UN climate chief: Communism is best to fight global warming

[Xiahou]

UN climate chief: Communism is best to fight global warming

United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres said that democracy is a poor political system for fighting global warming. Communist China, she says, is the best model.

China may be the world’s top emitter of carbon dioxide and struggling with major pollution problems of their own, but the country is “doing it right” when it comes to fighting global warming says Figueres.

“They actually want to breathe air that they don’t have to look at,” she said. “They’re not doing this because they want to save the planet. They’re doing it because it’s in their national interest.”

What a blisteringly stupid thing to say. It's not to say that the democratic west has had a spotless environmental record.... but to compare it to China? Really? Let's see what's going on in Beijing today....

Air pollution readings spiked across China's capital Beijing on Thursday, prompting residents to don air masks and offices and homes to put electric air purifiers on overdrive.

Commuters across Beijing found themselves cloaked in a thick, gray haze as air pollution monitors across the city registered readings over 20 times the recommended exposure levels suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Oh yeah, they know how to do environmentalism in China... for sure. I'm not even going to bother highlighting the environmental atrocities that occurred under the Soviet brand of communism....

Here's a link to the story from Bloomberg, in case people don't like the first source.

[Fragony]

oh lol, can somebody explain to her what smog is.

[Beskar]

oh lol, can somebody explain to her what smog is.

I thought Smog was another environment hoax?

Jesting aside, the statement is like saying "Nazi's were better at fighting crime than a Western Democracy". All those pesky human rights sure makes it more difficult at locking away those innocents.

[Fisherking]

This is hard to respond to on an intellectual level.

Obviously she is no deep thinker. Not at all a well considered opinion.

[Husar]

Maybe she just wants to get some attention.
So far her statement seems ridiculous but China hasn't been trying to improve their environmental record for a long time I think. It's possible that they manage to change quite a lot but whether they become better than a democracy where the people actually support efforts to reduce environmental impacts is questionable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany

Yeah, that's right, China is still planning to build a lot of NPPs.

As for the point of the Nazis or other dictators being better at fighting crime, well yes, they are. The question is whether that's worth the tradeoffs but on some isolated issues other forms of government may actually be better than a certain selection of democracies, then again they may also be worse than others.

[drone]

We all know the Soviets were great conservationists!

[Sarmatian]

UN climate chief: Communism is best to fight global warming
What a blisteringly stupid thing to say. It's not to say that the democratic west has had a spotless environmental record.... but to compare it to China? Really? Let's see what's going on in Beijing today....
Oh yeah, they know how to do environmentalism in China... for sure. I'm not even going to bother highlighting the environmental atrocities that occurred under the Soviet brand of communism....

Here's a link to the story from Bloomberg, in case people don't like the first source.

The overarching point which you seem to miss as the second you saw the word "communist" connected with something positive sent your brain into overdrive is:

"China recognized the problem and is making an effort. US and some other western democracies refuse to even recognize the problem."

Pretty clear if you read the whole article, rather than just the part you quoted.

[Fragony]

They are fighting smog.

[Xiahou]

"China recognized the problem and is making an effort. US and some other western democracies refuse to even recognize the problem."

Pretty clear if you read the whole article, rather than just the part you quoted.

It's pretty clear that that's the same ill-informed argument that she's making, yes.
Since 2008, China's CO2 output has grown by approximately 30%. In the US it has declined 5%.

But hey, China recognizes the problem.
Forget that people can't even go outside and breathe the air in their capital city some days.... they recognize the problem.

(Fracking is ruining all our freaking water)

No, it isn't.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

There is a salient point here - the Chinese want to breathe clean air and that is their reason to cut pollutants.

In the US and elsewhere they are still having an argument about "Global Warming" and "Climate Change" when any idiot knows you don't defecate where you eat. We eat all over the planet, and we defecate all over it too. We are doing BAD THINGS that are making our children ill - whether that includes raising the temperature by a degree or too is basically irrelevant.

[Xiahou]

And yet, China and other communist regimes have abhorrent environmental records while the rest of the world has been largely cleaning up its act. Yet China is somehow a model for environmentalism.

You don't defecate where you eat. You defecate where you grow your crops.

[Sarmatian]

It's pretty clear that that's the same ill-informed argument that she's making, yes.
Since 2008, China's CO2 output has grown by approximately 30%. In the US it has declined 5%.

But hey, China recognizes the problem.
Forget that people can't even go outside and breathe the air in their capital city some days.... they recognize the problem.

Percentages by themselves are meaningless unless you frame them in proper context. If my business used to produce 1 unit of CO2 and now it produces 2, that's 100% increase. If your used to produce 100 and now it produces 95, it's 5% decrease. So, kudos to you, but your business still pollutes more than mine.

Important fact, however, is that USA is fully industrialized nation and China is still industrializing. You're blaming China for doing now what you've already done in the last century. First ideas of mass tourism actually appeared in 19th century England as a way for people to escape pollution of big cities full of industry. By now the fully industrialized west has learned and has enough wealth to move the heavy polluters away from main population centers. China's still got a lot of catching up to do.

It's quite normal that a country which is rapidly industrializing also has bigger increase in CO2 emission. China's CO2 emission per capita is still far, far behind that of USA.

Just to be clear, I don't think that China does it out of goodness of their heart, they are interested in reducing pollution in their own cities and reducing their reliance on fossil fuels which they have to import.

[Xiahou]

So what part of that makes China and communism overall an ideal form of government to fight global warming?

[Xiahou]

Getting things done:
Chinese media: smog has at least five benefits

Much of China has been suffering through choking smog in recent weeks, which has hampered daily activities and forced the closure of schools. In response, state broadcaster CCTV published a list of reasons documenting the benefits of smog. Yes, benefits.

A Time magazine translator indicated the following CCTV rationalizations for smog:

1. It unifies the Chinese people.
2. It makes China more equal.
3. It raises citizen awareness of the cost of China’s economic development.
4. It makes people funnier.
5. It makes people more knowledgeable (of things like meteorology and the English word haze).

That's some interesting rationalization. Following that line of thinking, hurricanes also unify people by forcing them to leave their isolated homes and gather in collectives. Tornadoes give people a sense of the power of nature. Wildfires place everyone on an equal footing by burning everyone's possessions to the ground. See? The problem isn't nature, the problem is you.

Oh, smog also strengthens the national defense:

The Global Times, which is published by the Communist Party's official People's Daily, noted that smog has a defensive benefit. “Smog may affect people’s health and daily lives," the newspaper wrote, "but on the battlefield, it can serve as a defensive advantage in military operations."

[Sarmatian]

So what part of that makes China and communism overall an ideal form of government to fight global warming?

They have a single central authority that decided to combat the issue, compared to US where you have a divide between two sides, one of which isn't sure what to do and the other thinks there is no spoon.

Which part you don't understand?