China gives history lesson on warming

This is an interesting article that offer a different perspective to the impact of global warming to China's fortune.

SCMP.com - China gives history lesson on warming: "SCMP.com - China gives history lesson on warming"

China gives history lesson on warming
While world weighs how to fight climate change, Chinese recall past glories when mercury rose
Stephen Chen Dec 08, 2009

If 3,600 years of history is anything to go by, Chinese civilisation has flourished when temperatures have been at their warmest and declined when the climate cooled.It is a relationship that could hold lessons for today, says Professor Xie Zhenghui, deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' International Centre for Climate and Environmental Sciences."

Ask the scientists and some will warn the growing season for farmers will become shorter, the weather more extreme and sea levels higher. Moreover, they say China, as the biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases that cause warming, risks being blamed by other countries for disasters around the world. Others see potential benefits. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would accelerate the growth of crops, higher temperatures would open up for cultivation land in northern areas such as Inner Mongolia that are too cold to grow crops today, warmer air over the oceans would bring more rain to China's drought-plagued interior and the frequency of extreme weather would eventually decrease once temperatures stabilised, they say.

"Chinese historical records show that the temperature would stabilise after a sharp climb. Mother Earth has a lot of mechanisms to adjust herself to a new equilibrium," Xie said. "In my opinion, the sooner the temperature increases the better. The longer it takes, the more extreme weather we will have to face. Extreme weather is the hallmark of transitional periods. Once we enter the warm and stable periods like those in the Han and Tang dynasties, we will be fine."

History was a word on the lips of many in the Danish capital as the biggest and most important UN climate change conference yet opened, with organisers warning diplomats from 192 nations that this could be the last, best chance for a deal to protect the world from calamitous global warming.The conference, the climax of two years of contentious negotiations, convened in upbeat mode, but major issues holding up a binding agreement have still to be resolved.

Conference president Connie Hedegaard, a former climate minister of host Denmark, said: "This is our chance. If we miss it, it could take years before we got a new and better one - if we ever do."

As the division of opinion among Chinese experts suggests, predicting the future may be beyond contemporary climate science. But the past may indeed hold lessons. For thousands of years, Chinese scholars have kept meticulous meteorological records; such information was crucial for the government to plan and guide agricultural production. Everything was archived, from the date each year that ice began forming at the mouth of the Yellow River to the flowering and seeding patterns of certain plants. The data allows scientists today to chart a reliable pattern of climate change in China over three and a half millennia.

From the prosperity of the Shang dynasty 3,600 years ago to the ruin of the Bronze Age, the cultural peak of the Tang dynasty in the seventh to 10th centuries and the subsequent ravages wrought by horsemen from the north, Chinese civilisation has reached its highest points when temperatures have been warmest and its lowest points when they have cooled.

Wang Zijin, an environmental historian at Beijing Normal University, said the relationship between temperature and success was no coincidence. When the weather cooled, agricultural output fell, wealth contracted, discontent rose and China became more vulnerable to invasion from the north."In the long term, warming may not be a curse but a blessing [to China]," he said. "If the temperature continues to rise, we may not see the return of elephants but it will be very possible that rice and bamboo can again grow along the Yellow River. Xinjiang, Gansu and Inner Mongolia will become much more habitable than today."

This relationship between temperature and dynastic potency was first drawn by meteorologist Zhu Kezhen in a 1972 paper. Zhu plotted on a graph temperatures in the Yellow River region from 1500BC to 1950. Based on archaeological artefacts and historical documents, the graph charted the rises and falls in average temperature.It showed that there were three extended periods of warm temperatures.

The first coincided with the Shang dynasty (1600BC-1046BC), when the annual average temperature reached as high as 11.3 degrees Celsius. This period saw the emergence of the first comprehensive set of Chinese characters, massive construction of palaces and cities, large-scale farming and the production of systematic astronomical records and sophisticated bronze wares.

The second extended period of warm temperatures lasted more than 700 years, from the Eastern Zhou dynasty (770BC-256BC) to the Western Han dynasty (206BC-9AD), when average temperatures peaked at 10.7 degrees Celsius. In the Eastern Zhou, China's territory expanded from the Yellow River to Guangdong, Yunnan and Sichuan. There was an enormous bamboo forest along the Yellow River, while the Yangtze River cut through lush rainforest. At this time slavery was abandoned, iron tools became popular in farming and Confucius and other scholars established the philosophies that still shape Chinese society. By the time temperatures started to dip, China had built the Great Wall and a national road network and conquered Xinjiang, Vietnam, Taiwan and Korea.

A third warm period, when average temperatures peaked at 10.3 degrees, coincided with the Tang dynasty, widely seen as the peak of Chinese civilisation. Some historians estimate China accounted for 60 per cent of global gross domestic product during this era. From textiles, ceramics, mining and shipbuilding to paper making, China led the world. And there were more poets in the Tang than at any time in history. In between these great dynasties, average temperatures plunged and chaos reigned. The Chinese empire retreated, and was even driven into the sea by the invading Mongols who established the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). The longest period of relative cold lasted from the end of the Tang to the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911.

Now temperatures are on the rise again, matched by scorching economic growth. According to the Yellow River Conservancy Commission, the average annual temperature was 10.3 Celsius from 2001 to 2007 - the same as in the Tang dynasty.Zhu's research was based on records which make for interesting comparisons with the present day. Rice could be harvested twice a year to the north of the Yellow River in the Eastern Zhou dynasty, whereas the region is generally dry now. Plum trees were common along the Yellow River in the Tang dynasty, but since then have only grown further south. Xu Ming, chief author of a study by global environmental group WWF on the impact of climate change in the Yangtze River region, said China should focus less on prevention and more on mitigation - water redistribution facilities, tree planting and developing new crops. "China should do something within its limited capacity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but no matter what we do, global warming is inevitable," said Xu, a professor at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. A rise in sea levels would pose a threat to coastal cities, which could end up below sea level and needing protection by dykes, he said. "Adaptation requires a tremendous amount of money, resources and advanced technology. China is far from ready."

10 Forecasts for 10 Years Out

Let me start a new annual tradition to present 10 projections about 10 years in the future.

October 20, 2019.

1. The biggest source of anxiety in the whole world is bewilderment at how quickly the world is changing all around everyone. Bewilderment and feeling disconnected from the future of the world becomes the "mother-of-all-fears" that show itself in more extremist activities rooted in nationalism, religion and economic grievances.

2. Action against climate-change becomes a money-spinner, vote winner and source of national pride. The public came around to realise that those who pollute stays poor and governments also learnt that they always gets blamed for poor environment that leave their people sick. The biggest new boom industry is "Clear Industries" which involves scrubbing and filtering technology to produce clean water and clean air. And the winner in this turn-around game (so far) is ... China.

3. The world is in a new financial crisis driven by bursting of an economic bubble in China after 10 years of loans growth, real estate boom and unfettered investment. The economies of the US, Europe and Japan are not strong enough to compensate, while most of the rest of the developing world is, by now, wrapped in reliance on the Chinese economy. Chinese youths - reared on a diet of "China-never-makes-a-mistake", being unfamiliar with self-reflection and coping with disappointments - behaves in volatile and dangerous ways increasing regional tensions. China responds with policial reforms but finds it hard to manage expectations.

4. The biggest source of social and regional instability comes from environmental degradation especially lack of access to water. Tensions breakout into violence and wars in Africa, Middle-east, Indian-subcontinent, Central Asia and within China amongst people who are trapped by poverty or national borders from shifting life sustaining resources.

5. India promises but sputters as age old divisions (and sheer numbers of population growth) stayed ahead of growth. Intense dislocation and "bewilderment" within its massive, under-educated and traditionally conservative population creates a volatile domestic and international situation with politically motivated clashes with China. Indian politicians vie to become the new global spoilers as the standard bearer for the "have-nots" against the global economy which China and the US champions.

6. Iran - the ancient civiliation of Persia - flowers after reformist factions takes power after overthrowing the reactionary elements. The economy is in shambles but politically, together with Iraq, it tries to be a model of "The Shiite Way" of a modern Islamic nation that combines piety, traditions with modern progress. Meanwhile, Egypt and Saudi Arabia slides towards anarchy as the state falters in botched political successions.

7. America gets to a point of reckoning if it will retain its pre-eminent military power which it can no longer afford, or reorientate to rebuild its economy to cope with an ageing population, global competition and gross inefficiencies (despite the best of efforts in 8 years of the Obama Presidency) in its healthcare, infrastructure, education and governance systems.

8. Thailand starts to remind people of the Philippines. Philippines begins to remind people of Zimbabwe. Malaysia becomes more like Thailand with a succession of weak governments, stronger civil society and resulting in a lost generation. Vietnam is the stunner which trumps them all with the most vibrant economy in Southeast Asia. Indonesia thrives on diversity and finally show its promise but also rearing its heads with regional ambition. Singapore roars ahead and settles into a comfort zone like Danmark. Brunei has trouble with over-population which nudges closer and closer to 1m. Sri Lanka becomes the economic dark horse and tries to join ASEAN.

9. Mass and conspicuous consumption becomes unfashionable as the average age of the "haves" in the world gets older (but the world's "have nots" gets younger). Shopping malls become a place associated with the lower classes. Instead, people spend more time and money on creative arts, health, experiences and investing in human relationships. The health, vacation and education industry keeps booming. The quest for authenticity in experiences of nature creates stress on world's cultural and natural heritage leading to persistent tension between the "haves" and "have-nots".

10. Brazil finally becomes the global power it always had the potential to be but never did. Vast new energy resources, unrivalled prowess in farming, prolonged political stability and (finally) social reforms and stronger rule of law creates a new force in the world equal to Japan and EU and below that of only US and China. The main driver for Brazil's rise came from Brazil's strategic economic partnership with China (also Australia) where Brazil is both a source of raw materials and a new 400m people market for China in Latin America.

Haze in Beijing and Chinese ecology

Beijing is blanketed in haze with low visibility. The weather forecast authority insists that the the haze is caused by the moisture in the air and not by the polutant. There is no cause for alarm.

I am not a scientist. I don't know what is the cause.

What is true is that Beijing is hazy today, on July 27, 12 days before the openning of Olympics and 7 days after the city implemented the "odd and even number plate" traffic rule to reduce by almost half of traffic volume on the road. No question, the traffic has improved significantly. It remains insufficient.

Situated closed to Gobi to the west and blocked by mountain range to the north with a wide plain to the south and the east, Beijing is not geologically the best place for a Swiss hamlet.

Sandust from the Gobi, smoke polutants from the farms and factories in Hebei, dust and waste from the never ending construction and the exhaust smoke from the car numbered in millions as well as discharge and dispose of 16 millions residents have combined to aggravate the fragile and arid ecological condition of Beijing.

The taxi drivers whom I spoke to are concerned with the image the Beijing project to the visitors. No amount of Olympics athlete's prowess and records and the host hospitality are going to change what is breathed into the lungs. That will be a more lasting impression.

The government must not be so narrow minded to impose measures just for the sake of Olympics. The visitors may number in hundred of thousand during the one month sports event. There are however 16 millions of Chinese nationals living in the capital, most of whom live for their entire lifes.

The taxi driver I spoke to cherish his youthful day in 1950s when he was able to swim and catch fish at a river near the Zhongwenmen. The river has since gone paving ways to road.

This remind me of Chongqyechon of Seoul. Chonggyechon was originally a small stream but paved with concrete to make way for an expressway. Few years ago, the former mayor and the present president Lee Myun Bak restored the stream and return the source of life back to Seoul. Singapore river is another example which is so much an attraction now that the tourists are happy to dine along the once poluted river at Clark and Boat Quay.

Will these be learnt by Beijing whose obsession seems to be building signature architecture forgetting that however adorable the architectures, they are nothing if visibility is hampered by haze, dust and polutants.

Certain Chinese green activists have advocated relocating the capital for ecological reason. However the proposal doesn't attract any mainstream debate seemingly it maybe too political a topic to discuss.

Moving the capital is not the panacea. Ultimately, there has to be long term green policy to keep the ecology.

I remember reading a history book on China ecology - the retreat of elephans - an environmental history of china. Once upon a time in China, rhino and elephant were roaming in large number. Where are they now? We have them in the muzium in the form of cups and other carved out of the rhino horn and elephant ivory.

Another more recent example, the Tai lake, once regarded as the land of fish and rice. What happens to her now? The green algae made the lake worse than a sewarage. Another algae example is Qingdao. It was as recent as 3 weeks ago where thousand of PLA soldiers were sent to clean the bay infested by algae to make it in time to host the Olympics sailing event.

Not to mention the carbon belching out and the toxic pouring out of the factories collectively known as the Made in China. They are hardly regulated by the local governments whose primary interest is tax collection rather than conservation of nature and environmental protection.

30 years of economic expansion has taken the toll on the Chinese ecology. It's time for tough conservation and environmental policies and enforcement for the healing to begin. Officers with conservation accomplishment should be exemplified and made a hero and be called the "Green Lei Feng".

This maybe out of fashion.

A better suggestion is to allow a healthy and vibrant Chinese society to evolve where the peoples are empowered to promote conservation and defend against environmental encroachment by authority or business interest establishment. What does that mean? (to be continued)