China Law Blog

Thank you for raising these important and serious issues. Allow me a bit of humour to better emphasize their seriousness.

The You Tube episode "all roads lead to China" is certainly a very interesting and informative documentary but it is wrong in a number of ways. And your comments about it are also dead wrong.

First your comment: There IS quite a bit that is "terribly earth shattering" in the documentary. In fact most of it is shattering the hell out of the earth at an amazing (and irreversible) speed with all of its impacts. And secondly it doesn't bring China's environment "to life", it brings it "to death." But your intentions were good and so you can be forgiven for mis-speaking.

Less easily forgiven however should be whoever said that all roads lead to China. Since all roads do NOT lead only to China because some roads also lead to the United States and straight into its interstate highway system and to a number of other countries.

Alhough Rome in this instance does get off fairly light in terms of roads leading there, even if just a couple of hundred kilometers down its ancient Appian Way is Naples, where they are now buried under a Mount Everest full of garbage. (but that's perpendicular to the direction to China)

And that situation is something blamed on the local mafia rather than on T1b*t -since in matters environmental blame must ALWAYS be placed elsewhere and preferably just as far away as possible-; though it is also clearly a "harbinger of things to come" in the garbage disposal situations of about 100 mega-cities all over our "shattered earth". (and by "our", I do mean yours and mine)

And unfortunately there is also nothing very earth shattering any longer about ANY of the above. In fact it's all been known and repeated ad nauseum for quite some time.

And so what the hell are we now actually going to do about it all? At the end of all those roads... and a bit before we really reach the end of the road?

Other than talk, weep, get our indignation up, make or show more and better you tube videos, hold Pangea days, and wait for "the (very) invisible hand of the market" to sort it all out? And with oil at 125 one might have thought that billions of solar panels would be springing up all over the place by the day, but where are they? (other than moving from under 1% to just about 1%)

And I also DO hope that all solution paths will NOT lead only to the United Nations or to Kyoto or to any other talk shops like that, since so far those places have all been part of the BIG PIE IN THE SKY instead of the real PIECE OF CAKE here on earth.

God created the earth, the seas and the heavens and life in six days and rested on the seventh. (or evolution did the same thing in 4.5 billion years) Then man created industrialization and double digit GDP growth in a century and doubled his (and her) population to 6.3 billion.

Then there was a period of total denial. Then came a bit of awareness by a few. Then came awareness by the many. Then came a tiny bit of action. Then either came a lot more action or the final earth shattering realities and Noah's Ark. But could it even stay afloat in the new megaforce hurricanes?

Let's get cracking all the way on the environment before it starts cracking all the way.

The BBC aired -yesterday afternoon and once again today- an interesting and very well moderated discussion (by Nic Gowing) in Amsterdam about the Global Reporting Initiative. That is, about those company / corporate reports on the environmental and social, as well as the traditional financial "bottom line" performance of businesses

The main question -and its various facets- animating the discussion was basically this: Is doing or promoting or furthering this kind of reporting useful - and is it doable and in what particular standardized or diverse, and voluntary or obligatory forms or formats-; what are some of the potential pitfalls, and is all of this tantamount only to so called "Greenwashing"?

Without repeating the details of the discussion which can be found on the BBC's website I would just like to say that although I found myself in agreement with many of the quite reasonable positions and points of view expressed, I found myself most in agreement with that of Greenpeace.

The Greenpeace "point of view" (that is, the view most closely describing the overall -rather than just the corporate or even national- objective physical and natural realities out there) is that measured emissions have doubled between the beginning of this century 8 years ago and today.

And the effects of these emissions -and a whole host of other environmental catastrophes statistically also clearly in the making- are now all nearly equally incontrovertible scientific facts. (e.g. deforestation, fish stocks, toxicities, garbage, pollution, loss of biodiversity and etc.etc.)

All this notwithstanding all of the real or seeming (and some of both) efforts that are being made at country level or at business levels or at international level by the U.N.'s international climate change panel or by Kyoto, Bali and etc.; "the fact remains" that the massive ongoing contribution (by humanity collectively) to the environmental problem and to its various issues and manifestations continues unabated and is in fact strengthening rather than weakening.

Growing worldwide public awareness (at different rates in different countries) of this overall environmental problem WAS acknowledged as being a positive sign. I think that such a growing awareness and all of the related stakeholder dialogues that also are growing and mushrooming and taking place at various levels regarding all sorts of related issues is bound to be a good thing in the long term. (though we also need lots of action in the short term) But this growing awareness and its related public-private-civil society dialogues also can risk lulling us into believing that the actual real objective problem out there is in fact being solved and in a manner that is quantitatively as well as qualitatively meaningful.

That is "dialogue" is one of the few instruments man (or woman) has to communicate, negotiate, come to agreement, and solve problems. Without it we would be lost. However the unfortunate paradoxical fact is that "engaging in dialogue" and finding "balanced positions or consensus positions" is also extremely dangerous when the ultimate realities being dealt with are not only social but also natural and physical. (we can all agree that the earth is flat -as once also was the case- but our agreement doesn't make it any more real or true)

That is, we can all sit across a table and agree with satisfaction that we are each doing our own small or large (but still limited) "fair and reasonable share" from our own perspective (company, NGO, national or international) towards the solution of the environmental problem. But if that "fair share" is objectively not enough -or is not of the right kind- (or is only just shifting the problem elsewhere to somewhere else where it's not being addressed) to actually address the physical and natural problems and realities out there fully and sustainably over time, then our inter-subjective agreement will only aggravate rather than help to solve the "real" problem in its correct magnitude and qualitative dimensions.

And "in fact" thus far, not only is the problem NOT being solved but "in reality" it and its contributing sources all are getting much worse rather than better by the day.

And during the BBC discussion the "contributions" (to this catastrophe in the making) of China, Russia and India (as well as of the "western" countries) also was mentioned more than once. Also indicating that business as usual spells disaster because as things are now going emissions over the NEXT years will not only double (as they did over the past eight) but will increase by much more than that.

What is clearly needed (to address and solve the objective facts and realities rather than just satisfy a number of "social" facts or "stakeholder realities") is a set of multidimensional concerted initiatives: Legal & Regulatory; Ethical, and Market-Related or "business-case driven" with respective suitable Measurement at all levels: Global, National, Corporate, SME's Civil Society and also as practiced by all Individual consumers, producers and citizens. (with the measurements then aggregated for different dimensions at different levels)

Without suggesting any designed "grand master plan" that will never either be formulated or implemented, if a number of practical and effective initiatives at all of these levels and of all these types are not incrementally cobbled together and begin to be practically implemented very soon, we are going to face the "earth shattering" realities in the earlier post above sooner rather than later.

The ability of people to now "blog" and thus participate half way democratically on the Internet also was mentioned -along with a generally growing public awareness of the problem and of its various issues -as being a very "positive factor". And so I have "availed" myself of this "positive factor" and practical opportunity here. But doing this too , is of course not nearly enough and is in itself only something a bit self-comforting.

I really liked the above: "Let's all get cracking all the way on the environment before it all starts cracking all the way" And I would like to add: And before it becomes like Humpty Dumpty who all the king's horses and all the king's men (as well as the emperor's) could not put together again.