Basically..."we're going to keep changing it..."

The Chinese government released its first national plan on climate change on Monday. The plan supported the rights of developing nations to pursue growth and rejected the idea of binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

"The international community should respect the rights of the developing countries and allow them enough space for development. The consequences of inhibiting their development would be far greater than not doing anything to fight climate change," said Ma Kai, the minister of China's key Reform and Development Commission.

China isn't really a communist nation any more--its an imperial one. They have figured out that ultimately, the only thing that matters is economic and technology parity with the west--a lesson that Japan absorbed much earlier. Ironically, the "cultural revolution" was the steam roller than made the new China a possibility. While liberals bemoan the hob-nailed boots character of the cultural revolution and all that was lost with it, its notable to understand that with the art and culture also went the destructive traditions and institutions that weakened what had once been the flower of civilization.

China was in fact starting over, and its remarkably rapid rise to power is an illustration of what I consider the critical principle of national development--making room for better..

China's attitude that development is king is not the environmental contradiction it seems. It is precisely because western countries have advanced economies that they can even contemplate ways and means to reduce emissions.

Wealth is environmentally friendly in the near and long term

Rather than provide a long and detail explanation, I'll just cut to the chase--the first thing a wealthy person does is improve their environment. A nation of wealthy individuals do much the same. The transformation of the U.S. over the course of one hundred years is remarkable. We have more forest, more wild life than we did 200 years ago. Most people are astonished when I tell them that White Tailed Deer were nearly extinct in this country by 1920. Yeah its crazy--deer are like a plague in a lot of places, eating your shrubs and rampaging through department stores. There are now twice as many deer in Virginia as there were when Jamestown was first settled.

Poor Americans were shooting every deer they saw--rich Americans wanted to live in an environment where they could see deer in an eden-like environment.

As the Chinese get richer, they will inevitably do much the same thing--human beings don't like to live in industrial wastelands, breathing polluted air and drinking polluted water..

Yeah, but what about global warming. Well, the crisis is bullsh_t and I'd have to write a book to tell you why, but setting that aside for a moment ask yourself the question--what kind of economy is going to develop alternatives to fossil fuels? A country like Sweden with a wealth index comparable to Mississippi, or a country like the United States?

A wealthy, prosperous China becomes a stake-holder in the future of the globe and an ally in creating a more environmentally-friendly coexistence with the rest of the biosphere.