China doesn’t function like a country. It unfolds like a project plan. We know that China hopes to become the world’s leading industrialized country, and it has started planning the resources for this.
One grand one is the 2006 Five Year Plan, where the Chinese outlined that they were going to procure 15% of their energy from alternative sources by 2020. Already the Chinese policy on alternative energy is impressive-with incentives for buyers. And their ethanol plant will be the largest on the planet.
Yet, as the New York Times reported, there is already tension in Iraq about the Chinese prospecting for (and finding) oil there. Locals are angry enough to have targeted some of their installations.
The Chinese have similarly tied up resources across Africa. They need the oil, regardless of the their enormous leaps towards renewable energy. They need the oil to manufacture goods they will export. Most likely, they will ride out the rough Iraqi waters to get that oil.
There are two thoughts to mull around this one. First, that oil is not significantly replaceable in most economies. And second, that consuming less-even of experiences like travel-seems to be one of the only ways by which we can impact this situation.
{{/usCountry}}There are two thoughts to mull around this one. First, that oil is not significantly replaceable in most economies. And second, that consuming less-even of experiences like travel-seems to be one of the only ways by which we can impact this situation.
{{/usCountry}}Turtles in danger
Saturday, was Vulture awareness day. For most of us, a vulture has become a memory, there has been a 97% decline in their population in India, thanks to diclofenac-a veterinary drug.
The bad news is a new study in the US led by Dr. Eisenreich suggests chemicals, particularly a toxic group called PCBs, may be hitting out at turtles.
Their findings suggest that a baby turtle’s survival beyond a few months depends on exposure from its days in an egg than its diet after it hatches. Eggs, laid by adults, accumulate chemicals and can become a toxic hell.