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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (236033)	10/28/2013 2:15:19 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 543355

I posted this interesting Ted talk on the Chinese form of government awhile ago: youtube.com I have read a good deal about their problems with water and air pollution. There probably are technological fixes for many of them, but executing those fixes will be incredibly difficult. The central government has a lot of power, but de facto the provinces have their own form of power as well, giving the country their own "state's rights" issues. They have unleashed the "animal spirits" of capitalism, and the Chinese people have embraced it enthusiastically. Cleaning up the mess that the many individuals who want to participate in wealth creation at whatever cost seems overwhelming to me. The dearth of water in the north by itself has no real solution, unless they want to dam the Mekong or Brahmaputra Rivers and send the water to China, something that would not be appreciated by the rest of Asia to say the least. But this all gets very complicated. I have posted a few articles about these things in the past couple of years both on this thread and on the "Exxon-free" thread.

To: neolib who wrote (236033)	10/28/2013 7:45:19 PM
From: Metacomet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543355

Much of those problem can have a technical solution, but its difficult to get there in a society pulling itself in different directions over ideological nonsense. Exactly.. Wonder if the inclimate weather slamming Western Europe, Great Britain and Scandinavia will have any discernable impact on shaping public opinion in addressing the underlying issues of AGW Doesn't seem to faze the domestic body politic to have chunks of New Jersey and Louisiana washed away by superstorms or Colorado dissolved in epic rain ...and Australia, plagued by drought, simply burns, sorta like Texas Wonder how much goes down before there is acceptance of the scientifically proven cause and effect that the majority of competent scientists have been rubbing our noses in for years

To: neolib who wrote (236033)	11/7/2013 5:21:37 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 543355

More on China's pollution problems. Pollution has damaged Chinese sperm so much that a black-market shot costs up to $4,900 By Gwynn Guilford @ sinoceros 8 hours ago qz.com China’s finally starting to reckon with the health consequences of decades of pollution. An official at the top economic planning agency just acknowledged pollution’s toll on people’s mental and physical health. But for many, that’s too little too late. Such as for China’s youngest lung cancer patient (link in Chinese), an 8 year old girl. And for the 40 million people between 20 and 40— about 12.5% of that population—who have fertility problems. It’s also why Chinese men are increasingly shooting blanks (link in Chinese), says Dr. Li Zheng, a doctor who runs Shanghai’s main sperm bank. “To figure out whether and ecosystem is stable or not, all you have to do is test the sperm,” Li tells the Shanghai Morning Post (h/t T he Telegraph). When environmental pollution is severe enough, it causes the sperm to become long and “ugly,” such that they can even stop swimming, says Li. Increasingly “ugly” sperm are what Li and his colleagues at Shanghai’s Renji Hospital witnessed in their 10-year study of male infertility. The just-completed research found that two-thirds of the semen specimens at Shanghai’s biggest sperm bank failed to meet World Health Organization sperm-count standards. The finding is consistent with what other studies have found, reports China Real Time. That’s especially bad news given the dire straits of China’s sperm banks. Quality problems aside, China has long grappled with a donor shortage. Even though government banks keep upping what they pay donors, sperm are so scarce that women will pay up to 30,000 yuan ($4,900) for sperm on China’s booming black market. The news of Li’s research broke just as an unusually thick blanket of haze hit Shanghai on Nov. 7 (paywall). Authorities urged residents to stay indoors and alerted schools to avoid outdoor activities. This is, of course, bad news for a country struggling with an aging crisis. Unless the government can dramatically reduce pollution, this will only worsen, Li told the Shanghai Morning Post. If China “does not protect the environment,” he said, “human beings will face an infertility catastrophe.”