
How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room. - MartinMond
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas
======
jacoblyles
The Chinese leadership strikes me as pragmatic. If they thought the harm from
Global Warming would be more costly than carbon emission cuts, they would make
them.

But neither China nor India wants to remain poor. Any poor country is likely
to benefit much more from development than the harm development will cause
through additional carbon emissions (unless it's the Maldives). And neither
countries' regimes can benefit from buying the votes of a green constituency
with expensive projects of uncertain value. Rather, their legitimacy is
strengthened by delivering increased living standards, and that is just what
they intend to do.

The author is disingenuous to claim that these countries are acting in the
service of of "planetary suicide", the breathless accusations of western green
activists to the contrary. The Chinese leadership is well-educated. They can
read the IPCC reports. They know what the likely consequences are. Planetary
suicide is not among them.

Their leaders also know it's a hell of a lot better to be not-poor than poor.
They think they are making a rational decision by frustrating the western
green lobby's plans. And I'm pretty sure they are right. It's going to take a
hell of a lot bigger bribe than $100 billion to convince them otherwise.

~~~
nir
The pragmatic and well educated Communist Party leaders have already been
responsible for the death of over 15 million Chinese in the 1958 famine, when
they muddled with nature to achieve unrealistic growth goals:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine>

No doubt, the Party is pragmatic (so pragmatic it supplied Sudan with weapons
during the Darfur genocide, collecting their support in Copenhagen in return).
It is well aware that to maintain its control over the nation it has to keep
delivering the current high growth rate. This has a lot more to do with the
politicians' power than the people's quality of life.

~~~
papersmith
Only they were different leaders.

Traditionally PRC had two factions. The Maoists and the rivals, let's call
them the pragmatists. The Maoists were bent on communist doctrines and making
great leaps. The pragmatists were more into what already works. The heads of
the pragmatists were Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Shaoqi>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_xiaoping>

The famine as you mentioned was attributed in part to Mao's radical policies,
and because so Mao stepped down while Liu Shaoqi took his chair for a few
years. While Liu was in power he played with capitalist policies similar to
those in place today (this was the early 60s), Mao got paranoid and ousted him
and Deng, and cultural revolution was launched in part to undo their
popularity. Liu died in house arrest.

After Mao died in the late 70s, Deng took over and finally switched to market
economy. The current line of leaders descended from his faction of
pragmatists. Maoism is pretty much dead in China, a new split in the party is
between the populists and the princelings, much more similiar to the dichotomy
of liberals and conservatives in the west.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_of_Chinese_leadersh...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_of_Chinese_leadership)

~~~
nir
They are obviously different leaders (and I suppose the PRC have changed quite
a bit since 1958 in any case) but my point is a more general one - "the
leaders know best" is never a good assumption.

Assuming most HN readers consider themselves independent minded and skeptic
towards authority it's disappointing to see the credit given here to China's
leaders, who are chosen and operate mostly behind closed doors, as if they
really operate with their people's best interest in mind (or even _know_ what
it is).

I wouldn't rely so blindly on any Western leader, certainly not on a leader in
a closed, one party system like China's.

~~~
papersmith
I don't think the OP ever implied that the leaders know the best. It was meant
to be read from the viewpoint that there aren't good or bad politicians, there
are only politicians making good or bad decisions.

In fact from what I've read, the current generation of Chinese leaders aren't
particularly smart as people have given them credit for. Though they do seem
to know that they don't know enough to be visionaries, so they take the stance
of non-interference.

I can see the appeal of this kind of mentality has on HN, as I sense a lot of
users here hold libertarian views.

------
lionhearted
I would strongly recommend this 4 minute video to everyone on the issue:

"Michael Crichton on Environmentalism as a Religion" - the video talks about
how environmentalism offers salvation and a complete belief structure for many
people, but that the religion/faith aspect of it gets in the way of science.
Regardless of your views on the environment, it might be insightful for you:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv9OSxTy1aU>

As for China, I lived in China for a short time a few years back. I wasn't
convinced at all that they're the next world power - the government and
infrastructure were so far behind the West that I didn't think it'd happen.
But watching how China adjusted when the U.S. banking sector fell apart last
year has convinced me that they're going to the top.

The American government printed a lot, which should make our U.S. Dollars fall
relative to other currencies, including Chinese RMB. China in turn printed
about the same amount of money and invested it into Chinese infrastructure and
tax breaks for their businesses - driving the cost of Chinese goods even
lower.

They're building the same sort of infrastructure and industrialization that
the United States did during the Cold War. They're also liberalizing and
gradually loosening and eliminating central government while we're currently
expanding the role of central government. Considering their population is
three times larger, if the United States want to keep military parity with
China over the next 30 years, they'll have to change their economic policies
or they're going to go bankrupt. There's some difficult choices facing the USA
soon - China is definitely on the rise.

They face some hurdles - can they integrate and keep friendly the Cantonese,
Xianjianese, Tibetans, Macanese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kongese to some extent
into the primarily Mandarin Han government? The effects of the One Child
Policy will be interesting to see - the gender imbalance and all. China
breaking into Civil War is a very real possibility in the next 30-50 years,
but if they don't, they're on the rise globally and will be the next world
power.

~~~
mhartl
_environmentalism offers salvation and a complete belief structure for many
people_

Environmentalism is but one piece, but you're right that we're dealing with a
religion here. Moreover, the narrative of sin and redemption is not a
coincidence: progressivism (including its environmentalism subset) is not
_metaphorically_ a religion; it is a real, living (nontheistic) religion,* the
clear intellectual descendant of mainline ecumenical protestant Christianity.
A century ago it was the WCTU and the YMCA; today it's NOW and Greenpeace.

*If a nontheistic religion seems like a contradiction in terms, the problem is merely linguistic; English lacks a good word meaning "all religious beliefs minus the supernatural stuff". Whatever you call it, a nontheistic religion can't help but show its roots: a nontheistic sect of Hinduism, for example, would still be identifiably Hindu, despite the absence of gods; it would likely lack a sin-redemption narrative, but would probably include some sort of caste system.

~~~
lionhearted
> Moreover, the narrative of sin and redemption is not a coincidence:
> progressivism (including its environmentalism subset) is not metaphorically
> a religion; it is a real, living (nontheistic) religion,* the clear
> intellectual descendant of mainline ecumenical protestant Christianity.

I've heard that, but never found a reasonably objective source that references
primary sources. I've read a couple pieces: The general gist I got is that
North American Christianity split into two basic movements - Fundamentalist
Christianity, which emphasized that the Bible was literal and the ancient
rites were necessary to be followed, and Progressive Christianity, which said
that the Bible was not literal and was more inclusive and open to discussion.
But I've not found any primary or objective secondary sources on how this went
- you sound knowledgeable, do you happen to know any?

> If a nontheistic religion seems like a contradiction in terms, the problem
> is merely linguistic; English lacks a good word meaning "all religious
> beliefs minus the supernatural stuff".

Yes, that I'm very aware of. I've traveled a lot, and you can clearly see that
most non-religious people still inherited their basic religious beliefs of
their culture. Very few people actively study ethics and come to independent
decisions from their peer group - most people inherit their base ethics from
their surroundings, and since religions were the way that most people got
their ethics for a very long time now, it's mirrored quite well even in non-
religious people. People with formerly Confucian surroundings tend to have a
very strong family emphasis, which was a fundamental tenet of Confucianism.
People with Jewish surroundings tend to get a very strong scholarly emphasis,
at least partially descending from the heavy emphasis on Torah studies. Places
that had a heavy Christian presence often are more ashamed about sex,
pornography, and nudity than places like Africa and Japan which had did not
have those same religious views on sex.

The fastest growing religions in the world are nontheistic - this will enter
common thought in the next 50-100 years as the power of formal religions
continues to decrease and more nontheistic religions gain followers. And
that's not a bad thing, but you still absolutely need to insulate public
servants and scientists from their religious beliefs, lest they impose their
morals on their science and law, thus leading to - well, most people are aware
of the impact religion had on law and science throughout the ages. It's a
little bit of a dangerous time now, because there's no separation of
nontheistic churches and the state.

~~~
mambamamba
>>But I've not found any primary or objective secondary sources on how this
went

It's definitely true. Progressivism is the memetic leftover of north-eastern
US Mainline Protestantism. The poster above you makes the mistake of comparing
it to actual religions, when progressivism has evolved to drop the religious
components, which still makes its followers the cultural descendants of creepy
religious maniacs even though they don't believe in a God (also, as a side
note, consider that this makes progressives not "anti-American" as right
wingers make them about to be, but "ultra-American" in the sense of trying to
make the US progress into a more 'pure' and ethical state, as the Puritans
wanted it to be. Edit: also consider that this might make the right/left
'culture war' more of a religious war between two protestant-influenced
sects). This was mainly done for political power. Think about it, there is
supposed to be a disconnect in the US between the state and religion, what
better way for a memeplex to adapt to its environment then to drop the
supernatural bits, and focus on propagating the values, mores, and aspirations
of its believers through political power.

You asked for evidence, here is a number of excellent sources:

The main book you should read is "The Puritan Origins of AMerican Patriotism."
That pretty much lays out the argument.

Also check out "The Making of An American Thinking Class: Intellectuals and
Intelligentsia in Puritan Massachusetts." It makes the case that Puritans are
the forefathers of American radicalism.

I also recommend these:

God's New Israel: Religious Interpretation of American Destiny.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Authoritarianism.

Hellfire Nation: The politics of sin in America.

Also check out Michael Burleigh's two books on political religions (Earthly
Powers and Sacred Causes). This isn't an aberration of history. Religious
movements often drop their supernatural components under the guise of 'reason'
and 'rationality' so as to adapt to the culture and politics.

And if you are still not convinced, here is a large list by an American urban
historian: [http://www.amazon.com/A-History-of-American-
Radicalism/lm/R2...](http://www.amazon.com/A-History-of-American-
Radicalism/lm/R20ZCIY17VJA5T/ref=cm_lm_byauthor_title_full)

Edit: I also forgot to mention there is a blogger that writes about this topic
often. I generally disagree with a lot of what he says, but he comes up with a
number of primary and secondary sources for this historical hypothesis.

Here is one post that sums it up: [http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2007/07/univers...](http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2007/07/universalism-postwar-progressivism-as.html)

And the multi-part Open letter series is also good: [http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2008/04/open-le...](http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2008/04/open-letter-to-open-minded-
progressives.html)

~~~
nkurz
Great links, thanks!

------
shawndrost
It's pretty rational of them (and arguably, morally upright): emissions-per-
capita is caused by a high standard of living (barring a few confounding
factors), and industrialized nations are asking China to restrict themselves
to a much lower emissions-per-capita than we are targeting ourselves.

~~~
jbooth
Per capita aside, they've already passed us in emissions-per-GDP.

Just saying.

~~~
shawndrost
Source, details, explanation? (Genuinely curious.)

~~~
zzkt
You might want to have a look at
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ratio_of_G...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ratio_of_GDP_to_carbon_dioxide_emissions)

------
ars
If china would simply put out all it's underground coal mine fires, that alone
could remove 360 million tons of CO2 emissions. (As much as all the cars and
light trucks in the US.)

Just pure waste from china is alone responsible for a very large chunk of CO2
emissions.

[http://www.post-
gazette.com/healthscience/20030215coalenviro...](http://www.post-
gazette.com/healthscience/20030215coalenviro4p4.asp)

~~~
bilbo0s
You know this is the reason I find myself leaning conservative with respect to
environmental issues. All of these environmentalists loudly proclaim that
China and the US are the profligate polluters in the neighborhood. I have
looked up the numbers, and per capita, Australians release five times more
carbon into the atmosphere than we do. Yet I have not once seen or heard an
environmentalist take Australia to task for their profligate behavior. Do we
pollute more than Australia, yes, only because there are more people here. We
have to heat 100 million homes in the winter, right now that necessitates some
carbon emissions. We are number one in researching alternative energy
technologies to attempt to change this state of affairs, but what would you
have us do in the meantime? Freeze?

You bring up China, well I checked the numbers there as well, and Australia
releases eleven times more carbon per capita than China. Will China release
more carbon in the future, yes, because instead of the 300 million people that
currently enjoy little luxuries like heat in the winter, that number will
swell to well over 900 million. Incidentally, guess who is number two in
researching alternative energy technologies in an attempt to proactively
address their future energy needs. China. What would you have them do in the
interim? Freeze as well?

Yet China and the US are the "problem".

No, the real reason these 'environmentalists' are anti China and US is because
it is politically fashionable to be so. It has very little to do with the
actual numbers and the reasons behind them.

Sane and safe programs for the reduction of carbon emissions should have some
basis in per capita emissions. And the evidence is more than clear that many
nations have much further to go than the US and China in this regard.

~~~
carpo
Im not sure how accurate this is, but Wikipedia lists the US carbon emmissions
per capita as 18.67, Australia as 18.74 and China has 4.57. This seems to
correlate with the world bank data as shown on Google for 2005 -
[http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-
wdi&met=en_atm_co...](http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-
wdi&met=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:USA:AUS&tstart=-315619200000&tunit=Y&tlen=45)

Maybe it has changed in the last few years, but it is a lot different than
your claim of 5 times the US amount or 11 times the Chinese. Where did you get
your numbers from?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions)

~~~
bilbo0s
See response to @ryanwaggoner, who, in all fairness, asked first.

~~~
bilbo0s
EDIT:

Just like I mentioned to @ryanwaggoner, I think, given incidents like
'climategate' we should be careful of quoting sources like wikipedia.

For instance, the source data used for the wikipedia article is not carbon
emissions per capita, it is data on carbon emissions per capita . . . PER USD1
GDP. That is, per capita per $1 GDP.

The authors of the wikipedia article either mistook the data to be data on per
capita emissions, or really didn't understand the difference. At any rate,
that is the reason for the confusion I think.

By the way, here is the source data that the wikipedia article uses:

<http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Data.aspx>

~~~
carpo
One of the rows of data in that link provides the total carbon emissions (the
row titled: "Carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), thousand metric tons of CO2").
Dividing this number by the population of the US and Australia provides a very
similar result to the Wikipedia article. The per GDP data is another row
entirely. Maybe I'm confused, as I don't look at stuff like this much, and
I've only given it a cursory glance ... but this data doesn't look to be
backing up your original argument either.

~~~
bilbo0s
I am going to copy the same response given to @nkurz, EDIT:END EDIT, as you do
seem to have a genuine intellectual curiosity. I hope you don't mind. At any
rate if you follow this link:

[http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Metadata.aspx?IndicatorId=28&...](http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Metadata.aspx?IndicatorId=28&SeriesId=0)

as @nkurz suggests, then you will come to a page with two 'per capita' data
charts on it. Click either, and under the 'Series Detail' section of the
resultant page you will see something like the following:

Series Name: Carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), metric tons of CO2 per capita
(UNFCCC)

Goal: Goal 7. Ensure environmental sustainability

Target: Target 7.A: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into
country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental
resources

\----HERE---->> Indicator: Indicator 7.2 Carbon dioxide emissions, total, per
capita and per $1 GDP (PPP) <<<\----HERE----

As you can see it is per capita per $1 GDP (PPP). By the way, the (PPP),
Purchasing Power Parity, makes this data even less useful. But I didn't want
to get into ALL of the things that are wrong with this dataset.

Alternatively, here is a direct link to:

Carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), metric tons of CO2 per capita (UNFCCC)

<http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/SeriesDetail.aspx?srid=752>

Again, check under 'Series Detail' and you will see the above dataset
description.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Ah, the infamous "Oxford comma" strikes again!

They appear to be listing the various data elements compiled. As in:

* Total carbon dioxide emissions * Per Capita carbon dioxide emissions * per $1 GDP carbon dioxide emissions

I guessed that this might be the case, but did not pre-conclude it. Instead I
downloaded all of their actual data sets and compared the numbers in the
charts, and indeed, the numbers for per-capita carbon dioxide emissions, which
include no mention of per-GDP calculations, support Wikipedia's numbers to the
same effect.

i.e., Australia in 2006 was showing 19 metric tons of CO2 emissions per capita
to the United States' 19.7, etc.

(And I _swore_ I was never again going to get involved in a climate
"discussion" on HN.)

~~~
bilbo0s
So if we assume that your interpretation of the data is correct, Australia is
just as big an emitter as the US, and they emit roughly 4 TIMES as much as
China does. If my interpretation was correct, they emit 5 TIMES the US and 11
TIMES China.

My point being that the material point stands in either case. That is, even if
we were to all agree to your interpretation of the data, nations like China
are still not the problem. Why then, is all of the negative attention on China
and the US? Clearly there are other emitters just as profligate. In fact, in
the case of China, most of the other nations are far more profligate per
capita.

I maintain that the negative attention given to China and the US is due to the
fact that being anti US and anti China is the height of political fashion.
Clearly, the people denigrating China don't take Australia to task for what we
have both established as demonstrably far more egregious behavior.

~~~
demallien
No, really not. Australia is not being taken to task for several reasons:

1) Unlike China, Australia was a signatory to Kyoto (actually, I'm not 100%
sure if China was a signatory or not, but at any rate they didn't have binding
targets).

2) Unlike the US, Australia actually met its Kyoto targets.

3) Everyone knows that most of Australia's economic activity is geared towards
exports of primary produce to the rest of the world - as already noted,
Australia's own population is small, certainly not big enough to consume even
a tenth of what is being produced. As such, at Kyoto it was agreed to not
heavily limit Australian emissions, as these emissions would more fairly be
placed on the books of the consumer countries.

4) Australia was willing and able to play ball in Copenhagen, unlike the
Chinese.

5) Australia does not have very much diplomatic clout, so it is not being held
accountable for the failure of diplomacy, as the US is.

6) And, finally, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what Australia does
per capita, as its population is simply too small to make a difference on a
global scale - even if we accept the dodgy figure of Australia emitting 11
times more per capita than the Chinese, that still means that China is
emmitting more than 5 times more than Australia. Using more realistic figures,
China is emitting about 10 times more than Australia, and the US is emitting
nearly 20 times more. And that is why no-one is pointing the finger at
Australia.

------
chaosprophet
I'm not sure of this, but all that I have read on the subject seems to
indicate that the US wasn't willing to go in for legally binding emission cuts
either. If I'm not wrong on that count, then what basis does the US have to go
about trying to force other countries, especially developing countries into
legally binding accords? Isn't the US the single largest polluting country?
Should they not be cleaning up their own act too?

~~~
dandelany
> Isn't the US the single largest polluting country?

Actually, no. At least in terms of CO2 emissions, China replaced us as #1 in
2006.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions)

~~~
shawndrost
While this is technically true, we're indirectly responsible for much, much
more than the emissions listed in that table. Back-of-the-napkin calculation:
if their manufacturing industry accounts for a third of their emissions [1],
and they export 25% of their production to the US (wild guess), we're
indirectly responsible for another half-billion metric tons of emissions,
which pushes us over them, even without considering our indirect emissions
effects on other countries.

[1] [http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/industry-
CO2-emissi...](http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/industry-
CO2-emissions.html)

~~~
netcan
I woulnd't necessarily conclude that "consumers" rather then manufacturers are
"responsible." The US exports too.

OTOH, The US has been at it for much longer. They also have fewer people which
should "entitle" them to less on an equitable basis.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Nah, it's a fair point, and one that neatly solves a couple of problems: if
the U.S. were to be serious about reducing global CO2 emissions, then we might
stop buying so much crap from China.

------
heresy
Saner heads in the room prevailed (Chinese heads).

And I'm glad they did, they did us a service.

I don't want my country to be shipping out hundreds of billions a year to
despotic regimes in the hope that there is a chance in hell the money would go
to the uses it was intended for and not serve as a slush fund for well
connected government officials.

I don't want my country to do the worst possible thing it could to its already
weak economy by hamstringing it even further compared to rivals who do not
have the same costs.

Also, I don't buy the guilt argument, I'm not about to apologize for the past
300 years of progress brought to humanity care of the West.

"Reparations" should not even be on the table in any way shape or form, they
should be thanking us.

------
vikram
1.6 Billion people (quarter of the world's population), live without
electricity. All of these people live in the developing nations. Without
progress, these nations can't bring basic things like a glowing light bulb to
large sections of their population.

I don't know if the chinese leadership is pragmatic or not, but it sort of
makes sense to help your population today, than to help the planet in 50 years
time.

I don’t think the choice is

Having lived in India and the UK, I'd say there is already a massive
difference between India and UK, in terms of what we used. In India even if
you can pay for water/electricity you just don't have access to it, there are
regular power cuts in the summers as much as 8 hours a day in most cities.
Running Water is available for a few hours a day. Most rich people drill a
well and have a pump which pumps water into an overhead tank. For electricity,
the rich have diesel generators, to run their homes.

In the UK, I've never experienced a power cut, never had any water shortage,
no cut of gas to the house.

There just isn't any infrastructure in poorer nations. If you are poor you are
on your own. If you are rich you are still on your own, but you have the
resources to fix the problem for yourself.

I think it is important that 1.6 billion of us get electricity some time in
the near future.

~~~
eru
Electricity does not have damage the climate. Take wind power, or nuclear as
examples. Or geothermic stuff.

~~~
masomenos
but can you build and maintain a wind turbine without using fossil fuels?

Or mine and refine uranium?

Total lifecycle analysis is complicated, and important in these questions.

~~~
eru
The lifecycle analysis is necessary. I guess the answer to your questions can
be Yes.

------
Tichy
I wonder, is there or could there be a list of emissions, not by countries,
but by companies and industries? For example, wasn't there a news item
recently about cargo shipping being the worst offender?

Maybe such a list would be more efficient than certificate trading between
countries. Just as for optimizing computer programs, it might make sense to
eliminate the worst offenders first. Maybe a lot of bad offenders would be
easy to fix. Negotiating emission rates between countries might be akin to
premature optimization.

Maybe satellites could be used to spot CO2 emission hot spots? With some
additional logic, hot spots could be assigned to industries (ie if it is at
sea, it is likely to be a ship. If it is on land, Google Maps probably knows
the name of the company). Just wondering how to compile such a list...

~~~
Rabidgremlin
I agree this is the way to go...

------
Zarkonnen
One of the assumptions here is that economic growth necessarily makes people
happier. Studies on happiness indicate that up to a point, more wealth makes
people happier. After that, there is no impact.

So forgive me if I'm cynical about the hysteria about the effects of cutting
carbon emissions. A lot of people live in abject poverty, but that is a
problem of _distribution_ , not total numbers. The gap between the rich and
poor has been widening so quickly that despite the growth in GDP, in real
terms, the poor have been getting poorer.

Economic growth, as it stands, does little to help most people, and much to
further fill the pockets of the rich.

------
miked
I'd like to take a little poll, if I might. The basis:

1) There was a plan in Copenhagen to give $100 billion to poor nations to
"help them cope with climate change".

2) Since 1998 the temperature of the earth has fallen about 0.4 F.

3) The actions these nations need to take against global warming are very
different than those they need to take against global cooling.

Questions:

1) Is the money they were to be given to be spent to protect against warming,
or cooling?

2) Whichever one you picked, why aren't they more specific in their namimg?
Why the ambiguity?

------
joubert
Hedging my bets, I'm saving up for my space ticket.
<http://www.virgingalactic.com/overview/space-tickets/>

------
xster
I don't quite see how the warmongering of guardian managed to get on hacker
news

------
moon_of_moon
From the Guidelines for this forum: "Off-Topic: Most stories about
politics,..."

Please don't turn this into a place for politics, instant support groups,
lolcats, and recycled memes from 4chan. That place is called reddit.

------
nice1
As much as I hate the commies (wherever they reside), I think the Chinese
saved the world from a scam of unheard proportions. To make far-reaching
policy decisions based on doctored data and questionable analysis would be
criminal. Until there is an open, solid scientific basis for the AGW
hypothesis absolutely nothing should be undertaken along the lines of what
these people suggest. There are other serious environmental issues (like
contamination) which deserve far more attention; they are understood and well
documented. AGW at the moment looks like a scam. It is a good thing the
Chinese couldn't be bought off or tricked by the fraudsters.

------
elblanco
Amazing...it's like reading reddit.com, but with Hacker News as the title.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ahmdz/how_do_i_kn...](http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ahmdz/how_do_i_know_china_wrecked_the_copenhagen_deal_i/)

~~~
weaksauce
To be fair, they used the exact title of the article which is the way that
hacker news guidelines are set forth.

I think your comment should have been more along the lines of "Amazing... it's
crazy that a title on reddit.com did not get editorialized to sensationalize
the article."

~~~
elblanco
Too true, too true.

~~~
moon_of_moon
I think your comment should have been : oh crap here come the 4chan wannabes.
Lets urgently start looking for a new aggregator to frequent.

~~~
elblanco
That would have been too n00bish, and besides, some people are going through
and systematically down-voting every comment I post if you notice (as I'm sure
this one will be, jerks).

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cnanon
There's no need for China to cut emissions. As western economy fails in the
next 2 decades, its emissions will drastically fall as well. So why should
east cut down emissions if western economy will cut back by itself?

This whole Copenhagen fiasco was to put a lid on developing nations so the
west could further delay the transfer of global power to the Asian nations.

USA had no intention of cutting its own emissions but asks China that they
should. What kind of deal is that?

~~~
netcan
Copenhagen is really waking the conspiracy theorists.

If the US had agreed to a minor cut, China would have probably agreed to
limiting growth and eventually (10-15 years reducing). The argument is how big
the gap is. I've mostly heard talk of between a 15% & a 30% delay for
developing countries. @ 15% delay, the US cuts by 5% & China gets to grow by
10%. 20 years later the US cuts by 20% & China cuts by 5%. etc.

Any deal that emerges will probably slightly favour the developing world. It
is they that will need to pay for most of it because they have the money. "The
West" will subsidise "The East's" reductions somewhat. The only qestion is how
much.

The US is holding up the show at the moment. Maybe after next US elections
they will be ready for 5-10% cuts with China limiting itself to about 10%
growth (by 2020 or 2025). Most other developed countries are ready for 20% by
2020 now.

~~~
thaumaturgy
> _Maybe after next US elections..._

I doubt it. I expect that the next POTUS will be a conservative Republican.

~~~
test543
Sarah? :D

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dpatru
Although I hate communism, I find myself more in agreement with China than US
policymakers with respect to war, trade, economic policy, and regulation.
China seems more pro-freedom than the US.

Case in point: by wrecking the Copenhagen deal, China has helped the cause of
liberty in the western countries by making it harder for governments in
increase taxes and regulations on its citizens.

~~~
rms
I'm hesitant to start any argument in this thread, but...

While I greatly respect China's economic system ("Socialism with Chinese
characteristics"), there are very few definitions of freedom where China is
more pro-freedom than the USA.

~~~
maxklein
I went to china and the US:

* Nobody questioned me on entry into china like I was a criminal

* Policemen don't walk around with guns like they are ready to gun you down

* When a girl removes her shirt, she she is not jailed in china

* When I drink excessively and start acting the fool, I am treated like an idiot in china, not like a criminal

I visited both countries. In china, people are happy and friendly. In
American, people are trapped and unfriendly.

China feels a lot freeer than the United States.

~~~
kscaldef
I don't know where you visited in the US, but it doesn't sound at all like
where I live.

* Most people I encounter are happy and friendly, even the poor and unemployed.

* I'm not accustomed to seeing police carrying anything more than a holstered service pistol.

* Not only can women take off their shirts without being arrested, both men and women can legally be completely naked in public (in this state).

* I've never seen anyone "treated like a criminal" for being drunk, so long as they aren't violent or otherwise harming other people.

* I've never experienced more than cursory questions on entry to the US, with 1 exception: returning to the US on Sept 14, 2001

Personally, I've lived in and visited enough places around the world that I
would never reach a judgment on what a place is really like based on a brief
visit, especially not a country as large as the US or China.

~~~
gnaritas
> * I'm not accustomed to seeing police carrying anything more than a
> holstered service pistol.

More to the point, you've been trained think that is normal, in countries
where guns aren't legal, the very sight of a gun would strike fear into
people.

> * Not only can women take off their shirts without being arrested, both men
> and women can legally be completely naked in public.

I don't know where you live, but public nudity will get you in trouble just
about anywhere in the U.S. You just can't stroll through a mall naked, you
will be forcibly removed and you will meet some police.

> I've never seen anyone "treated like a criminal" for being drunk, so long as
> they aren't violent or otherwise harming other people.

Same as above, stroll though a mall falling over drunk and you'll meet some
police very quickly. Public drunkenness will get you in trouble in most public
places that aren't a bar.

~~~
kscaldef
> More to the point, you've been trained think that is normal, in countries
> where guns aren't legal, the very sight of a gun would strike fear into
> people.

I suppose that might be true in some places, but I've lived in Europe and
spent a fair amount of time in Mexico, and my observations in both were that
the police carried much more serious weaponry under normal circumstances than
you see in the US.

> I don't know where you live, but public nudity will get you in trouble just
> about anywhere in the U.S.

I live in Oregon, where we have a constitutional right to be naked in public.

> You just can't stroll through a mall naked, you will be forcibly removed and
> you will meet some police.

Malls are private property, not public property. The owners of the mall have
every bit as much right to exclude someone being naked on their property as I
do on my property.

> Same as above, stroll though a mall falling over drunk and you'll meet some
> police very quickly. Public drunkenness will get you in trouble in most
> public places that aren't a bar.

Again, malls are private property. And, I suppose I can’t argue with whatever
your experiences were, but I see lots of drunk people wandering about on a
typical Friday or Saturday and the only ones who have problems with the police
are the ones who try to start fights, or who won’t leave private property when
asked.

~~~
gaius
_I suppose that might be true in some places, but I've lived in Europe and
spent a fair amount of time in Mexico, and my observations in both were that
the police carried much more serious weaponry under normal circumstances than
you see in the US_

Indeed. Get off the Eurostar at GdN and you will see soldiers patrolling the
place with assault rifles. Same around the Tour Eiffel. And this is _in
France_. No-one bats an eyelid. I've never seen routine patrols in any US city
carrying M16s.

