On China and Carbon Emissions

An interesting debate north of the border, with our own NASA and financial difficulties involved:

...Individual Chinese power plants have higher carbon emissions than Canada’s 100 different oilsands companies put together.

But Hansen hasn’t flown to China with his protest.

In 2008, Hansen said CEOs of fossil energy companies should be put on trial for “crimes against humanity.” Try saying that in China and you’ll get the Tiananmen Square treatment.

Hansen doesn’t even criticize China from the safety of the United States. In a laughable essay he wrote this spring for the liberal Huffington Post, Hansen says he believes China wants to “avoid the fossil fuel addiction of the United States. They want to clean up their atmosphere and water.”

Avoid fossil fuels? Last year Chinese auto sales hit 13.64 million, more than the U.S. for the first time. The number of cars on the road in China is expected to double to 200 million in less than 10 years. Clean up their atmosphere? The World Bank says that 20 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities are in China.

But Hansen and NASA and Obama don’t criticize China. China is the largest owner of U.S. treasury bills.

When you owe someone a trillion dollars, you don’t call them “polluter.”

You call them “boss.”