE CAME A SECOND QUESTION

QUESTION:

WOULD THE DISCOVERY OF A CHEAP, CLEAN, AND ENDLESS SOURCE OF ENERGY GIVE US A PARADISE?

ANSWER:

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT FOSSIL FUELS HAVE DONE FOR US. THIS ENERGY SOURCE DID SUFFER FROM SERIOUS ENIVORNMMENTAL PROBLEMS AND THESE ISSUES LED TO ANTI FOSSIL FUEL ACTIVISM AND THEREBY TO THE FORMATION OF THE EPA AND THE RESOLUTION OF THOSE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES. BUT SO STRONG AND EMOTIONAL WAS OUR ANTI FOSSIL FUEL ACTIVISM THAT IT HAS PERSISTED AND IN RESPONSE THE THE WORK OF THE EPA THAT RESOLVED THE ORIGINAL POLLUTION ISSUES, THE MOVEMENT HAS COME UP WITH INNOVATIVE NEW REASONS TO CONTINUE THEIR OPPOSITION TO FOSSIL FUELS – CLIMATE CHANGE WITH CONSEQUENCES SO HORRIFIC WE REALLY DO HAVE TO GIVE UP FOSSIL FUELS THIS TIME AROUND.

RELATED POST ON THE HISTORY OF ANTI FOSSIL FUEL ACTIVISM:

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/03/23/anti-fossil-fuel-activism-disguised-as-climate-science/

EXCERPT:

The real movement is climate action, not climate change: The commonly held belief is that the issue in AGW climate change is climate and that therefore, the debate is about the details and the science of Anthropogenic Global Warming and climate change and about its fearful projections and impacts  formulated in terms of how dangerously warm it would get without the prescribed climate action. Here I present the case against this assumption and propose that the climate affair of our time is best understood not in terms of climate change but in terms of climate action. 

Climate Action is the underlying movement for which climate change serves only as the rationale and the motivation. Climate action is an expression of anti fossil fuel activism.  Anti fossil fuel activism is best understood in terms of the 1960s and 1970s anti smog, anti pollution, and anti oil spill movement that had won the pollution war and had assumed that they had won the war against fossil fuels  {the blogger was in that movement protesting in Berkeley, CA}. Thereafter, beginning in the late 1970s, the roots of a vibrant energy revolution were nurtured with great enthusiasm and great expectations. Renewable energy innovations held out the promise of the end of fossil fuels and the pollution they cause simply by the availability of a better product in the market for energy. 

An energy movement to renewable sources of “natural energy” such as wind, solar, hydro, tidal, and geothermal took hold and grew rapidly with forecasts of a renewable energy revolution and the end of fossil fuels. The hills along the highway from Berkeley to Sacramento California became dotted with wind turbines and in Northern Sonoma County, California a geothermal power plant began supplying electricity to the grid. At the same time, the so called “peak oil” and “end oil” forecasts of the coming depletion of fossil fuel resources began to appear in the news simultaneously with the Club of Rome report of the imminent depletion of the essential resources that sustain the industrial economy. These forecasts, along with energy crises of the OPEC oil embargo of 1973 and the uprising against the Shah of Iran in 1979, had created a crisis in the fossil fuel industry that was perceived as a weakness in Big Oil. This condition of the once vibrant energy sector led to forecasts of its eventual demise, and the search was on for alternatives to fossil fuels.

The pollution and oil spill issues and the energy crises of the 1970s created a feeling among consumers, energy analysts, and energy activists alike that fossil fuels were on the way out. It was thought to be axiomatic, particularly so among the anti pollution & anti fossil fuel activists, that the clean energy alternatives that were then being developed and implemented would be our energy future. It seemed certain then that the days of our fossil fueled economy were numbered and that a new age of renewable energy was dawning .

It was in this context of an exciting anticipation of an energy technology revolution that would end the age of fossil fuels, that the climate change issue was inserted into the energy dialog.

AND THEN THERE CAME A THIRD QUESTION

QUESTION;

HOW DOES CLIMATE CHANGE OCCUR?

ANSWER:

1. WE BURN FOSSIL FUELS MADE WITH CARBON THAT IS MILLIONS OF YEARS OLD AND NOT PART OF THE CURRENT ACCOUNT OF THE CARBON CYCLE.
2. HALF THE CARBON DIOXIDE PUT INTO THE ATMOSPHERE THIS WAY STAYS IN THE ATMOSPHERE AND CAUSES ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATION TO RISE.
3. THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATION CAUSES THE GLOBAL MEAN SURFACE TEMPERATURE TO BE HIGHER THAN IT WOULD BE OTHERWISE.
4. AND SO THE MORE FOSSIL FUELS WE BURN THE HIGHER THE ATMOSPHERIC CO2 AND THE HIGHER THE GMST.
5. THIS SEQUENCE OF HIGHER AND HIGHER GMST IS UNDERSTOOD AS GLOBAL WARMING AND BECAUSE IT IS HUMAN CAUSED WE CALL IT ANHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING OR AGW.
6. AS GMST RISES, WEATHER PATTERNS BEGIN TO CHANGE AND LONGER TERM BEHAVIOR OF REGIONAL CLIMATE CHANGES TO AN UNNATURAL ANTHROPOGENIC CLIMATE STATES THAT COULD HAVE DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES FOR LIFE ON EARTH.
7. THESE FORECASTS OF DISASTER MEAN THAT WE MUST STOP BURNING FOSSIL FUELS TO STOP THESE DANGEROUS TRENDS
8. THAT’S WHAT THEY SAY, ANYWAY. MY PERSONAL VIEW IS THAT IT IS A CONTINUATION OF THE ANTI FOSSIL FUEL ACTIVISM OF THE 1970S AND 1980S BECAUSE SOME POEPLE JUST DON’T LIKE FOSSIL FUELS.

LINK TO DOCUMENT ON ANTI FOSSIL FUEL ACTIVISM: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/03/23/anti-fossil-fuel-activism-disguised-as-climate-science/