Relying on the Chinese economic miracle? You’ll have to have another one shortly afterwards to keep you going

Our local economic geniuses, such as Senators Terry le Sueur, Philip Ozouf  Alan Maclean and Geoff Cook, seem to rate the joys of attracting finance industry business from China/Asia. Here’s an account from the BBC of their recent (June) £20,000 trip to China, which they seemed to think was a jolly good wheeze!

They were, as the road to hell is well known to be paved with, full of good intentions because the purpose of the trip was to proactively address local unemployment, declining tax receipts and economic slowdown. What’s not to love? Fat tail risk chance!! - that’s a clever economic joke, BTW. What Le Sueur and co have just done, all bright eyed, bushy tailed and full of yuppie over-confidence, was the equivalent of going to Wall Street looking to drum up new finance business. In 1929. Before October 24th…

If anyone promoting the joys of unending exponential growth (which anyone with their heads screwed on should realise is a sure recipe for disaster) directs you to look at the Chinese economic “miracle” to back up their ideology, consider that it is always brightest before the storm.

Perhaps the following might be the proverbial “cloud no bigger than a man’s hand” that foreshadows that storm.

A US hedge fund manager has just (November 2010) launched a fund (Corriente advisors) that bets on the imminent implosion of the Chinese economy - click for link to Telegraph article.

Most of the Chinese GDP is in fact spending on building infrastructure such as new cities, airports etc. This article from the New York Times (July 6th) lays the true nature of the “miracle” bare. With all the apparent success of someone with access to a huge credit line that enabled buying fast cars and foreign holidays, jewellery and mansions just before the bills came in and their house of cards collapsed, Chinese municipalities have taken out gigantic debt obligations, kept discretely off their balance sheets using arcane financial instruments.

As municipal projects play out across China, spending on so-called fixed-asset investment — a crucial measure of building that is heavily weighted toward government and real estate projects — is now equal to nearly 70% of the nation’s GDP. It is a ratio that no other large nation has approached in modern times. In absolute terms, it’s an Armageddon amount that, as far as I am aware, the world has never seen before.

How might things start to collapse? The collateral for many loans is local land valued at lofty prices that would collapse if China’s real estate bubble burst. As an example, in Wuhan - China’s ninth-largest city - land prices have tripled in the last decade. But the land is only highly valued because there is an expectation that there will always be new building projects to initiate. It is widely documented that there are shopping malls and even whole cities that are virtually empty, with no-one to live in them or use them. Click here for the ghost cities of China. Clearly one of the biggest bubbles ever blown. Probably the loudest bang is due.

According to businessinsider.com the following rather mixed messages will blow your minds…

China’s dominoes of destruction

15 factoids about China that will blow your mind

15 more factoids about China that will blow your mind

When China falls, probably Australia will be the first domino (scroll down the page about half way) in the rest of the world to directly collapse. Après moi le deluge, cobber.

But no, Nick, I hear you cry with all the yuppie uber-confidence shared by our glorious leaders, surely the glass must be half full – we’ve lived our lives – we’ve built our lives - quoting this – all our friends know this is the attitude to have because we live in Jersey – we have a charmed and cushy life – nothing can puncture our happy optimistic bubble? Can it?

Sorry to burst your bubbles. Reality is starting to intrude.

 

Snippets from the Interwebs 3

China is installing the world's largest system (click link for Technology Review article) for generating electricity by collecting methane gas emitted by fermenting cow manure. Anaerobic digestion systems are very highly favoured in future to digest not only manure, which is what everyone is familiar with but also green and food waste – even special energy crops. It’s true that capturing methane and burning it produces CO2 but the carbon is from the planet’s “currrent account”, not the fossil fuel “deposit account” that contributes to altering the climate. Methane is also 23 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2 so it makes sense to collect and burn it anyway, particularly if by doing so, the obtained energy substitutes for and displaces the use of fossil fuel carbon.
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If all the toilet roll inner tubes produced every year in the United States were placed end to end they would stretch for a million miles, or 4 times further than the Moon
Scott paper have announced a new “tube free” toilet roll – click link to see original story
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Ocean acidification
This article from the geological society (yes, the original British, established in 1807, one) has more on ocean acidification. Scientists, from the University of Plymouth and the University of Santa Catarina, Brazil have studied the effect, on foraminifera (a species of plankton with a calcium carbonate shell) of increased levels of CO2 in the ocean. They state that at a mean pH of 7.8, the pH level predicted for the end of the century, calcified organisms begin to disappear, and non-calcifying ones take over. The current level is about 8.07. The pre-industrial level was about 8.18, thus ocean acidification is actually a reduction in alkalinity. Sea water des not need to actually become acidic before very serious effects happen.
Unless we curb CO2 emissions (forget climate change for the time being) we risk mass extinctions, degrading coastal waters and encouraging outbreaks of toxic jellyfish and algae. Similar lowering of ocean pH levels were closely associated with massive extinctions in the past.  Plankton are right at the bottom of the ocean food chain and they also sequester colossal quantities of CO2 in their shells, not to mention replenishing the oxygen supply of the atmoshere. We shouldn’t do anything to change them - but we sure as h*ll are doing.
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Peak Everything
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development reported, back at the end of last year, that an expert group had been set up by the European Commission  to screen a list of forty-nine "potentially critical" raw materials whose availability to industry could come under threat as global competition for natural resources intensifies. Of particular worry to Europeans are rare earths, collections of metals and elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods, including batteries used in electric cars. The Chinese are developing a stranglehold on supplies of many of the most important ones. Recycling will never mean as much as it will do when we can’t get enough stuff to make our stuff.
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Blade Runner meets Babylon

Text and picture adapted from from the New York Times 29/10/2010 (click picture for link to original story)
One family are going to live in this 27 story house in Mumbai. All five of them.
The tower, known as Antilia, is the new home of India’s richest person, Mukesh Ambani, whose $27 billion fortune also ranks him among the richest people in the world. And even here in the country’s financial capital, where residents bear daily witness to the stark extremes of Indian wealth and poverty, Mr. Ambani’s building is so spectacularly over the top that the city’s already elastic boundaries of excess and disparity are being stretched to new dimensions.
Here’s the understatement of the year:
“A gawking city has greeted the new tower with a mixture of moralizing and astonishment, envy and condemnation, all sprinkled with Freudian analysis of the most basic question: Why did he do it?
“We are all sort of perplexed,” said Alyque Padamsee, a long-time advertising executive and actor in the city. “I think people see it as a bit show-offy.”
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One way to do “food security”
Land grabbing… or at least buying up land.  South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, India, Saudi Arabia, China, Qatar, Kuwait. are buying up large areas in Africa to supply themselves with food and other agricultural products. Also leading the rush are international agribusinesses, investment banks, hedge funds, commodity traders, sovereign wealth funds as well as UK pension funds, foundations and individuals attracted by some of the world's cheapest land.  Here’s a link to an Observer investigation of this trend.
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LONDON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Scotland should produce enough renewable electricity to meet all its power demand by 2025, First Minister Alex Salmond said. "I'm confident that by 2025 we will produce at least 100 percent of our electricity needs from renewables alone, and together with other sources it will enable us to become a net exporter of clean, green energy”

Snippets from the Interwebs

When I used to write the Jersey Friends of the Earth newsletter in the 90’s, I would have a feature called Snippets whereby I would highlight lots of different stories in shortened form. There really is too much to keep up with environmentally nowadays so I will be doing the same “feature” every now and again. Here is the first.
Snippets Snippets Snippets Snippets Snippets Snippets
Champagne Charlies will notice a difference soon! Champagne bottles are going to be slimmed down for the environment. The bottles are as heavy as they are to contain the high pressure of the CO2 gas inside but they are being redesigned to lose excess glass and thereby lighten up.
link to triplepundit.com article about champagne bottles
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Genetically modified crops are touted as a saviour for global food production by increasing food yields, reducing pesticide use etc.
The India Times reports that the cotton boll worm has already developed resistance to Monsanto’s BT cotton.  Monsanto are now pushing BT cotton 2 – the sequel -  so yet another treadmill of increasing tech “solutions” and subsequent failure is born –they are even criticising the farmers! Ironically cotton yields are falling and pesticide use is increasing which is exactly what GM crops were promised to do – not!
Technology probably won’t be enough to stave off the forthcoming  difficulties in feeding the world. Initial successes of the “Green revolution” are looking  a bit jaundiced now.
http://www.hindu.com/2009/09/26/stories/2009092658910100.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/world/22food.html?th&emc=th
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Just for those who say there is no point in the West doing anything about CO2 emissions because China is building a new coal plant every week… When you know the other side of the story, that the denialists “accidentally” leave out, you might not be so cocky.
Also this story and this one show that those voices in America who argue against investing in renewables as pointless because “China will never do it” are dangerously misled/misleading. China will get to a sustainable energy supply system far in advance of the USA, not to mention a huge competitive advantage.
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Plastics used in food containers often contain Bisphenol-A – a plastic additive that has got a lot of bad press recently. This latest research report might sound the death knell for the routine widespread use of this substance which is so prevalent in plastic bottles, food cans etc.
I was caught out myself because my beloved Sigg water bottle has a lining that proved to contain Bis-A. Sigg have apologised and have set up a “return and replace” initiative. Their new water bottles do not contain this chemical.
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/newscience/human-placental-cells-die-after-bpa-exposure/
As if that wasn’t enough, Bis-A might have a hand in the tidal wave of obesity that assaults us in every other reality TV programme out there. This Newsweek article suggests that hormone mimicking chemicals, such as Bis-A, might engender excess fat cells in the very young. Tributyltin may also be an “obesogen” that causes more fat cells. So too some phthalates (used to make vinyl plastics, such as those used in shower curtains and, until the 1990s, plastic food wrap), and perfluoroalkyl compounds (used in stain repellents and nonstick cooking surfaces).
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Things that make you go hmmm…
Extract from Simple Earth media blog follows:
“Now tobacco may be able to redeem itself by producing solar cells, according to researchers at the University of California at Berkeley.  By infecting tobacco plants with a genetically engineered virus, scientists have been able to “produce artificial photovoltaic and photochemical cells” which are biodegradable and may end up being “more environmentally friendly than traditional methods of making solar cells”.”
Grow your own solar cells - tobacco now healthier!
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Annie Leonard is the face and voice of “The Story of Stuff” which I’ve linked to and talked about several times before. It’s simply great. Here she is live at Bioneers 2009
 
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There are very significant moves afoot for companies to clean up their environmental act and become more sustainable.Here’s some links to how some of the biggest are getting on.
How a Subaru plant achieved a zero landfill status

Walmart sustainability summit (2007)
“The main event was a speech by CEO Lee Scott in which he stated in no uncertain terms that Wal-Mart is in this for the long haul, and expects its suppliers to be in it for the long haul too. Scott pointed out that while his company is aiming for zero waste and 100% renewable energy, this still only accounts for 8% of its footprint, and that Wal-Mart must green its supply chain if it has any chance of becoming sustainable”
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Just in case anyone still believes that global warming is all a hoax or something cooked up by Al Gore to make money, just see how far back the warnings went.
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Nicolas Sarkozy has proposed a “joie de vivre” index to complement/replace GDP. Like Bhutan’s happiness index and similar indicators, from such as the New Economics Foundation, these initiatives posit that simply measuring GDP is a very poor (sometimes literally) way of measuring what people really value. A lot of political effort is expended on improving GDP figures because that is the current measure of “economic” success unfortunately the consequences that follow often conflict with peoples’ sense of well being.

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There are moves to tax sugary fizzy drinks in the States – Coca Cola watch out!
http://www.triplepundit.com/2009/10/tax-on-soft-drinks-could-relieve-states-budget-woes/
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Algae as a productive source of biofuel is now being seriously investigated.  Like much research in renewable energy, we have lost 3 decades worth of time because of the yuppy/Republican years  when the world ignored what was necessary and went on a consumerist binge literally fuelled by cheap oil.
This story shows that algae was being investigated as far back as the Jimmy Carter years before subsequent political developments pulled the funding plug which caused some of the genetic legacy of suitable candidate organisms to be lost in the subsequent Bush type administrations, although Clinton bears some responsibility.
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Do compact fluorescents use more energy than incandescents if manufacturing is taken into account? Life cycle analyses show that both LED and compact fluorescent bulbs are not even close. Both technologies use much less energy in total.
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Insurance companies throw in the towel
Taken from the greenlivingideas.com website
Property insurance may no  longer be available in the future if we can’t get control of climate change, says Nick Starling, the Director of General Insurance and Health for the Association of British Insurers. Climate change could end the continuing availability of property insurance.
The insurance industry might be overwhelmed by losses and  no longer be able to pay out for property losses with increased climate change, the Association of British Insurers announced this week.
Having examined scientific research commissioned by the British Meteorological Office, the ABI found that even the minimum of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit rise in global average temperatures (2 C) would increase annual British property losses to $77 million from inland flooding and windstorms.
A global average temperature rise of 10.8 F (6 C) was also played out in scenarios, along with  average global rise of 7.2 F (4 C) as well. At those levels the Director of General Insurance and Health for the Association of British Insurers said property insurance would simply no longer be possible for the insurance industry, which depends on actuarial history to determine risk.
Humanity is now moving completely outside of risk levels associated with human history.
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Magnus Larsson: Turning dunes into architecture

This is a somewhat wacky, but highly creative idea, which involves forming desert sand dunes into buildings. A liquid is injected in a 3D pattern which solidifies the sand into a sort of concrete. Loose sand is removed and Bob’s your Uncle! Spectacular buildings
 

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Reprinted from the wonderful Inhabitat – design will save the world – website
Scientists at Genomatica Inc. recently announced (click for original article) that they have developed strains of bacteria that are able to produce plastic without the use of oil or natural gas. The sustainable process utilizes little more than sugar and water to produce butanediol (BDO), which can be manufactured into everything from plastics and fibers to pharmaceuticals. Genomatica estimates that within a year the energy-efficient process will cost less than current hydrocarbon-based processes – a revolutionary development since close to 3 billion pounds of BDO are manufactured each year.
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Peak oil – we’re probably there already. The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency/print

Here's a link to an abstract of a paper by Kuwaiti scientists which gives peak oil production in 2014. They also estimate world oil reserves are being depleted at 2.1% per year using current extraction techniques.
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New labels listing the carbon dioxide emissions associated with the production of foods, from whole wheat pasta to fast food burgers, are appearing on some grocery items and restaurant menus in Sweden, which is expected to cut the nation’s emissions from food production by 20 to 50 percent, reports the New York Times.
http://www.sincerelysustainable.com/food/sweden-requiring-co2-emission-labeling-on-food
http://foodbizdaily.com/articles/93652-global-new-products-database-gnpd-presents-elovena-oat-flakes.aspx
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A whole bunch of green snippets

This very long post is various snippets from the net about all sorts of initiatives which are stealthily snowballing to allow us to follow a more sustainable path. The more these things come about, the easier it will be for yet more to come about and so on and so on. I think quite a few won't be good enough, or ultimately prove not even to be particularly green, and so will fall by the wayside but I'm sure it is very important to let people's ingenuity try lots of things in a sort of creative frenzy before the best solutions float to the top and win the eventual metaphorical "sustainability" prizes.

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There's a lot of advice in the media these days about living greener lifestyles by buying a hybrid car or buying certain products which have green, organic or sustainable labels stuck on them. Quite often the best thing is not just to soften your environmental impact by what you purchase or do - sometimes the best thing is to do nothing. With the amount of "greenwash" out there, not making a purchase at all can often be greener than buying something with a green sticker on it. Here's a link to a "think piece" on this topic on the great "Twilight Earth" blog.

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On 21 July I did a post about how our plastic bag use has almost halved in the UK and how Jersey was ahead of the UK generally.

We're not ahead of the whole world though!

Apparently China banned them outright in 2008 which, so far, has cut usage by 66 percent in the first year, saving 40 billion bags and 1.6 million tons of petroleum despite some initial problems with compliance. There they call them the “white pollution.”

The idea has taken off worldwide. Taxes or bans have been implemented in Australia, Russia, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and South Africa. Thin plastic bags have even been banned in some of the world’s poorest countries, including Eritrea, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda.

Cities in the United States have been leading the charge against the plastic nuisance. San Francisco became the first American city to ban the bags in 2007. Los Angeles has passed a tax as well that goes into effect next year. And just last month, Washington, D.C.’s city council approved a five-cent fee on both paper and plastic bags. It will go into effect following a public awareness campaign and distribution of reusable bags to low-income residents.

There has even been some movement in the US Congress. Rep. James Moran (Dem-VA) introduced the Plastic Bag Reduction Act of 2009 in June. The bill would phase in a nationwide five-cent fee on plastic bags starting in January of 2010. Unfortunately, it does not cover paper bags and currently appears stuck in committee.

Info taken from the Center for American Progress website.

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Small isn't always more beautiful. At least, not yet. Very big buildings, to some extent are currently easier to engineer to generate their own power, waste treatment systems etc.

These days, it seems like skyscrapers are in a race to be the greenest, as well as the tallest. New York City's Hearst Tower is largely made from recycled steel and uses rainwater for 50 percent of its needs. China's 71 story Pearl River Tower will soon use wind, sun and geothermal energy to power itself, and even the Empire State Building, one of the world's oldest skyscrapers, is currently undergoing an energy retrofit facelift to stay in the race.

To be the greenest skyscraper on the block, designers are incorporating cutting edge energy and water saving technologies like helical wind turbine technology, thousands of solar panels, sunlight-sensing LED lights, rainwater catchment systems and even seawater-powered air conditioning. One building awaiting construction is the Burj al Taqa "Energy Tower". With a 197-foot roof turbine and 161,459 square feet of solar panels, this 68 story skyscraper, if built, would create all its own power on site.

Info taken from the "World Changing" blog

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Many people are thinking up ingenious ideas for living more sustainably, yet trying not to compromise standards of living. While the current trend to carry bottled water around at all times is slightly bizarre to me, it seems very popular but it does generate a huge amount of waste plastic bottles. The New York company Tapit click for link to Tapit have come up with this simple idea! Businesses supply free water fill-ups to the public and in return they get their business implanted in the mind of the water seeker who may have never noticed the business before. The seeker looks up, on Tapit's site, or via their iPhone app, where there are businesses that have water, then goes in and fills up, free. On the other side, the business signs up to be a Tapit partner, specifies how people can get the water (ie from the counter staff, from the waiting staff, or self service) and what kind of water it is (room temperature/chilled, filtered/unfiltered). While this was started in, and still remains a primarily New York City thing, a visit to their Twitter page quickly shows you they are slowly expanding to other cities.

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Coca Cola are trying to green their act.The Coca-Cola Company recently took the first steps towards what CEO Muhlar Kent said was their, "vision to eventually introduce bottles made with materials that are 100 percent recyclable and renewable."

Kent was referring to the company's new PlantBottle due out sometime later this year in select markets holding their Dasani brand bottled water and sparking brands. Coke's Vitaminwater is expected to follow - being packaged in the PlantBottle sometime next year.

The PlantBottle is currently made through an innovative process that turns sugar cane and molasses, a by-product of sugar production, into a key component for PET plastic.

Manufacturing the new plastic bottle is more environmentally efficient as well. A life-cycle analysis conducted by Imperial College London indicates the PlantBottle with 30 percent plant-based material reduces carbon emissions by up to 25 percent, compared with petroleum-based PET.

According to the company, another advantage to the PlantBottle is that, unlike other plant-based plastics, it can be processed through existing manufacturing and recycling facilities without contaminating traditional PET.

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Nestlé ditches plastic for 100% recyclable Christmas boxes.

Along with their reduced Easter packaging, Nestle is making this year’s Christmas selection boxes totally recyclable by replacing plastic inserts with a paper-based alternative.

Nestlé plans to remove plastic inserts from its selection boxes and replace them with a card presentation tray that is easily recyclable.

Nestlé said that the change would save it 200 tonnes of packaging compared to 2007.

Info taken from the great My Zero Waste blog (about half way down the page).

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Greenpeace has had it in for Kimberly Clark, the maker of Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle brands, for a number of years because of their unsustainable wood pulp procurement policy.

After years of being worn down by Greenpeace’s arsenal of corporate campaign tools, Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle tissue brands, announced (on August 5th) stronger fibre sourcing standards that will increase conservation of forests globally and will make the company a leader for sustainably produced tissue products.

Greenpeace, which worked with Kimberly-Clark on its revised standards, announced that it will end its “Kleercut” campaign, which focused on the company and its brands.

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When you think of socially responsible companies, Mars, the candy-focused food company is not likely to be the first one that comes to mind. And yet, perhaps it will, as they have recently made two monumental commitments, with action and money to back it up. They encompass both what’s in and outside the wrapper.

100 million tons of sustainably certified cocoa bean purchases by 2020 sounds impressive, but especially so when it’s with $10+ million a year being spent to enable the right conditions for there to be enough supply for such a goal. And this is not just for some niche candy lines, but all chocolate used in Mars products.

UTZ Certified is who they’re working with on this initiative. While not as well known as, say, TransfairUSA, their work is of no less substance. Along with source sustainability certification and verification of supportive workplace practices, they actively reach out to farmers and those in the surrounding communities the viability of and market for sustainably grown cocoa. Fair-trade marches on.

Info taken from the Triple Pundit blog

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China is often portrayed by climate change deniers as an excuse for we in the West not to do anything "because they won't". It is true that China will remain a serious polluter for the immediate future - its reliance on cheap coal, to generate the bulk of its electricity, makes that almost inevitable.

At the same time, however, “this country is installing a one-megawatt wind turbine every hour,” points out Dermot O’Gorman, head of the World Wide Fund for Nature in Beijing. “That is more encouraging than the one coal fired power station a week” that normally dominates foreign headlines.

Indeed, China is pushing ahead on renewable technologies with the fervor of a new space race. It wants to be in the forefront of what many believe will be the next industrial revolution. If it succeeds, it will hold far-reaching implications for the planet – affecting everything from Detroit’s competitiveness to global warming to the economic pecking order in the 21st century.
China has vast areas of land for wind turbines and concentrated solar power (electricity from steam generators) so has the potential of being the first "big" nation to end up free of the yoke that dependence on foreign oil brings

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Once upon a time, Jersey had a "green bike" scheme whereby bikes were provided (often unclaimed stolen bikes or refurbished old ones) for everyone to use. Here is a new version of that idea - the Bixi bike. What do you get when you cross a taxi with a bike? A Bixi of course! You pick up the bikes from street stations, ride to your destination then lock it into the nearest street station. Having already become an enormous success in Paris and Montreal, the wildly popular Bixi bike sharing program is finally coming to the States early next summer in Boston. Why Boston? The Bixi program was initially developed to cut down on city traffic congestion. If you’ve ever been to and driven in Boston, then you probably are already aware that it is one of most tightly packed and congested cities in the country. So it seems only natural that it be chosen as the trial city for the U.S.

The Boston program, and its accompanying infrastructure, will closely resemble the Paris and Montreal programs which allow riders to pick up a bike from one of over 280 installed bike stations using a credit card or a Bixi-key (which is essentially a membership card). Similar to how Zipcar works (only with a bike instead of a car), riders can ride their borrowed bikes anywhere they like and then simply return them to a station closest to their final destination. The stations require no locks or locking done on the part of the rider and are designed for ease of use both in the borrowing and returning phase of the rental process.

Info taken from "Sincerely Sustainable" blog