紐約時報今天刊出一則專題報導：China’s Boom Adds to Global Warming Problem（免費，但是要註冊），當中提到中國近年來的急遽發展，可能會在未來帶來全球性的環境污染以及溫室效應等問題。
報導當中說，中國在過去幾年無論是煤礦、電力以及石油的消耗都大為增加，中國現在已經是全球最大的煤礦消費者，過去較少關於煤礦使用的統計，而在去年的消費是以百分之七點六的數字成長，而在今年的前八個月間，電力的使用成長了百分之十六，同時也成為全球石油輸入成長最快的國家，石油占所有對外採購近三分之一之譜。在巴黎的國際能源機構（The International Energy Agency）認為，從2000年間到2030年間，中國所產生的溫室效應，會相當於目前工業國家的總和。
開發中國家的經濟發展似乎總是脫不開環境污染，不過中國如果走的是台灣二三十年來的經濟發展模式，以對岸的人口稠密來看，那麼真沒多久，我們的鄰居就會成為全世界最大的污染源了。
米國一百步笑五十步
另，有次看Discovery，節目裡頭說美國一個國家所耗用的石油，是全世界總消耗量的一半。
A vision of 2054 (by Michael Moore)
Last night I had a dream. Suddenly, I was in the future. It was the year 2054, and it was the occasion of my 100th birthday. I received a surprise visit from my great-granddaughter, Anne Coulter Moore. She told me she was doing a history project at school and wanted to ask me a few questions. But there were no lights, and she had no computer. Here is how the conversation went…
Anne Hi, Great-Grandpa! I brought you a candle. I figured there might not be enough light for the interview.
Michael Moore Thank you, Annie. Now, if there is any way you could leave me that pencil when you’re done, I could burn it to keep me warm.
A Sorry, Great-Grandpa, but if I give it to you, then I will have nothing to write with for the rest of the year. In your day, didn’t you have other things to use when you wrote?
M Yes, we had pens and computers and little machines you could speak into and out would come the writing.
A What happened to those?
M Well, dear, it takes plastic to make them.
A Oh, yes, plastic. Did everyone love plastic back then?
M It was a magical substance, but it was made from oil… Boy, we all miss the oil, don’t we?
A When you were young, were people really so stupid to think that there was enough oil to last for ever?
M Our leaders swore on a stack of Bibles there was plenty of oil, and, of course, we wanted to believe them.
A So, when you started to run out of oil, what did you do?
M We tried to keep things under control by dominating those parts of the world where most of the remaining oil and natural gas was located. Many wars were fought. For the early wars, in Kuwait and Iraq, our leaders had to come up with excuses like, ‘This bad guy had bad weapons’, or ‘These good people needed to be liberated’. But the fighting was never really for those reasons. It was always about the oil. We just couldn’t speak plainly in those days . . . and those wars only gave us a few more years of oil.
A I heard that there was so much oil that you switched to making everything out of it. And that most of these things would be used once and thrown away. A couple of years ago, Mom and Dad got scavenger permits for the dump. Mom said they struck it rich. They found a bunch of plastic bags that hadn’t decomposed one bit. And inside them were lots of things made of plastic. You guys sure were smart to preserve all that stuff in those bags.
M Well, thank you, but it was just a lucky accident. You’re right that we made everything from oil by turning it into plastic. Furniture upholstery, grocery bags, toys, bottles, clothes, medicines, even baby diapers were made from oil. The list was endless: aspirin, cameras, golf balls, car batteries, carpet, fertilisers, eyeglasses, shampoo, glue, computers, cosmetics, detergents, phones, food preservatives, footballs, insecticides, luggage, nail polish, toilet seats, pantyhose, toothpaste, pillows, soft contact lenses, tyres, pens, CDs – you name it, and it came in some way from oil. Man, we were hooked on the stuff. We might burn a gallon of oil to drive to a store for a gallon of milk (which came in a plastic bottle, too). And, yes, we even wrapped our garbage in plastic and tossed it out. Soon things really got bad. We ran low on oil, and people got really mad. But it was too late. That’s when the die-off began.
A I know, the food ran out.
回應zonble:
光是加州的汽車總數就超過全歐洲; 汽油比同體積的礦泉水還便宜; 美國人不喜歡色溫高但省電的日光燈或省電燈泡, 偏偏喜歡色溫低且耗電外加發熱的傳統燈泡. 車商和油商遊說政府把興建大眾運輸系統的經費改蓋高速公路已有數十年歷史, 冰凍三尺非一日之寒.