Let’s see the whole carbon balance of the earth is changing instead of earth being a carbon sink it’s slowly becoming a carbon pump. We are loosing huge swathes of Forrest methane ice crystals in the artic and Antarctic are starting to thaw. It also turns out there is a whole lot more methane trapped under artic glaciers than we thought and those are all melting. I think the next 8 years are going to show that we hit the 1.5 degree target already, that’s like 70 years ahead of schedule. At some point we are going to try geoengineering whether we like it or not. I do agree that the PRC definitely takes climate change seriously but there are still more radical policy solutions that they should consider like not engaging in commercial fishing for 10-20 years if we still want to have any fish in the ocean.

Oh yeah Mao was definitely opposed people plotted against him all the time. Shit like that happens in every single political party. I’m an extremely pessimistic and cynical person, communism doesn’t get a pass from me. I’d still rather live in a country that took climate change and economic development with an eye on trying to help the poorest in society as seriously as China does, but I definitely appreciate the information freedom I get in the west even though that shit is slowly being eroded as well. What’s that old joke again? Under communism you can make fun of your boss but not the politicians, under capitalism you can make fun of the politicians but not your boss. I don’t think China is the dystopian hell that a bunch of libs and conservatives think it is, but like any place it could be a whole lot better. I’m saving up money and I’m going to sign up for Chinese lessons at the Confucius institute here and hopefully I can learn a little bit and one day visit China and then I can talk to some people and see what it’s like for myself and not just rely on images and information other people produced. I also want to try learn more Spanish so I can check out Cuba but I find it very difficult to concentrate and learn now a days.