• EPA Office of the Inspector General recommends EPA enforce Clean Water Act
• Climate change lobbyists grow by 31% leading up to ACES vote
• New information suggests climate change accelerating glacial erosion
• Wind turbines mistaken for tornadoes
• First deep water tethered wind turbine now operational
• Rare earth metals and renewable energy

Last week, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that the EPA’s internal monitoring organization, the Office of the Inspector General, found that the EPA’s current approach to controlling excess nutrient deposition into the Gulf of Mexico by the Mississippi River was not working. Full Story »

Yesterday over at Future Majority, Kevin Bondelli responded to Jack Hough’s New York Post column “Don’t Get That College Degree!” Bondelli’s take led with one of the more terrifying titles I’ve seen lately: “Has College Become a Bad Investment?” Yow. When you dig the hole so deep that you can even use that kind of question as a rhetorical device, you kthisnow you’re in some deep, deep kim-chee. Seriously. That one ranks right up there with “Is breathing really a good idea?” and “What are the lasting benefits of a howitzer shot to the balls?”

Snark aside, Bondelli does a nice job of addressing Hough, who “argues that the increase in lifetime wages for graduates no longer makes up for the financial burden of university education and the ensuing student loan burden.” He also takes on one of the GOP’s most successful and devastating canards, explaining that Full Story »

It’s an image most Westerners recognize immediately: A lone man standing in the middle of a five-lane street, blocking a line of tanks. Single-handedly, “Tank Man” prevented the tanks from advancing on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.

Tank Man was one of more than a million Chinese students from universities across the country’s capital who converged on the square in April of 1989, demanding democratic reform. The resulting stand-off between students and the government lasted a month and a half and, eventually, led to a military crackdown. As many as 3,600 students died and more than twice that number sustained injuries.

The picture of “Tank Man”—taken by photographer Jeff Widener of the Associated Press—was one of the most famous stories captured during the confrontation. Now, issued to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, comes another compelling story: Lake with No Name by Diane Wei Liang. Full Story »

Final part in a series…filed from home….

I say goodbye to China with a ride in a taxicab.

I’ve been grading papers and need a break, so I leave my hotel room and catch a cab out front. I show the driver the card I have, furnished by the hotel, that has a list of popular tourist spots printed on it in English and Chinese. I point to the line for Tiananmen Square. The driver nods, and off we go.

The “I honk, you move” rules of driving fascinate me. The roads are bedlam, but my driver seems so unperturbed that I can’t help but relax.

I take in the surroundings as we go. Beijing, on the whole, is not a beautiful city, and it doesn’t have the cosmopolitan flair of Shanghai, but in my short time here, I’ve grown to love it nonetheless. As in Washington D.C., there’s always a museum to visit, a park to stroll through, a site to see.

The cabbie drops me near Mao’s Tomb. I pass through the security checkpoint uneventfully. In some closed-off part of the tomb’s grounds, I hear soldiers drilling. Their boots clomp loudly on the pavement.

I take more photos and jot down more notes. After a few minutes of scribbling, a pair of high school students approach to ask what I’m up to. “I’m trying to write down as much as I can so I don’t forget this place,” I tell them. Full Story »

Part fourteen in a fifteen-part series

“You have never been to China until you’ve climbed the Great Wall,” Chairman Mao once declared.

By that definition, the twelve days we’ve spent in the country thus far don’t qualify.

I can see Mao’s point, though: it would not feel like a trip to China unless we visited the Great Wall. We’ve all been looking forward to the chance to finally see it, and now that we’re nearly done with our trip, the Great Wall feels a bit like the grand finale.

The most visited section of the Great Wall is called the Badaling, about fifty miles northwest of Beijing. We’re going to a slightly less touristy section, about forty miles from the city, called the Juyong Pass (also called the Juyongguan Pass).

“Wait’ll you see this place,” my colleague, Carl Case, says. “You’ll see why it’s a little less touristy.” Full Story »

Part thirteen in a series

We eat like emperors—literally.

White’s Grand Courtyard could not get any more yellow: yellow seat covers embroidered with blue and black dragons, yellow tablecloths, yellow picture frames and decorative panels and window valences. A yellow throne sits at the center of the room for the prince. Two golden cranes flank the throne, each holding a yellow-stemmed red rose in its beak.

Red columns entwined by ornamental gold floral patterns rise up from a red marble floor to a ceiling painted with elaborate dragon and phoenix designs. The dominant colors are green, blue, and white, but the dragons and phoenixes and the trim are all gold.

Yellow is the color of the emperor, and once upon a time, no one but the royal family could use it.

The restaurant tries to recreate the atmosphere of the royal dining room from the Qing Dynasty era, from 1644-1912. Petunia and begonia-bedecked gardens fill the courtyards around the dining room. In back, tables sit around a pool teeming with large schools of koi, and a small dining pagoda sits on a land bridge that straddles the pond.

It is, by far, our most lavish dining experience in a country that has been filled with fantastic dining experiences. Full Story »

Part twelve in a series

“Tiananmen” means “Gate of Heavenly Peace.” Ironic, then, that most Americans know it, if at all, as a scene of violence and bloodshed.

photo by Jeff Widener, A.P.

June 4 marks the 20th anniversary of the Chinese government’s violent crackdown on protestors who’d gathered in Tiananmen Square. The incident made headlines across the world, and the image of a lone protestor blocking a line of tanks proved especially powerful.

The protesters had camped out in the square since the April death of a pro-reform Communist Party official, Hu Yaobang. By June 4, after a great deal of international attention that embarrassed the Chinese government, tanks and troops rolled in and started cracking skulls.

Western news outlets reported yesterday and today (June 3 and 4) that no media would be allowed near Tiananmen Square on June 4th. Soldiers and uniformed and plainclothes police stood at attention everywhere in the square this morning, and visitors were being searched.

But visitors to Tiananmen Square are always searched. Full Story »

Part eleven in a series

“China is more capitalistic than any capitalist country.”

Amy, an employee at a jewelry booth
in Beijing’s pearl market, strings
together a strand of pearls after
striking a bargain with a shopper.

Roger Perkins of Cooper Industries told us that early on our trip. You’d have to see it to believe it, perhaps—but I’ve seen that firsthand several times on the trip, most dramatically at the silk and pearl markets. It happens on the scale of global companies, too.

“China is pragmatic,” says John Chen of Prometric, a company that specializes in testing and surveying. “When it wants to be capitalistic, it’s capitalistic. When it wants to be communist, it’ll be communist.

Chen likens China’s approach to situational management: different situations require different management approaches.

China needs the influx of cash that capitalism provides in order to continue to fuel its burgeoning economy. But at times, the country’s top-down dictatorial style allows things to get done that otherwise couldn’t happen in a democracy.

“India, for instance, is the most democratic country in the world,” Chen points out by way of example. “Everything gets debated to death and nothing ever gets done.”
Full Story »

Part ten in a series

Walking into the Beijing Silk Market is like walking into a combat zone. Shopping is a full-contact sport.

My colleague, Darwin King, negotiates a price for
silk scarves at Beijing’s Silk Market.

The Silk Market sits on Chang’an Street near the city’s diplomatic district. Six stories tall, the building is crammed chock-full-o every stereotypical Chinese product you could imagine: imitation Rolexes, fake Nikes, real silk, clothes, clothes, clothes, and cheap Chinese souvenirs.

Different floors feature different merchandise, crammed in stalls not much bigger than 10×12, although it’s amazing to see just how much stuff gets crammed into each little crammed stall. Ask for a particular size of style you don’t see on display and a salesperson will pry into some surprising cranny to pull out the goods you want.

Each stall comes with two salespeople—usually young women—although some stalls have three, some stalls have one. Personal selling is the modus operandi.

“Silk?” one of them asks as I walk by. “Silk scarf?” I wave my hand “No, thanks.” She shifts gear. “Fan? Chinese fan?”

I pass by, but the girl at the next stall is already ready for me. “Shirts? You need shirts? Silk shirts.”

As a Westerner, I have a target painted on my forehead. Full Story »

Part nine in a series

Nothing says “China” quite like a panda.

It’s no wonder, then, that the Chinese have used these famous black-and-white faces as emissaries around the world. There’s even a term for it: “panda diplomacy.”

Over the years, some 100 pandas have been sent to foreign countries as ambassadors of good will. Currently, around twenty-five countries host pandas, including four zoos in the United States.

I get to see them up close and personal, on their home turf. Full Story »

Part eight in a series

Chairman Mao looks a little waxy these days.

It isn’t for lack of trying. The Chinese government has gone to great pains to keep him looking fresh—at least as fresh as a guy who’s been dead since 1976 can look.

Just as the Russians have Lenin on display in Moscow, the Chinese have Mao on display in Beijing. Those Communists, it seems, love their embalmed leaders. (I wonder if Castro is making similar plans.)

Mao Zedong—or, as Americans learn it, Mao Tse-Tung—served as leader of the Communist army during the Chinese civil war of the 1930s, and then became leader of the entire country when the Communists eventually won in 1949. He served as chairman until his death in 1976.

And that’s when the legend of Mao took off. Full Story »

My students, colleagues, and I have been forming an impression of the Chinese during our trip to China these past ten-plus days. But what do the Chinese think of Americans?

Full Story »

Part seven in a series

If Shanghai was New York City, then Beijing is Los Angeles. The city sprawls over some nineteen thousand square kilometers—all of which is clouded in smog.

The heavy traffic, smog, and city sprawl make
Beijing feel like L.A.

Beijing lacks the glistening skyscrapers of glass and steel that proudly advertise Shanghai’s modernity. Instead of building up, Beijing has built out. The city radiates outward in a series of rings with beltways, called ring roads, circling around.

Smack dab in the middle, where a typical city center might rise skyward, sits the Forbidden City, the former palace of the emperor back in the days when China still had one.

In that regard, Beijing might be more like Washington, D.C. than L.A. Full Story »

Part six in a series

Wu Tao stands at the front of the bus, microphone in hand, radiating charm.

Wu “Harry” Tao (right) talks with St. Bonaventure
professors Carl Case (left) and Darwin King at the
Winter Palace in Xi’an.

As our group rides around Xi’an, Wu Tao serves as our tourguide. He stands in the bus’s center aisle and regales us with stories about the city’s past. He wears a dark t-shirt with a big numeral “8” on it—which has made him easy to find in a crowd—jeans, a pair of open-toed sandals, and a million-yuan smile.

When he points something out to us and tells us its name, he carefully repeats it and even spells it out for us to ensure we can follow him.

Tao is his given name while Wu is his family name, but Chinese custom puts the family name first, then the given name: Wu Toa.

Like many Chinese, Wu Tao has an American name, too: Harry. “Like Harry Potter,” he says with good-natured amusement. A lot of things appear to amuse him. He smiles freely and chuckles often.

The students are wild about him. Full Story »

Part five in a series

One day, thirty-five years ago, Yang Quanyi found a head in his well. His discovery helped changed the face of China.

The date was March 29, 1974. Quanyi, a farmer in his thirties, was digging a new well, without much success, when he struck gold.

It wasn’t gold, literally—it was a head made from terra cotta, the same clay material used for making flower pots. And for Quanyi, it didn’t work out so great, at least not at first. When the government swooped in to investigate his discovery, Quanyi lost the lease to his land (there’s no private land ownership in China).

Subsequent archeological work revealed the scope of what Quanyi and his friends had stumbled upon: a lost tomb containing some eight thousand terra cotta statues, all smashed to bits. Full Story »

China changes before my eyes as I fly from east to west.

Shanghai’s ever-present haze is made even grayer under cloudy skies. But after our flight takes off, we punch through the clouds to find plenty of sun. The cloudcover beneath us soon gives way, and I can see the landscape beneath stretched out like a broad canvas.

Farmers have painted square fields, bisected by the thin brown lines of roads and the dark green lines of irrigation channels. I see plenty of bright blue squares that, in America, one would take to be swimming pools, but in China, the squares indicate the corrugated sheet metal popular for roofing. Settlements dot the landscape everywhere.

I can’t spot a single undeveloped plot. That’s not to say there aren’t any, but from my vantage point tens of thousands of feet in the air, it looks like the Chinese have committed every square foot for habitation, business, or agriculture. I have no idea where any wildlife could possibly live.

The broad coastal plain around Shanghai eventually gives way to small clusters of hills that, in turn, grow into an impressive range of mountains. Atop the step mountains and in the deep valleys, I finally see wilderness.

But the topography isn’t the only thing about China that changes. Full Story »

Third in a series

Shanghai wakes up quietly, as if it doesn’t want to rouse its inhabitants.

The Shanghai skyline at night along the west bank
of the Huangpu River.

In Yu Yuan Park, not far from the touristy section of town known as The Bund along the western riverfront, hundreds of people gather after first light to exercise. They give each other enough room to maneuver and then, all in slow motion, they outstretch their arms, shift their weight, pivot, pull back, swing, shift. For observers as uninitiated as I am in tai chi—the ancient art of shadowboxing—it’s hard to describe, but to watch is to see grace and discipline in motion.

The streets had been virtually empty all night. The ever-present blaring of car horns and the wails of emergency vehicles remain noticeably absent—a marked change from any major American city, like New York or Boston, where I’ve stayed.

When drivers do use their horns, it means “Get out of my way because I’m coming through,” not an expression of anger. “Road rage,” one Western ex-patriot told me, “does not exist here.” Even though traffic frequently looks like swarming insects instead of cars, the get-out-of-my-way system apparently works.

The streets do eventually fill up. Full Story »

Part two in a series

From space, the road system around Shanghai must look like a bowl of Chinese noodles. But traveling on the roads themselves feels like traveling the straight and narrow. The long, straight parkways, well-manicured, roll out across the flat coastal plain that surrounds Shanghai.

Component await shipment at Cooper Industries
outside of Shanghai

The business of the day is business, so we’re visiting a number of manufacturing companies. The industrial parks we visit are laid out in grids that keep things well organized and makes it easy for delivery and cargo trucks to move about. It’s just the most visible indication of the careful planning the government has put into place to attract companies.

We tour a few American-based companies as well as a German-based one, although all are quick to characterize themselves as “global companies.” One company manufactures parts for electricity transmission; another manufactures parts for auto transmissions and brakes; another is an aerospace manufacturer; another specializes in urban development.

China represents a key market for each of them. Business here is booming. Full Story »

First in a series

China has a way of making me feel small.

It started the moment I stepped into the terminal at Pudong International Airport in Shanghai. It was about ten p.m. local time, but my body was telling me it was ten o’clock in the morning. I’d been traveling for twenty-four hours straight, but despite the extra leg room my seat afforded me on the trans-Pacific flight, I couldn’t get comfortable enough to sleep.

Perhaps it might have been my state of mental wooziness that made me feel so small. Or, it could be the fact that I couldn’t see the far end of the terminal walkway. It felt like one of those bad dreams where you’re walking down a hallway and the farther you go, the farther ahead the hallway stretches. Full Story »

Two weeks ago, I published a post that claimed that the U.S. had offshored just over 18% of its carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. I was wrong – it’s only 15%. The problem was in how I calculated the CO₂ emissions of other countries. Instead of using actual estimates of CO₂ emissions (publicly available at the Energy Information Administration), I used market exchange rates and purchase power parity (PPP) exchange rates, and so added a significant source of error that made the percentage vary from 18% (for market rates) to 10% (for PPP rates).

I realized that there was a way to make the results independent of the currency exchange rate, and that’s how I generated the graphs below. Full Story »