Climate Change Thread

[Pannonian]

Well, there's a difference between regulated TCM placebos and letting practitioners run wild with unsafe ingredients and a corner of the illegal animal trade. And what you're describing is political wagermaking, or more charitably realpolitik, which doesn't really relate to science per se. What makes you say the Chinese government is particularly science-driven?

Since this is as good a place as any to post it, here's a tangentially-related piece speculating how China's vaunted AI/digital surveillance apparatus can potentially backfire under the weight of its own biases and vicious feedback loops.

Look at what they're doing with the environment. They have to allow for capitalism to keep the populace from unrest, and Chinese capitalism is rather more ruthlessly destructive than its western counterpart. But on the state side, they are pioneering environmental preservation and restoration methodology. You dismiss their adoption of political pragmatism and any possibility that it may co-exist with science-driven government. That's because you're used to a western mindset, and see things only from that perspective. Read some articles looking at the tensions that exist in the Chinese state, and you may get some greater understanding of how a science-driven central government has to tussle with an adamantly non-science-driven people.

[Montmorency]

Look at what they're doing with the environment. They have to allow for capitalism to keep the populace from unrest, and Chinese capitalism is rather more ruthlessly destructive than its western counterpart. But on the state side, they are pioneering environmental preservation and restoration methodology. You dismiss their adoption of political pragmatism and any possibility that it may co-exist with science-driven government. That's because you're used to a western mindset, and see things only from that perspective. Read some articles looking at the tensions that exist in the Chinese state, and you may get some greater understanding of how a science-driven central government has to tussle with an adamantly non-science-driven people.

I don't dismiss the possibility, you're just not explaining it clearly. What I can glean from your post is that the Chinese government promotes R&D in environmental preservation and restoration, which does not intrinsically lead to the conclusion that the government is science-driven.

I do recall that China was retiring or canceling its coal capacity at a healthy clip going into 2017, but apparently decided to put the pedal to the sediment right around the time of Trump's election. I also cited in the other thread that China's healthcare system is more capitalistically-dysfunctional than America's in at least some aspects, which doesn't sound either politically or scientifically-wise.