The Chinese civilization has existed survived intact far longer than any other in human history, and they have records of that civilization that span 2-3 thousand years BC. They’ve seen more climate change than any other civilization.
The Guardian recently interviewed Xiao Ziniu, the director general of the Beijing Climate Center.
Excerpts:
A 2C rise in global temperatures will not necessarily result in the calamity predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), China’s most senior climatologist has told the Guardian.
He had this bit of wisdom to pass along:
“There is no agreed conclusion about how much change is dangerous,” Xiao said. “Whether the climate turns warmer or cooler, there are both positive and negative effects. We are not focusing on what will happen with a one degree or two degree increase, we are looking at what level will be a danger to the environment. In Chinese history, there have been many periods warmer than today.”
He added:
“Climate prediction has only come into operation in recent years. The accuracy of the prediction is very low because the climate is affected by many mechanisms we do not fully understand.”
We would do well to listen.
More important, we should take note of the fact that China laughs in the face of the west when it comes to regulating their own economy through self imposed emissions goals, while the west cuts back its manufacturing capability, China surges forward.
Nixon awakened a sleeping giant. They’ll squish us like a bug economically and in many other areas. For example China just this week broke ground on a fourth space launch complex.
China will likely go to the moon before the US returns there, perhaps as early as 2014. Meanwhile they aren’t worried about anything, whether it be the atmospheric or the political climate.
In looking at this map from the Beijing Climate Center, it is notable how they see things differently.
Joss had the chinese influence in “Firefly” about right, I reckon. They’ll be a dominant force in the 21st C, and the sooner we all learn to swear in Mandarin, the hipper we’ll all be. Oh, and alive and calm, because it’s difficult to argue with the calm of an ancient culture …
This is another example of the AGW propaganda being driven through the Australia media. Youth decide, as apparently the Earth doesn’t belong to the “old school”, but first, can the youth puhlease study the physics of CO2 before they vote?
http://www.youthdecide.com.au/home.aspx
The presentation style speaks volumes about openness and transparency… and by that I really mean honesty.
First we see the actual global temperature measurements graphic…
Everyone can validate the integrity of this map based upon their own knowledge of where they live on the planet.
Everyone can see the areas of the globe where they don’t have any data measurements.
Secondly we see their anomaly analysis based upon this data….
The Beijing Climate Center web site if very interesting because of the focus upon real world issues: temperature and precipitation.
I did a search for “CO2” and came up with zero entries… and clicking around seems to confirm that this is not just a language quirk…
Thank you Anthony.
Thank you Beijing.
Note: ‘temperature variations of greater than two degrees are present in China’s history’.
Two questions:
1. How many people died as a result of that?
2. If any, how did they die?
You would think that such information might be of crucial interest to genuine politicians.
I would wager that it would scare the pants off them……..
Kevin (20:52:55) :
“They’ve seen more climate change than any other civilization…. this one [premise] is quite faulty. You are clearly implying that chinese people have more knowledge on the subject of climate change, since they’ve been around for thousands of years. Have they been able to predict future climates in those thousands of years?”
What the hell. We certainly can’t! Not even 5 days of weather reliably.
BTW, ‘DMT in Arctic below mean for 5 days and dropping precipitously’ – why haven’t I seen this headline this week?
What’s wrong with all these journos??
Can’t they see a SCOOP in front of their eyes?
That story can be run with ‘the following politicians are ignorant assholes who peddle lies to steal your money’….
Bernstein, where are you when the world needs you, eh?
BTW II: AMSR-E curve about to cross 2005 curve – time for new story about ‘rapidly melting ice’??
My fave Chinese story, as related by Simon Winchester (The River at the Center of the World) is of one Ma Shumou, ‘The Barbarous One’, who, when overseer of the construction of the Grand Canal, was reputed to have eaten a steamed two-year-old child each day. His name, according to Winchester, is still invoked by mothers keen to keep their children on the straight and narrow. That was, of course, back in the day.
These guys have seen, lived through, recorded and thought through a lot of stuff. Not to be taken lightly….
Outsource NOAA to China then.
Where`s Flanagan.
rob uk (03:11:52) : Where`s Flanagan. A little subdued now a days. Was very active on the sea ice blog on Climate Audit. But ever since the ice has started going up complete silence.
On China he would be completely out of his depth.
I think the prediction that the Chinese will be on the moon before anyone else even gets out of bed is correct. They and the Indians can boast the longest contiguous civilisations anywhere on the globe even though they have had their ups and downs, they have tended to bounce back faster than the west. Even Iran, dismissed by most Western politicians as a “rogue” state boasts of being the continuation of the ancient Babylonian and Persian (Parthian) Empire. Alexander came and went, so have others including the Mongols, but they still value and keep the traditions and some of the records of civilisation stretching back to possibly before the Egyptians. We would do well to look carefullky at what the Chinese are doing and saying – they are probably a lot further ahead than we think. They are also embedded in every country in the world, look about you, everywhere has a “China Town” and Mandarin, Cantonese or Chouchow is spoken there and in their homes. Being Chinese is far more than a nationality or even a race, it is a part of their very being. Wherever they are is China.
Records from the Forbidden Palace royal gardens on the opening times of various flowers back to the late 1500’s have been useful in helping to reconstruct solar cycle lengths. This is not all that much earlier historically than Galileo’s sunspot counts. I don’t know what other records the Chinese have from earlier epochs describing temperature related phenomena, but it sounds like a book to be written someday.
As someone said ^upthere:
Copenhagen is toast.
If we want to talk about longevity of cultures let’s set the benchmark with indigenous Australians at approximately 40,000 years. I’d like to hear from their elders as to what changes they have observed ( although I presume they would be regionally based)
I am reminded of a book I loved as I adolescent titled ‘The Voyage of the Great Southern Ark’ by Reg Morrison (a man who’s politics I probably disagree with) which told an amazing compressed 24hr story of this continent’s travels around the globe and through many different climatic conditions. To think that the climate was ever unchanging is ignorant or deceptive.
Cheers
Michael
It is insensitive to discuss the Mao period because it is recent enough for people to have personal memories. It was an excursion that runs counter to the experiences of people like self who have visited China many times and conducted business.
Also done the same in Nth America, and comparitively speaking, the clarity of thought and the openness of expression is quite a few points higher in China than in USA. Spin and posturing is not so widely used. The older people who have retained their facilities are teated with much more respect and it shows, for they have much to contribute. Education of children is more intensive, first because family size is usually 1 child and because school is on 6 days a week.
The chance to progress rapidly through the professional system by professional fraud is much more limited because it is not a way of life and because peers do tend to review. One of my friends, though I met him only occasionally, was a Director of the Chinese Academy of Science and he took his responsibility most carefully.
Let’s just say that there is a different approach to ethics, but of course there are always vagabonds who are exceptions as in any community. In China, they seem not to rise very far. We have a lot to learn. One lesson is not to posture with smug superiority.
The first Chinese cars might not compare well with a Ferrari of the same vintage. Later ones will be most competitive. This analogy can probably be extended to many fields of thought, manufacturing, commerce and academia.
From http://www.aboriginalculture.com.au/introduction.shtml
Australia’s Aboriginal culture probably represents the oldest surviving culture in the world, with the use of stone tool technology and painting with red ochre pigment dating back over 60,000 years. Australians never developed an “iron age”, “bronze age”, or pottery, and the terms “palaeolithic” (old stone age) and “neolithic” (new stone age) are not used in Australia, because stone technology did not progress in the same way as the rest of the world.
Be interesting to explore their verbal histories for accounts of climate change.
There are regions which inevitable suffer great natural climate or weather disasters. The south edge of the Sahara has periods of drought followed by periods of more rain. During the rainy periods pastures improve and people move in from the south. Then the drought comes and masses inevitably die. The delta of the Ganges is another such place. Low-lying land is constantly being created. It is constantly being populated despite prohibition, and just as constantly, great weather disasters wash over the people as typhoons. The great river valleys of China are another such example with the epic floods.
In all three of these examples the impetus is the same, and the results are similarly predictable, and nearly inevitable. The impetus is the urge of the people to the productivity of the land. Who can resist for very long settling and working rich river bottom land, or fragrant pastures? Even if the memories of the previous disasters lurks, the calculation of short term odds for the weather disasters will mean choosing to inhabit the dangerous terrain. Memory may fade for the climate disasters, such as in Africa, and myth may lose its power to deter. Such is the fate of people.
===========================================
Flanagan has become a tad bit more reasonable about this whole ice story see CA postings not so extreme anymore with admissions that he just guesses too LOL
Notice Mr. Ziniu doesn’t address the issue of AGW at all, but simply assumes it to be true.
“I think it is the responsibility of scientists to have a sense of crisis. We should study whether climate change threatens human survival,” says Xiao.
It is the responsibility of scientists to have a sense of crisis? No, it is the responsibility of scientists to be scientists, which he obviously isn’t. He’s simply a bureaucrat who knows which side his bread is buttered on, and how to toe the line.
“But I believe humans are wise creatures. With wisdom and effort, we will prevent disaster. There is always hope.”
Humans are wise? I see, so “wisdom” to you is taking a completely benign, and even beneficial gas, and demonizing it, and running around screaming that the world is going to end if we don’t stop producing it?
OK, Mr. Ziniu, so you think “disaster” is coming, but only from warming in excess of 2C, and you think WE will prevent it, obviously because WE are causing it?
The guy is an idiot.
Chinese wisdom:
“Whether the climate turns warmer or cooler, there are both positive and negative effects”
Western “wisdom”:
Change=Bad
You can have endless discussion, which civilization is “better”, but concerning the pursuit of personal happiness, the asian civilisation is superior.
The western civilisation has completed the art of living in fear and guilt to perfection.
“In Chinese history, there have been many periods warmer than today.”
How can he make a statement like that?
Same basis as Jim Hansen says the MWP didn’t exist – paleo reconstructions. Although with the added evidence of historical records of things like rice harvests, which Hansen doesn’t have for his Bristlecone pines.
And if you haven’t seen it, Zhang’s paper on climate change and wars in China is an interesting read.
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/49/19214.full
“Boudu (04:24:10) :
From http://www.aboriginalculture.com.au/introduction.shtml
Australia’s Aboriginal culture probably represents the oldest surviving culture in the world, with the use of stone tool technology and painting with red ochre pigment dating back over 60,000 years. Australians never developed an “iron age”, “bronze age”, or pottery, and the terms “palaeolithic” (old stone age) and “neolithic” (new stone age) are not used in Australia, because stone technology did not progress in the same way as the rest of the world.
Be interesting to explore their verbal histories for accounts of climate change.”
This is just my rather limited opinion on this subject. I believe there are many many more immediate issues facing the indigenous peoples of Australia than that of AGW and how their anecdotal accounts of “change in weather” over 10’s of thousands of years might play a role the current “debate” in the climate change space.
What is true is that the “white” man, the British (The Dutch just didn’t bother with what they mapped which now the east coast of Australia, but they did note it) invaders, noted this land as pretty much empty (I forget the Lattin name). And they were very wrong. There has been so much damage done to these people that I very much doubt there will be any “record” still preserved.
Boudu,
It has been suggested that up to 80% of the Australian population may have perished during the last glacial maximum, ie 20,000 – 14,000 bp.
http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/climate_culture/index.shtml
Wonder how they coped with the Younger Dryas? From my reading, this particular cool spell mainly impacted the northern hemisphere.
Rick Sharp (22:39:06) : “The first time I went to Beijing in 2001 I couldn’t believe what I saw. Beijing was overwhelming. Even back then it made downtown L.A. look like a wide spot in the road. Later on I made several trips down south to Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Same story, even these second tier cities were incredible. They were all new and modern. Huge skyscrapers and apartments everywhere, great freeways and infrastructure etc. ”
So the stories of air pollution in Beijing are just that, stories?
Perhaps the Chinese emperor has new clothes.
E.M.Smith (19:45:06) : “FWIW, one of the very best commodity traders in the world, Jim Rogers, has packed up and moved to Singapore so his kids will grow up speaking chinese and be prepared for the future…”
Your linked article, http://www.commodityonline.com/news/Invest-in-commodities-in-China-Jim-Rogers-19914-3-1.html, says:
” Rogers, who shifted his home from the United States last year to invest wisely in the Asian countries with his main focus on China …”
I suspect it was also a good move for tax purposes.