In a scientific study published recently, it has been concluded that solar radiation is not responsible for the drastic warming on the Earth in recent years.

Global Warming nay-sayers have often cited solar radiation as the main factor in global warming and say that the human influence is negligible. This evidence was used in the “The Great Global Warming Swindle” video aired on the Channel 4. However, they only used data up until 1980 where the temperature on earth corresponded with the solar radiation coming from the sun. However, as the solar radiation is cyclical, the data diverged after 1980 and now it is quite conclusive that varying solar radiation has little, if any, impact on the temperature here on Earth. The above graph shows plainly that there is no connection.

Article from BBC

Well, last week it became official. The news that we all knew was going to come sooner or later has arrived. The Chinese have supraseed the USA to become the #1 polluter on Earth. As for last week, the 2006 Chinese CO2 emssions were estimated at 6.2bn tonnes while the USA at “only” 5.8bn tonnes.

Up until now, the Chinese have been hiding behind the “we don’t pollute as much as the USA” or “we don’t pollute so much per capita” arguments. But with this announcement, that all changes. The Chiinese are now the largest CO2 pollutor on earth and their per-capita pollution is rapidly approaching that of Europeans. With new coal-fired power plants opening on a near-daily basis, they show no signs of slowing up any time soon. The Chinese economy grew over 10% in 2006, but the enviornmental investment only grew 0.14%. Seems like a rather huge disparity to me.

Its not just global pollution that China is suffering from, but extreme local pollution is having devastating effects as well. North China’s Shanxi Province (which has strong coal and other heavy industries) 3 cities among the top 20 most polluted cities in the world. Rivers are quoted as “running black”. In fact, 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China and nearly 40% of all Chinese cities are rated as either “moderatly” or “very” polluted.

As China has been facing new criticism over the increased pollution that it is emitting, other countries have been somewhat reducing their emissions. From 2005 to 2006, for example, the United States reduced its CO2 output by about 1%. However China, quite validly, points out that the main reason for these decreases is that a lot of the manufacturing that used to be done in other countries is now being done in China. China has become the manufacturing center of the world, and the increidble increase in its GDP, imports and pollution reflect that.

So that leaves everybody in a quandry. As many countries have simply exported their pollution to China, how can they fairly complain that China is polluting too much?

What can we, as people, do to help the situation? There doesn’t seem to be much as so many of the daily things that we buy are made there. It would be great if companies would start putting this kind of information into their reports.

China Daily

10 Worst Cities

Most polluted city in the world

Article in The Guardian