... to maintain as close to 10% economic growth as they can for the next ten years at least ... I don't know that its necessary for them to maintain the same breakneck pace for 20 years. At a certain point, the massive growth rates in the Chinese labor force begins to slow.

Anything we in the West can do to contribute to a reduction in the CO2 impact of large scale construction projects in China ... we should do. For our own sake.

As long as the US furiously subsidizes the most energy inefficient transport and settlement system we can, our "contribution" to CO2 is secure, entirely independent of how many tube socks and $10 PSP rip-offs we buy from China.

The relevance to the climate crisis is less direct ... an international economic policy which places the median household in increasing stress in service of corporate profits makes for a policy environment where it is harder to pursue broader national interests like not drowning most of the eastern and western and southern seaboard cities.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

A lot of the climate models seem to have modelled the ice sheets as ice cubes when they behave more like a drop of honey. Ice cubes are very poor heat conductors, insulate their own interior, and only melt on the surface. A drop of honey gets less viscous and flows more easily as it warms up. But I am not an expert on climate modelling.

On Peak Coal, when people throw around estimates that there are 200 years' worth of reserves at current extraction rates, they forget that at, say, 3% yearly growth of extraction rates there's barely 50 years' worth, and if coal starts picking up the oil slack the growth rate of use will be larger than 3%. We should worry about peak fossil carbon.

Or then again, maybe not. Burning all the fossil carbon is one of the stupides things we can do, climate-wise.

When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes