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In 1980, China's economic reforms began putting enough money in
people's pockets to enable even peasants like Zhenbing's parents
to buy coal. Today coal supplies 73% of China's energy, and there
is enough beneath the country to last an additional 300 years at
current consumption rates. Plainly, that is good news in one
respect. Burning coal has made the Chinese people (somewhat) warm
in winter for the first time in their history. But multiply
Zhenbing's story by China's huge population, and you understand
why 9 of the world's 10 most air-polluted cities are found in
China and why nearly 1 of every 3 deaths there is linked to the
horrific condition of the air and water.
Equally alarming is what China's coal burning is doing to the planet as a whole. China has become the world's second largest producer of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, and it will be No. 1 by 2020 if it triples coal consumption as planned. But the U.S., the other environmental superpower, has no right to point a finger. Americans lead the world in greenhouse-gas production, mainly because of their ever tightening addiction to the car, the source of almost 40% of U.S. emissions. Which returns us to gasoline and its source, petroleum. The earth's underground stores of petroleum are not quite as ample as those of coal or natural gas, but there is enough to supply humanity for many decades, even with rising population and living standards. Crippling shortages may still occur, of course. But they will arise from skulduggery or incompetence on the part of corporations or governments, not from any physical scarcity. "Will we run out of gas?"Ü a question we began asking during the oil shocks of the 1970s Ü is now the wrong question. The earth's supply of carbon-based fuels will last a long time. But if humans burn anywhere near that much carbon, we'll burn up the planet, or at least our place on it. MORE>> |
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