Fareed Zakaria's GPS

[Mathematics]

anyone else watching this? Pretty much replaced "Meet the Press" as the most informative Sunday morning show I think...his panel always seems to consist of actual experts on issues instead of just the normal pundits.

Thomas Friedman was just on talking about how dumb the "drill baby drill" mantra the Republicans have started is while countries like China are already developing alternative energy technologies. I had no idea China was already that much further ahead of us...or that McCain missed all 8 of the votes on alternative energy bills the last year.

[steepconcrete]

yea too bad he is a total fucking toolbag. no where near russert. i hope someone decent replaces him.

[David Witherspoon]

I had no idea China was already that much further ahead of us...
Necessity is a lot clearer in China. We have a lot of fat to burn off before we realize what they know.

[whatcomridaz]

Any links to what China is doing/proposing? There used to be a somewhat valid hope they'd skip the car hydrocarbon infrastructure, but they didn't and I haven't heard lately about what they're doing.

[telebobski]

Any links to what China is doing/proposing? There used to be a somewhat valid hope they'd skip the car hydrocarbon infrastructure, but they didn't and I haven't heard lately about what they're doing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_China provides a fairly concise review.

I'm not sure the Chinese have anything to brag about in the green energy area. They plan to start up TWO coal-fired power plants PER WEEK for the next FIVE YEARS. They want to produce 20% of their energy from renewables by 2020, which include projects like the Three Gorges Dam. By 2020 they still see about 2/3 of their electricity coming from coal.

They generate about 1000 tons of CO2 per person, versus 5500 tons per head in the US. However, at also equates to about 160K tons of CO2 per billion USD of GDP, compared to 134K tons in the US.

Auto sales in China run at about 8-9 million vehicles per year (2/3 of the US rate), and growing at about 15% per year.

The book "Collapse" by Jared Diamond has a chapter on sustainability issues facing that country. Both informative and scary.

[bklyn]

Agree. It's a great show.

[enlosandes]

Another positive vote for GPS. I watched Friedman on Sunday, and loved his book "the world is flat". The next president should appoint him high up in their cabinet, that guy is smart.