Guest guest Posted November 20, 2006 Report Share Posted November 20, 2006 press-release Announcing Science in Society #32 Mon, 20 Nov 2006 15:45:23 +0000 (GMT) The Institute of Science in Society Science Society Sustainability http://www.i-sis.org.uk This article can be found on the I-SIS website at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/AnnouncingSIS32.php ======================================================== ISIS Press Release 20/11/06 Announcing Science in Society #32, Winter 2006 ************************************* The Only Radical Science Magazine on Earth Subscribe now, http://www.i-sis.org.uk/onlinestore/magazines.php# or download this magazine in its entirety as a PDF document from the ISIS members area. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/members.php The first few pages are viewable for free here. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis32_1-5.pdf Individual hardcopies are available from our online store. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/onlinestore/magazines.php#250 From the Editor Fast Forward China The tiger leaps " Crouching tiger hidden dragon " is an old Chinese proverb aptly describing the awe and fear that China inspires in the world at large. They call it the " China syndrome " : the double-figure annual economical growth sustained over the past two decades that's about to launch the nation as a superpower. But this has come at a price. China's carbon emissions jumped 33 percent between 1992 and 2002 to become the world's No. 2 emitter after the US. Some 20 percent of the population live in " severely polluted " areas, and 70 percent of the country's rivers and lakes are in dire shape. The economic growth has been fuelled by a rapid expansion of its industrial base, creating a corresponding surge in demand on the world's falling oil and gas supplies. Oil price hit US$70 a barrel at the end of August 2005. In 2004, when global energy consumption rose by 4.3 percent - the highest in two decades - China's consumption shot up by 15 percent. Hungry for resources and goods China is the most populous nation in the world at more than 1.3 billion and still expanding at 0.6 percent per annum, despite the official one-child family policy. As the country grows in wealth, so too, its draw on the world's grains, meat and luxury goods such as motor vehicles. And it is capable of buying a lot. China's Gross Domestic Product more than quadrupled from 1984 to 2004 to put it No. 4 in the world after US, Japan and Germany; but its Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) at 8.6 trillion international dollars is a close second to US's 12.4 trillion. PPP takes into account differences in the relative prices of goods and services, and provides a better measure of a country's real output and buying power. China's total grain consumption in the fiscal year 2005-2006 was projected to hit a record high of 500 million tonnes with imports at 5.1 percent of total, i.e., more than 25 million tonnes. If per-capita grain consumption were to double to European levels, China would require nearly 40 percent of today's global grain harvest. US Washington-based Worldwatch Institute commented in its State of the World 2006 report: " Rising demand for energy, food and raw materials by 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians is already having ripple effects worldwide. Meanwhile, record- shattering consumption levels in the US and Europe leave little room for this projected Asian growth. " The resulting squeeze on global resources is taking its toll: riots over rising oil prices in Indonesia, escalating pressure on Brazil's forests and fisheries and loss of manufacturing jobs in Central America. Leapfrogging development with circular eco-economy Statistics don't tell the whole story. We visited China this summer in connection with our Dream Farm 2 project (Dream Farm 2 - Story So Far, SiS 32). Driving from the airport into the city of Guangzhou in Guangdong Province felt like anywhere in Europe on a good day. The motorways are well built and meticulously manicured: landscaping on both sides and down the middle divide. Momentarily as we were approaching the city of Yantai in Shandong Province a week later, it felt like Italy. Yantai's mayor has decreed for aesthetic reasons that all the houses must have slanting roofs covered with red tiles. There have been massive investments in infrastructure. People simply took it for granted that things like the power supply and the transport system would work, which they did. The main city boulevards have been elaborately face-lifted; though old, dilapidated enclaves remain, some scarcely hidden behind the big billboards. In Guangzhou, we managed to visit the site of Mae-Wan's family home, which used to occupy what is now a block of disintegrating multi-storey flats with the big Chinese ideogram " demolish " written on the walls. Good food is cheap, abundant, diverse and exquisitely prepared, and wine flows freely. Chinese hosts are hospitable to a fault. There is no sign that people will ever give up their rich and varied cuisine for the European beef-dominated fare. On more than one occasion, our hosts regaled us with stories of being always hungry as children as recently as the 1960s, and constantly dreaming up more cunning ploys to steal food from the family ration only to be foiled by their clever mother or the family dog; obviously confident that those days are gone for good. China's leaders and opinion formers are well aware that the dominant economical model of infinite growth is unsustainable. " Circular " and " eco-economy " are in mainstream discourse, and it is not just talk. Eco-city and socialist village projects abound. China accounts for 80 percent of the world's thermal photovoltaic market and 65 million square metres of solar panels have been installed on rooftops. The central government is actively promoting and supporting widespread use of biogas digesters to address environmental pollution and energy shortage. There's a general air of contentment and good humour amid much open criticism of inept or corrupt government officials at the provincial or more local levels. China could well leapfrog the West in sustainable development. And there are other factors in its favour. Taking off Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat, warns that economic globalisation and the internet doesn't just mean that cheap, unskilled labour is outsourced to the developing world, but also that the countries with the best educated and smartest people are going to take the highest paying jobs as well. Some 60 percent of China's university students graduate with degrees in science and engineering compared to 32 percent in the United States. Chinese high school kids have been winning the international Mathematics Olympiad for most of the past ten years. The public park along the coast of Yantai is a favourite hangout for the inhabitants and Chinese tourists: indulgent young parents with their precious single child strolling along the concrete paths, beach-bagging on the pebbled shore, or flying kites. But you have to watch out not to be run over by the blade roller-skaters. The Chinese appear to have taken to the sport with consummate passion, and the city has built a full-size racecourse in the park. On our last evening in China, we came upon groups of skaters in full regalia rehearsing on the racecourse. We strained our eyes to infants that must have barely learned to walk. They kept whizzing by in a blaze of colours, their unsmiling faces seriously set as though impatient for the future that belongs to them. All SiS articles cited can be accessed on ISIS members area http://www.i-sis.org.uk/members.php Contents GM Free USDA Poised to Deregulate Illegal GM Rice GM Rice Contamination - How Regulators Tried to Sidestep the Law to Protect Vested Interests SiS Review Inside Story of BSE Letters to the Editor ISIS Lecture Quantum Jazz - " The Meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything " New Age of Water Collagen Water Structure Revealed Two-States Water Explains All? Water and Colloid Crystals Water's Effortless Action at A Distance Technology Watch GM Food Animals Coming GM Crops and Microbes for Health or Public Health Hazards? Fast Forward China Biogas China Circular Economy of the Dyke-Pond System Organic farming now Stem Farmers' Suicides with Organic Farming Organic Strawberries Stop Cancer Cells Organic Farms Make Healthy Plants Made Healthy People Toxic Watch What's Really Behind the Bird Flu Outbreaks? Subscribe now, http://www.i-sis.org.uk/onlinestore/magazines.php# or download this magazine in its entirety as a PDF document from the ISIS members area. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/members.php The first few pages are viewable here. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis32_1-5.pdf Individual hardcopies are available from our online store. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/onlinestore/magazines.php#250 ======================================================== This article can be found on the I-SIS website at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/AnnouncingSIS32.php If you like this original article from the Institute of Science in Society, and would like to continue receiving articles of this calibre, please consider making a donation or purchase on our website http://www.i-sis.org.uk/donations. ISIS is an independent, not-for-profit organisation dedicated to providing critical public information on cutting edge science, and to promoting social accountability and ecological sustainability in science. ======================================================== CONTACT DETAILS The Institute of Science in Society, PO Box 51885, London NW2 9DH telephone: [44 20 8452 2729] [44 20 7272 5636] Foe email details, see http://www.i-sis.org.uk/contact.php MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT EXPLICIT PERMISSION. FOR PERMISSION, PLEASE CONTACT ISIS at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/contact2.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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