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Vietnam exports and transships large volumes of coal to China, India and more. This may not be such a hot idea as we are all interconnected by the entrails of waste-streams. For example, acid rain originating beyond Vietnam's borders is said to account for about one-third their rainfall. Domestically, apparently undaunted by the maelstrom of pollution to date, Vietnam has been planning on quadrupling its electric generating capacity before 2020 relying mostly on coal to support that growth. We highly recommend ditching coal and driving implementation of widespread and dramatic improvements in energy efficiency. This results in realization of a heap of benefits from negative costs that arise from harvesting energy savings, not to overlook the marked reduction of pollution. Happily, we hear there are plans now for significant carbon-light contributions to grid energy from solar, wind, biofuels and nuclear sources by 2030.

The Mekong, Sai Gon, Ngu Huyen Khe, Can Tho, Thi Doi, Dung, Bo Ot, Ngang and several other rivers in Vietnam are in places severely polluted mostly as a result of steel-making and other industrial and agricultural sources. A 70 kilometer length of the Day River cannot support any life. Furthermore, large die-offs of aquatic life have occurred along the Nhue River. The To Lich River is also a very polluted waterway. Fish have also been succumbing en masse to pollution in many lakes in Vietnam. Only about 10% of Mekong Delta factories treat waste water before discharging it into the Mekong River. Use of toxic, illegal pesticides abounds. The Mekong River has been found to have very high levels of PCB's, DDT and mercury. Unsurprisingly, the Mekong dolphin is on the brink of extinction. The Thi Vai River has been declared devoid of life over a length of at least 10 kilometers. Industrial zones may not have water treatment plants and so may be a significant source of pollutants. The Sai Gon River, whose main tributary is the Dong Nai, also has acute water pollution from microbes, manganese, oil, ammonia, iron, lead, nitrogen, phosphorus, etc. that go far beyond any semblance of a safety standard. One of the Dong Nai's streams is ecologically dead in sections up to many kilometers long. Canals that feed into these polluted rivers are often ecologically dead or have borderline levels of dissolved oxygen left. Some say most of the entire Sai Gon River system could be virtually null and void of life by 2019.

Hundreds of waterways in and around Can Tho City, Bien Hoa City and Ho Chi Minh City are used as dumping areas for industrial effluents, medical waste and residential garbage. Many medical facilities have no capacity to treat waste and merely discharge it into a river. Some canals such as the Ba Bo are ecological disaster scenes. In many stretches they are pitch black in color and rank in smell. The air in Ho Chi Minh City contains ominous amounts of horrible stuff ranging from carcinogenic petrochemicals like benzene to toxic heavy metals like lead to noxious gases like carbon monoxide to suffocating quantities of dust from cement, construction and transportation activities.

Hanoi's water and air quality are horrible, both being laced with a variety of toxic substances, everything from sulfur and mercury to barium and selenium. Water wells in the region often are contaminated with arsenic or manganese. Maybe only one-third of industrial zones have even the most basic wastewater treatment facilities. Many rivers in and around Hanoi are contaminated with heavy metals, other suspended solids and coliform bacteria. The oxygen being consumed in waterways is far beyond what's possible in order to still support most aquatic life. All these surface and ground water problems mean people should collect rainwater to drink. Upstream from Hanoi, the Red River is also very polluted with elevated levels of various metals. In many places, the riparian ecosystem has effectively been demolished by toxins. According to the government, people in these areas had for thousands of years survived in harmony with nature but, quite suddenly, the end is nigh due mostly to the dreadful quality of the water plus reduced availability. Fish can't take it either.

In sum, chemical oxygen demand is so intense, ammonia nitrogen content so high and water quality so poor in parts of Vietnam that agricultural productivity has declined significantly. Perhaps one-quarter of water wells contain arsenic-laced water unfit for use as gray water let alone drinking or cooking. The government is funding a plan to try to clean up rivers in Vietnam. As well, Vietnam now has environmental police so we hope various improvements are in the offing. Widespread deployment of newfangled automatic water quality testing stations along rivers might mean automatic nabbing of many more water pollution culprits. Authorities are determined to boost Vietnam's sorry record on the reduce, recycle and reuse mantra to far beyond the 10% level of all garbage that it was at not long ago.

Vietnam has a very high incidence of environmentally-induced illnesses resulting in disease, poisoning and/or death. To illustrate the prevailing mentality, asbestos cement and construction products are still in widespread use ostensibly because asbestos is relatively "cheap" and assists their rapid race-to-the-top (or bottom) growth spiral. This is a fast-growing, low income per capita economy with clusters of densely-populated areas and ever-increasing urbanization pressure. Beyond civic, industrial and agricultural smoke, we also have torrents of cultural smoke: tobacco products here are among the cheapest in the world and people drag on them at regular intervals apparently just to get through the next few minutes of their life. A hefty tax on the smoke that wafts from many peoples' mouths is long overdue.

Hopefully, implementation of an environmental tax nation-wide beginning in 2012 could lead to a turning point in the gross ecological survivability of Vietnam. Such a tax would promote more environmentally-friendly decision-making, behavior and allocation of resources. It should also provide part of the foundation for a legal and regulatory framework that leads one day to the onset of a natural roll-back of now-pervasive pollution that has resulted in widespread environmentally-induced ailments and sickness. This environmental tax system penalizes fuel inefficiency, carbon content of fossil fuels, hazardous chemical discharges and other pollutants. We are fired up about it; we think it may be very efficacious here.

Both wind and solar power have tremendous natural potential in Vietnam. Possible cellulosic bio-fuel sources like rice husks, hyacinth weeds and others need to be pursued aggressively because then same tend to come out of waterways instead of being dumped in waterways that still flow forward. There is also hope that their natural gas reserves can be utilized more widely, displacing dirtier diesel and petrol. However, conversion to, or use of, compressed methane is currently beyond the reach of the vast majority of individual vehicle owners in Vietnam. Unfortunately, demand for energy especially from industry is an order of magnitude, that's ten times, greater than the expected growth of renewable, clean energy sources of energy up to 2025. Only about 5% of electric grid energy in the country will come from renewables by 2020, not something to write to gramma about.

A hopeful sign of better things to come is that solar-powered cookers, hot plates, water heaters and battery chargers are beginning to take hold especially in the countryside and villages. This transition cannot happen a moment too soon as even in some villages in rural areas the air is heavily polluted with toxic gases, tiny metal oxide flakes, rubber particulates, benzopyrene, you name it. Dreadful coal-fired brick-making kilns abound in Vietnam. Even old tires are burned in, or transshipped via the country. Various trash including scrap metal, old electronic garb, batteries, plastic, rubber and chemicals also enters the country illegally, under false pretences. Life is also not pretty in Tu Son Town where a maelstrom of pollution, mostly from steel manufacturing, envelopes peoples' life-space giving rise to cancer villages such as Da Hoi. Some localities in Vietnam still may have residual soil contamination from the highly-toxic defoliant dioxin, for example, in Lake Bien Hung or surrounding soil. Also, Da Nang and Phu Cat may still be stricken with problematic concentrations of herbicide. Bronchial asthma, diarrhea, petechial fever, poisoning, fetus malformation and infectious and neurological diseases generally have all been increasing in Vietnam. A government report blames various environmental pollution including ongoing residential, medical and industrial waste dumping and legacy brown fields and toxin hotspots.

Alarmingly, average temperatures in many localities in Vietnam have been rising at a pace of one degree Celsius per generation for two generations. A four to five degree Celsius temperature rise would very likely bypass some serious Earthly tipping points unleashing relatively-abrupt rises in global sea levels of several meters. Such a prospect would be so calamitous in its implications we do not want to dwell on it. Rather, we want to focus effort on stopping further global temperature increases from happening, to lower risk that various catastrophes become inevitable.

The ocean impinging on Vietnam's coastline has been rising at a rate of two meters per century for more than a decade. Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho are likely in big trouble as the specter of global warming sets in. One estimate projected that a one meter rise in sea level near Vietnam could impact 10% of the population, principally those who live or work in the extensive low-lying coastal and deltaic areas of the country. Authorities estimate that global warming of two degrees Celsius will be sufficient to cause submergence of nearly half the Mekong Delta area, an event that would be a calamity of monumental proportions. A one meter rise of water level would be enough to swamp one-third of the delta, devastating the Cuu Long Delta area. Tens of millions of Vietnamese live somewhere in the Mekong Delta region and it is Vietnam's agricultural heartland. Unfortunately, we already have serious saltwater incursion up the Mekong River which is certain to impair productivity of crops. On the east coast, half the area of Ho Chi Minh City is less than one meter above today's mean sea level in this region. Conurbations such as Hai Phong City, Da Nang, Quy Nhon, Nha Trang, Cam Ranh and more are not considered to be "sitting pretty" along the coast anymore...because the ocean is gradually transgressing, meaning the coastline is progressively creeping inward...(gulp!). 

Vietnam has also been smarting due to a decade-long drought in the north. Hopefully, the drought is not caused by global warming which would heighten the likelihood of a persistent, or at least recurring, problem. People are pointing the finger at global warming as the cause of excessive melting of Himalayan glaciers, increased storm intensity including torrential rainfall, and rising sea levels. But also there is condemnation of the tremendous amount of damming involving several countries along the length of the Mekong River progressively reducing downstream velocity and sediment-carrying capacity of the river. Damming is in-place for irrigation purposes, flood control and hydroelectricity generation, too. This generally means that near the terminus of the Mekong Delta, there is considerably-less water outflow pressure remaining in the river to counteract influx of ocean saltwater. Sounds to us like more salt  will end up mixing with  the natural fresh water supply. Plus there now exists a greater risk of flooding of low-lying areas in the region which could affect millions of people and huge slices of land. Less trees means less water retention naturally. Vietnam has seen a net gain in trees lately due to monolithic plantation-style reforestation projects but restoring biodiversity and rehydrating the soil may be a long and arduous process.  

For more than a generation Indonesia has been prone to over-logging, slash-and-burn agricultural land-clearing and sometimes-huge smoky peat land and forest fires. The breakneck repurposing of natural areas has reached the point where less than half the land area of Indonesia remains forested today. When impacts from land use changes are factored in to the overall tally for greenhouse gases, this likely makes Indonesia the third-biggest emitter worldwide. Some 80% of Indonesia's climate-warming emissions are a result of deforestation, loss of peat lands and land degradation including consequences from smoldering fires. Regionally, burning results in enormous hazy, smoky areas, poor air quality and reduced penetration of sunlight.

Deforestation and land use changes affecting forested areas and peat lands still cause most emissions. Indonesia's questionable status quo plan is for emissions to rise by 20% from 2005 levels by 2020 then before 2030 to ratchet up another 30% versus 2020 levels. Change is clearly needed here. Its also true more land use change-related emissions should be expected here compared to many other countries that undertook considerable land development activity in the past. Happily, change began - the government is invoking an initial two year moratorium blocking the draining, clearing, cutting or burning of all forest areas and peat lands not already licensed for land use change or commercial development.

Indonesia has too-many threatened species. Deforestation and loss of habitat in tropical rainforests is an ongoing big concern not only because of endangered species but also due to the consequent reduced global capacity for uptake of carbon dioxide by plant life. Half of Sumatra's forests have been destroyed already often due to further plantation and forest industry activity. In Kalimantan and Sumatra, deforestation for agricultural and industrial development has led to countless majestic animals such as elephants, tigers and orangutans either disappearing, being on the run or some kind of rampage or holed-up in orphanages. The survivability of four of every five primates is threatened. Historically, half of Indonesian Borneo's rainforests are gone. In the first decade of the new millennium, loss of forest cover in Kalimantan and Sumatra occurred at the astonishing average pace of about 1% per year. And every year, some 10% of orangutans living there disappeared, that's forever. Four generations ago, there may have been a cool 100,000 Sumatran tigers; now, there are less than 400 individuals.

In Indonesia, rampant deforestation that, for example, pretty-well wiped out the entirety of Kalimantan's rainforests, has also now encroached into critical carbonaceous peat land areas. Forest fires, other deforestation and decaying organic matter in peat lands all result in huge releases of greenhouse gases. Thus peat swamp forests constitute another of our "wild cards" because peat lands, despite their rather limited geographic extent, hold about one-quarter of the Earth's soil and vegetation stores of carbon. Therefore, they should be left as unaltered ecosystems not drained or otherwise developed by economic actors. This is truly another hot potato issue. Secondary, degraded forest areas have no respite to commercial interests, and this is significant since it currently represents about one-third of all their forests.

But now we have good news and perhaps the beginning of a turnaround for Indonesia: the apparent recent agreement by all Sumatra governors to ensure preservation of rainforest and peat lands in Sumatra. The recent waste management law passed in Indonesia aims to condemn violators, fine them and perhaps also land them in jail for up to 10 years. The Indonesian government says for two years there will be no more land use conversion to plantations, in particular, for production of palm oil, to mining, logging or any other purpose of their deeper peat lands, carbon-rich intact forests or other prime forest areas needed to preserve biodiversity. But what happens after the two years? That's our question now.

Indonesia's new goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26% by 2020 versus the status quo or business-as-usual which would then be an improvement but only relative to the grim prior numbers cited above. Their new objective includes reducing the rate of deforestation by 85% or so by 2020 but apparently does not specify targets for afforestation or reforestation which is necessary to restore their ecological balance. Before 2030, Indonesia's forests are supposed to no longer be a net emitter, rather will become a carbon sink again. Furthermore, Indonesia now has much-toughened environmental rules, regulations and laws: If someone intentionally conducts activities that causes pollution to exceed tolerable levels of water, air and environmental quality, they will face a mandatory minimum three year jail sentence plus a fine of three billion rupiah and up.

Unfortunately, the emissions story here is still incomplete because Indonesia, the country with the world's largest extent of coal-bearing material, is already one-third dependent on dirty coal for electric power generation. Worse, it appears to be hell-bent on adding capacity of tens of thousands of megawatts more of smoky coal-fired plants over the next several years such that coal burning will about double by 2011 and quadruple by 2017. This will boost their overall pollution totals much higher. They also add to the world's climate woes by exporting gigantic volumes of coal, especially to China and India.

Sadly, Indonesia continues to subsidize production of coal-driven electricity. Fossil fuel subsidies have no place in our future. We find the predominance of ugly fossil fuels to be very peculiar, sad and unsavory given the huge geothermal, solar and biofuel potential that exists in this country. Also, many people in Indonesia have been problematic users of mercury to extract gold cheaply and easily. As a consequence of mostly small-scale artisanal gold mining, Kalimantan has many waterways with high concentrations of mercury. Is it any wonder they have a serious pollution problem including acid rain? Chlorine, nitrates, sulfates, mercury and other airborne metal particles, soot, ozone and hydrochloric and sulfuric acid mist are not anyone's idea of a tropical paradise getaway.

Domestically, nearly half of total demand for energy is fulfilled by oil and another one-quarter from coal. This cannot go on! You're not outperforming in the new millennium if you're still going to be 60% hooked on coal for electric power come 2020, and perhaps another 20% of fossil energy from gas. This leaves a relatively-measly 11.5 % from hydropower, 8% geothermal and virtually insignificant contributions from other green energy sources anticipated to be online by the end of 2019. So this is not a pretty picture yet; much more work and ambition is needed just to try to contain the eco-risks here. Indonesia has slowly been developing some of their vast, untapped geothermal potential. The government is now targeting 5% of their overall energy requirements to come from geothermal projects by 2025. Also, by 2015, they are having a great many small, off-grid solar power point-facilities built in rural settings that are deemed to be locations too expensive to tie into an electric grid.

According to Indonesian sources, one-third of consumer waste is burned and one-sixth is thrown into rivers or deposited on public lands. Four of every five rivers in Indonesia are said to be in the government's highest category, meaning 80% of rivers are currently listed as being severely polluted with human, agricultural and industrial waste. Needless to say, do not drink the water. The Ciliwung River teeters with environmental collapse from a daily barrage of  industrial effluent, sewage and other trash. Nearly half of Indonesians still make-do without toilets and, unsurprisingly, most excrement and other raw sewage ends up in bodies of water. Fish and shellfish are often killed directly by the high concentration of effluents, garbage and raw sewage present.

Increased urbanization and auto-mobility coupled with low income per capita and tendency of people to smoke are also big negatives for Indonesia. Cigarettes here are among the cheapest in the world and hordes of people gasp on them at regular intervals as if there was no tomorrow. Needless to say, environmental-induced illness is widespread and predominant. Its clear to us the perpetrators of all this coal and wood smoke should be paying the external costs of all this illness suffered by the people of Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

Air quality in Indonesia's cities is generally abysmal. As an example, residents of Jakarta are said to be many times more likely to breathe unhealthy air than air you can survive on over the long term. The sky is usually gray and hazy from soot, hydrocarbon particles and fumes, fine particulates, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides (especially nitrous oxide), sulphur dioxide and smog. Furthermore, Jakarta is subsiding, in fact, more than two meters in a generation (gulp!). We also have the Surabaya's, Tangerang's and Medan's of our world where human waste streams and industrial pollution accumulate in a dirty mix. Noxious smoky, pollution-gushing pedicabs ply the streets despite attempts by authorities to have operators upgrade to compressed natural gas or junk it in favor of an ordinary bicycle.

Want to glimpse what's happening for yourself? View this amazing August 30, 2011 program from Al Jazeera's 101 East series: Indonesia: Bursting at the seams

Brown or black carbon "soot" in the upper atmosphere above these two countries is estimated to block almost 10% of sunlight that would otherwise reach the earth's surface in China and there is about a 7% dimming above India. China and India together account for somewhere in the range of one-quarter to one-third of the world's soot emissions, a form of brown or black carbon. Much of this soot emanates from burning coal, diesel fuel, wood and dung. Both of these countries are already heavily hooked on coal yet are apparently gearing up for dramatic expansion of their coal extraction and coal-fired power industries. We hope they do not tempt doomsday scenarios by continuing to start yet another coal plant operating every few days. Or by importing more coal or heavy crude. Coal or other carbon-intensive sources still provide at least half of all energy in India. Coal still drives about two-thirds of their electric power grid and the plan seems to be that this percentage of the energy mix continues to at least 2030.

However, the real-world situation demands quite the contrary. Deployment of coal as a fuel must be ratcheted back from these ecologically-horrific levels and soon, much, much sooner than 2030. Widespread fly ash and coal dust coats everything in its path. Very sadly as it often affects children the most, in India, China and likely other coal-dependent countries, too, widespread, concentrated use and misuse of coal is primarily responsible for the medical phenomena of cancer, metal and radiation poisoning arising from radionuclides and metal particles such as lead and mercury contained in coal combustion and fly ash deposit related air, water and soil pollution. We further have widespread asbestos tile, construction material and insulation-related maladies and sickness stemming from asbestos production, handling and use.

Noxious-combustion ships and boats add significantly to the pollution burden in India as does air traffic. An uncountable number of smaller, cheaper vehicles with internal combustion engines are being pumped-out to try to capture more of the lion's share of the personal income curve. What can the outlook be given that India is rapidly developing an automobile culture and affordability is ramping up for huge swathes of their populations? The distinct possibility that there will be another half a billion vehicle drivers on planet Earth is a very unwelcome prospect unless new vehicle emissions are near-zero. Fuel subsidies encourage more driving not less driving. Subsidized petroleum-based diesel fuel is effectively welcoming and promoting more and more pollution from burning this particular, unneeded and undesirable form of stored chemical energy.

Thick layers of brownish-gray clouds, fog and photochemical smog hang over parts of the country including many congested metropolitan areas and industrial zones. Ground-level ozone pollution is already so concentrated from burning of fossil fuels and other materials and substances that India has reduced crop yields in many areas as a consequence. Governments are starting to crack down in an attempt to scale-back pollution especially from atrocious petroleum-based diesel vehicles but the hour is very late. As of now, vehicular and other emissions are expected to escalate, perhaps dramatically. Strict fuel efficiency standards across the entire transportation sector will be necessary soon merely to maintain a lingering hope of containing air pollution. Further, as greater and greater numbers of people desire and expect a connection to the power grid, one would anticipate a significant escalation in demand for electricity. In the so-called business-as-usual scenario ceteris paribus this implies even-greater plumes of planet-warming gases being released into the air.

For more than a decade now, India's greenhouse gas emissions have been increasing at a 3% per year rate when worldwide we all are faced with the ecological and existential imperative to decrease those emissions by about 3% annually. According to projections, India will soon become the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Half their energy has been derived from murky, carbon-intensive fuels like coal and oil. Coal use over the decade to 2019 is slated to about-double to some one billion tonnes a year. They have a very weak official goal of reducing carbon intensity by 20% to 25% by 2020 relative to 2005 levels. India is apparently imposing a carbon tax on coal which may be seen as an initial impetus to engineer the fast and massive transition to clean energy that is required for India to stave off ecological disaster scenes. This tax is a really good idea because coal is the dragon responsible for releasing about one-third of India's heat-trapping emissions.

There is serious deforestation, biomass burning, soil erosion, overgrazing and other maladies associated with huge numbers of people trying to eek out a living or subsistence from working the land. Two-thirds of India's land area is degraded, arid or semi-arid. Here, soil has become parched, depleted, alkaline or too salty. Or its been eroded away by wind, heavy rain or flash floods. Agricultural practices are often not environmentally friendly. For example, rice paddies could be drained of water at mid-season to reduce release of methane gas into the atmosphere. Put ducks on the rice paddies to eat weeds and pests instead of so much insecticide and fertilizer. There are nearly half a billion cows, sheep and goats. Livestock are said to release more greenhouse gases collectively than vehicles. All those lovely cows, sheep and goats whose meat and dairy products are coveted for local use and export, they do have rotten table manners. Its called methanogenesis. Moreover, the agriculture-driven economy has major issues due to raw sewage, pesticides, insecticides, fertilizers including nitrates, phosphorous and other chemicals percolating or being flushed directly into bodies of water or as leachate. Ammonia nitrogen content is high and chemical oxygen demand pervasive, signaling the deteriorated state of water bodies. Synthetic pesticides and insecticides banned in many other countries such as DDT are frequently still used in India.

Arsenic-induced illnesses and ailments are widespread. We have radiation-poisoned, cancer-stricken areas such as Muktsar and Bathinda where concentrations of uranium, radium, radon and thorium contaminate the air and water. Smoke and fly-ash residue from thermal coal-fired power plants are implicated in the blame-flame. We also have the coal smoke and dust centers of Korba and Singrauli. Unfortunately, there are many others like it in India and other countries, too. Furthermore, we have mining calamity outbacks such as Sukinda and Vapi where toxic waste sites abound. There are chemical, textile, leather and tannery towns like Ranipet and Ambur. In Kanpur / Unnao, innumerable tanneries unabashedly dump untreated effluent and salt-ridden hide preservative waste into waterways. There is also chemical pollution in the air, soil and waterways from textile and garment manufacturing effluent in more urban areas such as the cities of Bhiwani and Tirupur. There exists many other noxious chemical and greenhouse gas pollution-stressed industrial areas, too including Ankleshwar, Chanda, Angul-Talcher, Mahul, Kali, Dombivali and Vellore. Very high levels of nitrogen dioxide exists in the air of the coal and other old industry centers of Asansol and Durgapur. So the potential for otherworldly ozone formation in the troposphere is all-too real for the people that are stuck in the world of these cities. Durgapur is known as a heartland for steel fabrication and a prime area for coal processing and transshipment. We also have wide-scale grimy machinery, brick and tire manufacturing taking place there. Is it any wonder the air people breathe is rather, shall we say, hazardous? In Bellary, a smaller city with considerable iron and steel production happening, the air is at times so chock full of oxidized iron and manganese dust particles, the atmosphere has a rusty red hue. And no, this unfortunately is not anyone's idea of a beautiful blazing-orange sunset.

Overall, the government recognizes that nearly half of India's land and soil has been degraded and eroded significantly. The soil has been depleted and is too alkaline, often having a high content of salt, sodium and potassium hydroxides and ammonium. Hence, many waterways also become unnaturally alkaline. Too many years have gone by where the land was pounded relentlessly with various chemical fertilizers, pesticides, saltwater, polluted water and air-borne pollutants. Further, barely one-eighth their land area has healthy, dense forest cover. Happily, billions of dollars are to be allocated over many years to reforestation projects in India in a tremendous effort to restore forest lands to their full potential. By the end of 2019, forested areas across India could be twice that which existed towards the end of 2009. Trees are sentries of water so are important generally but vitally important in water scarce regions.

We sense an ecological turnaround in the making. Environmental protection regulation, court and tribunal systems are being enhanced considerably. There is firm acknowledgement that the state of India's air, water and ecosystems constitutes essential, life-sustaining natural capital that cannot be spent. If it is spent in any country, then we would expect the quality of life there to deteriorate rather than improve steadily as it could with a measured, eco-conscious approach to promote sustainable economic growth. Also, only perhaps half the population have access to sanitation facilities including toilets.

The Indus, Brahmaputra and Ganges Rivers all depend on Himalayan glaciers to replenish fresh water. If that does not happen, food shortages may eventually result from reduced crop yields. Flow in the Ganges is already reduced due to damming and an abundance of irrigation canals. In Allahabad and climaxing further downriver near Varanasi, the volume of water is lessening whilst the amount of pollutants ending up in the flow is increasing, not a good combination. Water table levels in many parts of India have been dropping due to the population's overuse relative to the diminishing volume of Himalayan glaciers and snowpack and sometimes also due to less rainfall that is able to percolate undergound. Over a period covering more than a decade, NASA satellite data to 2007 sensed a drop in groundwater levels in northern India at an average rate of about one meter every thousand days. Our view is climate change phenomena are increasingly affecting the natural cycle that historically had faithfully replenished both the amount of glaciers and fresh water supply. Demand for water simply outstrips the reduced replenishment and supply so ground water table levels exhibit a downward trend. Fossil water, water that has accumulated in the subsurface over great lengths of time geologically, cannot be counted on to make up the shortfall.

If too much glacial melting occurs or global sea level rises more than about two meters, people living in low-lying coastal areas like Goa or cities, for example, Mumbai and Kolkata are in big trouble from the attendant flood risk. Erosion has already affected one-quarter of India's coastline as the ocean transgresses existing shorelines. Sea level is rising faster along the east India coastline than the global average rate. Consequently, saltwater incursion from the ocean up rivers already occurs on a regular basis. The salt of the Earth and influx of marine water affects an estimated one-third of groundwater already. Further, numerous aquifers throughout India are contaminated with unhealthy levels of toxic substances often including arsenic, iron, other metallic particles and/or fluoride. The situation in West Bengal is very unpleasant in this regard. Perhaps the majority of people in Kolkata already drink contaminated, salty water. Some of it contains unsafe concentrations of metals such as copper, lead, iron, arsenic and chromium. Clearly, this means Kolkata is very vulnerable to rise in sea level because the consequences from same are already evident even to children.

Many locations near the Ganges River have high concentrations of arsenic in the groundwater which ultimately manifests itself in residents as any of various cancers or cardiovascular disease. Ganges and Yamuna Rivers are further polluted from discharge of untreated sewage, garbage, fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, rodenticides, corpses and industrial effluent directly into the rivers. That's right - fish don't swim in these rivers nor do birds land on them. Oftentimes, what we are left with is water suitable only for industrial applications. Moreover, under force of gravity, polluted river water always has a tendency to percolate down. In the process, it contaminates groundwater aquifers, sediment, pore spaces in rocks and water-well boreholes.

Water is generally not potable directly in India. Chemicals and various bacteria, in particular, fecal coliform proliferate in surface and groundwater. In Jaipur for example, the incidence of water contamination is nearly-wholesale which cannot come as a big surprise if only 10% of sewage is treated. Don't come too close to the rivers or you may come down with typhoid, jaundice, polio, dysentery or what-have-you from contact with the spray alone. The Ganges River is in parts more like a viscoelastic fluid that oozes rather than a waterway that flows. Near and through Delhi, the Yamuna River is deathly dark and rank in smell but at least now we hear a clean-up is happening. In various localities there are alarming levels of fecal coliforms from organic waste in waterways such that people should not be going in the water or be in contact with its spray. The Damanganga River in places contains alarming levels of heavy metals, in particular, deadly mercury. Many more river segments and arms have next to nil dissolved oxygen meaning life as we knew it in those waters is virtually absent nowadays.

According to a 2009 report prepared for the Indian government, 85% of industrial zones in India are "severely polluted" thanks significantly to a whole spectrum of gritty manufacturers such as chemical, steel, textile, pharmaceutical and food processing plants. India is a powerhouse producer of pharmaceuticals and chemicals. However, there have been reports of astronomical concentrations of biochemical and drug residues found in the water in some localities such as near Hyderabad. India also has a problem with electronic waste piling up in certain areas of Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and other places. Combustible chemical soup mixtures of toxic elements and compounds included lead, iron, cadmium, mercury, chromium, barium, beryllium, nickel, arsenic, cobalt, copper, chlorofluorocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls including poly-vinyl chloride residues, brominated flame retardant chemicals and various inks and toners. Some time later these contaminants have a tendency to show up in groundwater, surface waterways, soil and other places. India also participated in the sorry process of incinerating sometimes-imported toxin-laced refuse and other contaminated waste in order to produce electric energy and waste heat from the "fuel". We are not in favor of pell-mell burning of noxious or other materials, the sorry results of which are then back circulating in the air and water. However, for example, we do think production of biochar from wood waste and agricultural leftovers in an anaerobic combustion process has potential as long as agricultural workers and other people do not burn it openly (aerobicly) instead of tilling or burying it. This segment has a happy ending because India has recently introduced some of the strictest requirements anywhere for manufacturers of various electronic paraphernalia to take personal responsibility for the life-cycle management of products they sell. This includes ensuring its safe salvage, refurbishment, return, recycle, retooling, reuse, whatever. No further importation of used electronic equipment is allowed other than for the expressed purposes of repair and refurbishment.

In many burgeoning Indian metropolises, construction dust, brick kilns, stone quarries, power plant coal smoke, particulates from standby or off-grid diesel-fuel power generators, and junky cooking oil fumes add to the choking toll of noxious, unhealthy emissions. Further, there are startling instances of additional indoor toxicity, for example, from breathing the dust emanating off lead-based paint, asbestos fiber insulation or wallboard or the smoke from kerosene or insecticide coils. Places like Kolkata, Chandrapur, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Ranchi, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Raipur, Patna, Pune, Jamshedpur, Ahmedabad, Gurgaon, Cuddalore, Ghaziabad, Bhiwadi, Visakhapatnam, Guwahati, Ankleshwar, Vadodara, Varanasi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Nagpur are also beset with various problems involving soil contamination and high concentrations of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, nitrogen dioxide, ground-level ozone, sulfur dioxide, ammonia, formaldehyde, benzene, benzopyrene, other polyaromatic hydrocarbons, brown carbon, black carbon, metals and/or other suspended particulate pollution including coal, cement, silica, rubber and lime dust in the atmosphere. Soil may have unhealthy contamination from lead due to the prevalence of lead in gas and paint. Other metals are too-frequently also present such as cadmium, iron and manganese.

Across India, there exists an escalating, if not alarming, rise in the number of vehicles negotiating the roads. Innumerable small-time rickshaw drivers burn junky blended fuels including crude oil-based kerosene and naptha. Subsidizing kerosene, diesel and other carbon-rich fuels derived from hydrocarbons is a very bad idea. The adulteration of fuels sources, for example, petroleum-based kerosene mixed with petroleum-based diesel is known to be a particularly-deadly combination for those parties left gasping in the wake of its combustion. Not a pretty story but one that should be told. India does stipulate that biofuels make-up one-fifth of petrol and diesel by 2017 so we have the start of a long journey back to facing the ultimate reality of ecological survivability. Facing this trumps everything else every politician, regulator, enforcer, banker and advisor is doing.

Mumbai is said to be the second most polluted metropolitan area in India after Kolkata. Delhi is also a grim bastion for pollution where horrid air quality arising from industry and vehicles is frequent. Cities such as New Delhi still have less than 3% of vehicles running on cleaner-burning natural gas but belatedly, it's a sign of change where it's needed most, in India's multitude of badly-congested inner cities. Kolkata also has dreadful air quality with many old buses and commercial trucks continually plying the streets. What chance do children have in life if they're breathing this stuff? In Kolkata, the answer alarmingly is about 50:50. The latest horrifying medical laboratory test results reveal that one of every two citizens sampled from old Calcutta have lung cancer, emphysema or other serious respiratory disease. Debilitating levels of fine particulates less than 10 microns in diameter plague many cities including Delhi, Ludhiana and Ghaziabad. If you have read this far you may think you have heard it all at least once and more likely, many times. But no. In Firozabad, they have a severe concentration of particulates in the atmosphere, too. However, it's a city that has an overwhelming emphasis on glass and ceramics manufacturing. Do you wonder what the citizenry have been inhaling lots of tiny, jagged-edge particles of?

Developing a precise legal and regulatory basis for pinpointing egregious sources of pollution and where ecological breakdown is occurring is a very good idea. We believe this is happening to a certain extent in India. This approach should enable authorities to monitor, verify and pursue various offending commercial interests such that they can be brought into line or shut down. As it stands now, many firms with coal-powered boilers and what-not openly vent black coal dust  whenever they think they can get away with it. That's despite the fact millions of Indians are becoming sick from breathing such poor quality air. In particular, an increasing number of children are developing chronic bronchial asthma from atmospheric and other pollution, especially in the big cities where garbage and raw sewage disposal also tends to be problematic. There is lots of carbon dioxide, sulfur and nitrogen oxides emitted by heavy duty diesel fuel burners and carbon monoxide from two-wheelers. Thanks to the added ever-present coal-burning, this sets-up the possibility of corrosion from both sulfuric and nitric acid content in rain, surface and ground water. Diesel fuel-fired power generators cast a crimson brown overprint into the haze of other air pollution. We also have high concentrations of ozone at street level.

Both vehicular exhaust and high levels of hydrogen sulfide emissions from industrial sources have been blamed for respiratory ailments and illnesses. Kolkata children especially are said to be afflicted with very high rates of coughing, wheezing, asthma, respiratory infection, bronchitis, small airway disease, emphysema and even lung cancer attributable to breathing the tan-colored shroud of haze over Kolkata that is said to be air. Doctors familiar with this situation in India are saying expect to live about three years less if you live your life in Kolkata. Let's not wait any longer for solar battery-powered rickshaws to be put in widespread use! Find a way to make it happen, that's our advice. Utilize compressed natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas. Get off the high-carbon fuels entirely.

If there can be happy news in all this it's that the people of Kolkata are now beginning to take back their city, the air they breathe, the water they drink. Many polluters have been knocked off the streets by authorities and angry people who want oxygen not the other junk. A turning point may have been reached in 2010, finally its happening. It's darkest before the dawn in Kolkata and oxygen concentrations are now moving up, yes that's up in many congested areas of this ancient and still very vulnerable city.

India has now implemented a levy against coal production, the first serious nation-wide knock against this greasy, grimy fossil fuel. If such knocks keep coming, the result is knock-out, displacement by superior, higher quality sources of energy. That's what users want - quality, as in improved quality of life which should be a big part of the equation.

The jatropha shrub is now being seen in India as a hardy, reliable source for biodiesel to power trains, buses, trucks and more. So far, only about 8% of India's electricity is powered by clean, renewable energy sources, mostly from wind, biofuels and solid biomass. Apparently, among their aspirational goals is to increase this share to near 10% by end of 2010 and to 20% by 2020. Certainly, India has the potential to be huge in development and use of renewable sources of energy. Worldwide, India already is ranked fifth overall in wind-driven power generation capacity. Obviously, the sun is intense throughout most of India so solar power should be a go, too! And the first solar power facility has now started in India. Government mandates and tariff schemes are being put in place to help drive change and speed widespread use of solar energy. India hopes to have 20 gigawatts of solar power capacity available for use by early-on in the 2020's including solar thermal power facilities, standby solar power inverters, one million rooftops with solar panels installed and solar lights, lanterns or lamps for 20 million homes. Then there is a scale-up to perhaps 200 gigawatts of solar power by 2050. This solar energy plan sounds awesome to us and we truly hope it happens. Apparently, India is also starting down the path of a wholesale, 100-fold increase in their civilian nuclear power capability: They aim for approximately one-half a terawatt by 2050.

In many respects, the structure of India's laws, rules and regulations is already very good. However, the magnitude of its impact to effect change faster should be increased including decisive enforcement actions and judgments to make the desired eco-conscious values sink in with everyone.

Oman's carbon emissions have been sizeable on a per capita basis. Like other countries where there exists limited land area that is not desert or subject to ongoing desertification, Oman is operating and consuming far beyond the rate which can be sustained by the natural systems of their useful land base. Oman does have peridotite rock in abundance at the surface that, on contact, naturally convert some of the carbon dioxide content of ambient air into various mineral solids.

Czech Republic is about-half dependent on coal for electric power though the rise of nuclear power plants to provide nearly half the electric base-load by about 2025, and renewable sources about one-sixth of generation capacity before 2030 will certainly help curtail the ugly ejections of dirty fossil fuel emissions. Heavily-industrialized Ostrava, a gritty coal and steelmaking hub, along with Karvina in the heart of the main coal producing region, are among the most polluted places in Central Europe. Residents there are protesting what they have to breathe every day: smog and particulates for breakfast, lunch and dinner. At snack time, too. There exist debilitating, demoralizing concentrations of dust, sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, benzopyrene, you name it. Soil contamination in the country from reckless industrial practices of bygone days is still widespread, threatening drinking water purity even in Prague. Air quality in the Moravia-Silesia region and Prague metro area is also poor most of the time. So bad in the latter case that Prague has authority to halt inflow of traffic to congested areas altogether if the need arises based on escalated concentrations of particulates in the atmosphere.

The EU's response has been to allow these wanton polluters to continue without significant monetary or other consequences until as late as 2020. How sickening that the days of free, egregious polluting are so obviously still with us. It's been the new millennium for awhile now yet people are still casually lighting a match to brown coal in Czech Republic. All this ruins the once-promising solar photovoltaic party started there. Power from renewable sources of energy is something for the citizenry to be happy about so don't slow down your initial progress which was admirable! Stand-up to those who want to continue to profit from polluting, to not learn science or care about other peoples' environmentally-induced illness and health woes.

Estonia's carbon-intensive economy is still nearly-totally reliant on fossil fuels. They have a very large carbon footprint relative to the size of their population. To generate electricity, many power plants there burn awful oil shale releasing hideous amounts of sulphur dioxide and many other noxious and sundry pollutants directly into the breathing space of citizens. To us, this is an unmitigated disaster in-slow-motion representing a totally-unsustainable course of action.

On the bright side of life, Estonia has shown leadership in conserving forests by setting aside huge tracts of land where nature is protected. They have been ramping up contributions from renewable energy modes, and conceivably by 2020 could reach one-quarter of total energy use derived from renewable sources.

Brown and black carbon "soot" in the upper atmosphere above these two countries is estimated to block almost 10% of sunlight that would otherwise reach the earth's surface in China and there is about a 7% dimming above India. China and India together account for somewhere in the range of one-quarter to one-third of the world's soot emissions, a form of brown or black carbon. Much of this soot emanates from burning coal, diesel fuel, wood and dung. Both of these countries are already heavily hooked on coal yet are apparently gearing up for dramatic expansion of their coal extraction and coal-fired power industries. We hope they do not tempt doomsday scenarios by continuing to start yet another coal plant operating every few days. Regrettably, in both China and India and probably in a few other countries too its pervasive, concentrated use is primarily responsible for the advent of "cancer villages". We also have had numerous metal poisoning incidents in China stemming from pollution associated with various heavy metal smelters.

Coal or other carbon-intensive sources still provides most energy in China. Decreasing coal's share of the rapidly-expanding demand for energy in China from a 75% to 80% share of a smaller energy demand-pie to firing "only" two-thirds of grid power by 2015 and about one-half by 2029 of an ever-larger pie is not going to prevent or slow large-scale ecological ruin. We can still expect significant contributions to global warming and alteration of climate; change-up of rainfall patterns; prevalence of sulfuric acid and nitric acid rain which already negatively-affects half or more of metropolitan areas in China; an "unfunny" rise in sea level; the associated influx of saltwater including to rice paddy deltaic areas; an increase in acidity of fresh and marine water; and or loss of species and biodiversity. As more and more vehicles cram onto the roads and expressways and coal-fired plants continue the onslaught unabated, nitrogen oxygen levels in the atmosphere rises ominously, creating ever-greater concentrations of smog and nitric acid in rain and snow fall.

Over the generation to come, imagine the emissions that will arise from one-quarter the population of the country, 300 million people, moving to the city. That's an average rate implied of about one million additional people per month demanding civic infrastructure including transportation, communications, housing, workplaces and various institutional supports. Urbanization on a massive scale is occurring and along with that comes loss of wetlands, draining of peat lands, increase in grazing and agricultural areas and other degrading land use changes. Rapid heavy industrial expansion is another implication including frenzied chemical, steel, cement and other materials manufacture required for a mind-boggling multitude of construction projects. Everything associated with all that activity, including entrails manifesting itself as any of a wide range of pollutants, may not peak in China until about 2035. Reforestation and afforestation efforts are likely to offset only a modest portion of emissions generated.

Clearly, the magnitude of greenhouse gases emanating here from these causes generally will not be significantly diminished, offset or affected by mere improvements in the energy efficiency of industrial processes, power generation, transportation, home heating and so on. Reductions in energy intensity alone are not going to save the day because the gray expansion activities contemplated are far too vast. This situation very likely means greenhouse gas emissions in China will not peak until 2035 either. Worse yet, some consider their heat-trapping emissions peaking by 2035 to be their low carbon pathway of future development. We cannot help but notice the starkness of the contrast of this vision with that of mainstream scientists. According to the latter, to contain the specter of runaway climate change and unequivocally-avoid various doomsday scenarios, heat-trapping emissions worldwide must peak very soon now then decrease sharply to near zero within about one generation of time not peak one generation from now then flatten off, then slowly decline.

Perhaps more than 100 million additional vehicles will take to the streets in China in the decade ending in 2019. There could be one-quarter billion vehicles locked in position or jockeying for position on China's roads and expressways by 2025. The distinct possibility there will ultimately be another one billion or so new vehicle drivers on planet Earth is a very unwelcome prospect only because of the added burden of pollution. Fuel subsidies facilitate an increased demand for transportation fuel. Again, there is no problem with driving more and more if emissions are near-zero. The advent of electric vehicles is a welcome development so long as the electric power grid feeding the recharging points for vehicles is clean energy sourced, not coal-fired generation. If its coal, the problems arising from the associated pollution worsen. Ground-level ozone pollution is already so concentrated from burning of fossil fuels and other materials and substances that China has reduced crop yields in many areas as a consequence. Governments are starting to crack down in an attempt to roll-back pollution especially from atrocious diesel vehicles but the hour is very late. Traffic jams involving mostly large, heavy coal-carrying trucks may idle in lines up to an astounding 50 kilometers in length. Unsurprisingly, vehicular and other emissions are expected to escalate, perhaps dramatically. Further, as greater and greater numbers of people desire and expect a connection to the power grid, one would anticipate a significant escalation in demand for electricity. In the so-called business-as-usual scenario ceteris paribus this implies even-greater plumes of planet-warming gases being released into the air.

Many noxious-combustion large ships add significantly to the pollution burden in Indochina as does air traffic. We agree that, if say one-quarter of China's pollutants originate from producing goods for export from China, that half that amount, one-eighth of the total, are the responsibility of, and can therefore be attributed to, other countries. By extension, the same half-half split applies to imports into China, where China then assumes partial responsibility for those goods and services. Chinese officials have said about half the rise in greenhouse gases in their country is attributable to goods and services sold to other countries. It takes two trading nations to tango and the same concepts would seem to apply to every nation. If a border pollution or carbon tax adjustment scheme comes to be somewhere then half the levy should go to the importing country, half to the exporting country with zero rebate to the merchant who shipped the goods being sold.  

Pollution aerosols and smoke from China comprise an estimated 13% of overall emissions currently in the air in North America, arriving by way of the East Asian airstream. In China, there are now alarming levels of greenhouse gases, sulfur dioxides and particulates caused by rampant coal-fired electricity generation and hoards of dirty diesel fuel powered trucks. Desulfurization of coal power plant flue gases is often not effective and denitrification is generally not in-place yet or is not effective. Acid rain afflicts one-third of China. Agricultural activities and land use changes contribute more emissions than that of any other country. The aerobic burning of various biomass is widespread. By some analysis, due to the prevalence of heat-trapping gases and black carbon in their atmosphere, the average temperature across China generally could rise by two degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial times before 2020. The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency is reporting for the year 2007 that about two-thirds of the increase in carbon dioxide gas emissions worldwide came from China as did almost one-quarter of the absolute amount of carbon dioxide generated globally.

Numerous coal fires burn uncontrolled underground. Much heat-trapping methane gas also escapes directly from coal beds and coal mines into the air without being combusted. By 2010, the previous decade is expected to have resulted in an addition of at least 600 million tonnes of carbon emissions. Even though China already accounts for nearly half of world coal production, they are still planning to expand coal output by some 30% over 2008 levels by 2015. Much coal is also imported to southern China. Coal investing has been rising at 50% or more annually for several years now in China. As much as 80 gigawatts of additional coal-fired power capacity is to be added during 2009. One terawatt of coal-driven capacity could be available in China before 2020. Production of methanol fuel blends derived from coal, viewed in China as being a "green" fuel alternative, are being ramped up aggressively.

China is now the biggest producer and consumer of coal in the world, accounting for about one-quarter of worldwide coal use. Coal still powers about three-quarters of China's supply of electricity. The idea that that portion will be steadily-ratcheted back to say, only two-thirds of an expanding pie by 2030 is a terrible one. The transition to clean energy has to happen much, much faster than that to ensure our collective ecological survivability. Otherwise, by 2030, the world's atmosphere could be in for releases of as much as four billion metric tonnes of pure carbon equivalent from China's fossil fuel consumption alone. That amount, should it occur, would be nearly half the amount of carbon released worldwide into the air during 2007. An iron hand is really needed here and may be forthcoming; our ecological survivability is in jeopardy.

The occupational accidental death hazard, external health and wellness and environmental costs associated with coal mining, transport and use, the real, all-in costs and risks keep mounting long after it's burned. Pneumoconiosis or black lung disease is rampant among coal workers and communities. Where does all that spent coal ash end up? Hopefully it does not seep into the water supply along with its chromium, selenium and mercury content. This industry clearly should be progressively and aggressively carbon-taxed into oblivion. Recently, China has begun moving to stop some of the dirtiest coal enterprises from operating. Also, energy-intensive, low technology, grimy businesses of various kinds are being deep-sixed by Chinese government authorities in an overt effort to better protect the environment. Unfortunately, developing and deploying higher technology coal projects gives people a false sense of security, creates inertia and delays effective action to reduce the very real and significant risk of ecological disaster on an unprecedented scale. The answer is to get-off fossil fuels not to devote huge resources to substitute a slightly or somewhat less dirty fuel. At this juncture, the central government of China still expects to be using at least 60% more coal in 2030 than was combusted in 2010. Such an expansion from current levels imperils our collective ecological survivability. It just cannot be.

China is the leading manufacturer on Earth, seemingly the workshop to the world. It has utilized or exported prodigious amounts of basic materials and items including cement, steel, aluminum, ceramics, glass and solar photovoltaic panels and cells. Rapid urbanization, industrialization and numerous exhaust-gushing vehicles add to China's pollution woes. About one-half million new trucks started driving on China's roads in 2007 alone. Added to that is widespread puffing on tobacco products and cooking, especially in rural areas, using dirty biomass like dung, crop residues, wood and coal. The incidence of fluorosis remains high as a consequence of people breathing-in fluorine present in the fumes of burning coal. Not-so- lovely-stuff including fluorine, dust, hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, sulfur dioxide and radioactive content present in mine tailings may come from mining activity of metals and minerals more generally including from processing, smelting and refining ore to recover rare earth elements.

In China's more urban areas, haze, smoke and second hand smoke often lingers and forms a shroud over civil structures of the cities like a draping veil. Many of the world's most polluted cities have been reported for years to be in China. Breathing the air in these cities most days is equivalent to smoking perhaps two packs of cigarettes. Presently, one-sixth of the entire population are sickened by drinking contaminated water; the central government is aiming to turn this sorry story around fast by investing heavily in enhancing water infrastructure and cracking-down more on polluters.

Lanzhou, Taiyuan, Beijing, Yuncheng, Tangshan, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Foshan and Hong Kong have poor air most of the time including ghastly blankets of hazy photochemical smog and aerosol pollution including ghastly levels of fine particulates. According to government sources in Hong Kong, air pollution near congested traffic areas there reached "life-threatening" levels during one of every eight days on average in 2009. Many knowledgeable people blame local, petroleum-based diesel vehicle fumes but clearly a significant amount of pollution is "ferried in" from Mainland China.

Needless to say, we have an epidemic of lung cancer in China. Tianjin, one of China's largest cities and Linfen, a city in China's coal mining heartland, teeter with ecological disaster. Tianjin, Shanghai and many east and southern coast cities also suffer from ash haze and ground level ozone pollution not to mention vulnerability to typhoons, flooding, rise of sea level and heat waves. Shanghai also subsides due to steadily increasing load above ground coupled with withdrawals of subsurface support mechanisms. We believe a big ecological turnaround will occur in Tianjin, Shanghai and other urban areas, too. There is determination, resources and brainpower behind an arduous, unrelenting effort to mitigate environmental issues, not to be victimized by same, before some eco-catastrophe strikes at the heart of their collective survivability.

Due to the sheer scale and scope of mining and manufacturing activity in China, there is a proliferation of mine tailings mounds and reservoirs, chemical residues and toxic brown-field soil from a variety of industrial operations past and present. Far inland to the west, Urumqi's industry has relied on old coal-fired boilers and power generators. Air quality is sometimes abysmal. The air people breathe, including deadly smaller-particulate pollution, is also horrid in Xining. There have been serious transgressions by polluters in Jinzhong, Shangluo, Shiyan, Jiyuan, Qingyuan City, Chenzhou City and other cities, too, in particular, of incidents involving elevated lead concentrations that have been traced to lead smelters and lead-acid battery factories. Regulatory reprisals for the most egregious offenders was swift and certain including shutdown of various operations. Villages of Jiyuan judged to be too-far-gone from metallic contamination and emergency lead poisoning cases were ordered by the government to be evacuated. Iron tailings are wreaking havoc with people's health in Gaocun. Cadmium poisoning was the cause of health woes in Liuyang and Zhentou, and showed-up in unsafe levels in some children's jewelry play-things. Arsenic levels have also been problematic as ejections into the air from smokestack industry, as metal contaminants of drinking and irrigation water, and as yet-another source of chemical oxygen demand in rivers and canals.

The concentration of pollutants is off-the-charts in some areas. Examples in recent years include near Wugang, Tongdu, Linjiang and Yangxunqiao where many children and others, too have become sick from lead poisoning that afflicted people who lived in the vicinity of lead-zinc mines, smelters, tinfoil and lead battery-making plants and/or coal-fired power sources. There have been many "cancer village" pollution-driven incidents in places including Changqing, Tianying, Shiniu, Guyun, Hou, Bitian, Xinguang, Shangba and Hongxiao. Tianying is one of the largest lead pollution centers in China. In Taizhou City, it's lead poisoning incidents from lead battery and smelting operations that have gone wacko. In Bitian, it's copper contamination driving cancer, organ failure and various other medical afflictions and ailments. Fushun is steeped in pollution from its legacy of old coal, aluminum, metallurgy, chemicals, textiles and cement industrial endeavors. Likewise for Lanzhou, a gritty coal-fired center for fossil fuel refining, petrochemicals, bricks, tiles, rubber, metal fabrication and other heavy, murky manufacturing. Shaanxi Province is the major coal producing area of China. It also has significant metal and chemical industries. And it has dreadful pollution to show for it in cities like Linfen, Datong, Xianyang and Yangquan. You're only one step removed from being in the blast furnace if you live in these dungeon-like places. How do shocking living conditions like this persist? Where are the leaders of civil and industrial society here and what are they doing? What  values do they have besides ostensibly grubbing for money any which-way they can? It's time to re-educate and re-think.

Happily, there is re-thinking taking place; being in harmony with nature is most important. Why can't every city be like Shizuishan? Here is a place that shunned their heritage of pollution-intensive coal, petrochemical and other old, heavy smokestack industries. They reset their economy, basing it instead on solar, biomass, cleaner, greener, more-modern chemicals plus an expanding service sector. Welcome to the future, Shizuishan. We love your initiative, insight and attitude towards change for the better, effected sooner rather than later. We recognize the arduous sacrifices you made.

Birth defects in Shaanxi have been running at a whopping one-sixth of births there which is anomalously very-high for China. Across the country, approximately 5% of all births have defects that are at least partly-attributable to environmental degradation, in particular, from the various consequences of coal use. This is much higher a rate of defects than may be expected naturally, in the normal course, which should be about 1% or less.

Coarse, fine and ultrafine particulate matter, black carbon sooty gunk, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, smog, sulfur dioxide, sulfate aerosols, formaldehyde and ozone impinges and/or sticks to everything in China's cities including the tiny air sacs in people's lungs. For every mass-unit of coal produced in China, there are about 2.5 mass-units of wastewater generated in the process. There is further a hideous amount of coal solid waste being generated with, ecologically-speaking, no safe place to be put. The token amounts of coal combustion products captured are merely being redistributed for other industrial uses, not sequestered. Environmentally-induced illness is already widespread affecting nearly one million people a year including cancer, heart disease and metal or radiation poisoning.  Many tens of millions of Chinese will become sick and succumb to lung or heart disease over the next generation from breathing the polluted air and/or inhaling smoke from burning tobacco products. Happily, the central government is taking action on this front, eliminating all smoking in indoor public places.

China landfills some 85% of its garbage often by long-hauling it out of metropolises with a vast colony of smelly trucks. Ongoing urbanization and emerging consumerism has had as a consequence the offloading of some 250 million tons of refuse for landfills every 365 days. People in many places are becoming sick from breathing the fumes from piles of garbage burning nearby such as in Likeng. By contrast, poor rural folks claim they do not produce much net solid waste at all. China has poorly-controlled electronic waste centers in Guiyu, Taizhou and more. A combustible chemical soup mixture of toxic elements and compounds may include lead, iron, cadmium, mercury, chromium, cobalt, barium, beryllium, chlorofluorocarbons, poly-vinyl chloride residues, flame retardant chemicals and more which may show up in groundwater and other places. China habitually participates in the sorry process of incinerating sometimes-imported toxin-laced refuse and other contaminated waste in order to produce electric energy and waste heat from the "fuel". We are not in favor of pell-mell burning of noxious or other materials, the sorry results of which are then back circulating in the air, soil and water. However, for example, we do think production of biochar from wood waste and agricultural leftovers in an anaerobic combustion process has potential as long as agricultural workers and other people do not burn it openly (aerobicly) instead of tilling or burying it. Often rural residents already have their own methane biogas facilities whereby organic ends and scrap material are processed into fuel for space heating or cooking.

According to government sources, about 10% of arable land in China contains unacceptably-high concentrations of lead. The soil across Guangdong Province and the Pearl River delta area generally contains very high levels of lead, cadmium, copper, manganese and mercury. Manganese has contaminated the water supply for millions of people including, in 2011, in Mianyang. Half the farmland has too-high contamination from other toxic metals, too including nickel, zinc, indium and arsenic. Bring on the Napier grass! The Pearl River delta area is so polluted few people eat fish from there or drink the water even if its boiled first. Fish deformities and other abnormalities are common. Rice is often too toxic for consumption. Plus there exists problematic concentrations of persistent organic pollutants. The sorry state of the Xiangjiang River means something somewhere is going far wrong...on a regular basis. Cancer villages such as Xingping and Sidi have become miserable, sickly places. Situations like these need to be fixed to incrementally improve ecological survivability, rather than have it deteriorate further day after day. Thankfully, some steps have already been taken to help people cope. In years ahead, across-the-board actions are being planned centrally because the authorities know that people generally are sick and tired of pollution affecting their quality of life. Money isn't that important!

However, during the spring of 2009 as required by the Stockholm Convention, China has banned pesticides that contain persistent organic pollutants. So the incidence of newly-arising birth defects from this source has been eliminated overnight which is the kind of dramatic, action-oriented good news we like. Furthermore, in 2011, China has instituted heavy metal emissions reduction targets for lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury and chromium. Heaps of chromium slag, salts, metal and residue including deadly hexavalent chromium abound in China as by-products of widespread textile, steel, chemical and other manufacturing activity. Places such as Hunan, Guizhou and the autonomous region of Guangxi Zhuang will be hit hard if they don't shape-up in a hurry; too-high a percentage of land in these areas have severe soil contamination, like brown-fields. The perpetrators of pollution in places like Chenzhou City and Gejiu City need financial disincentives so commercial interests are hit in the pocketbook if they continue their wayward ways. 

Widespread overuse of nitrogen fertilizers has led to accompanying evaporation of volatile compounds contained in the chemical fertilizer thereby increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. Other consequences include acidification of soil, ground water and rainfall. Soil is being depleted, burnt, blown or washed away at a rate of 10 to 50 times faster than it is replenished. Sources estimate that nearly three-quarters of fertilizer and pesticides used in China end up in the water so it is little wonder we have algal blooms in some lakes. Ammonia nitrogen accumulates in catchment areas due to percolating groundwater and run-off at the surface from agricultural lands. Hypoxic zones form in water bodies as chemical oxygen demand intensifies. DDT, organophosphate and organo-phosphorous pesticide residues still show up in the food supply even though use of those pesticides is illegal.

Beyond more and more pollution, we also have less and less water availability. Furthermore, as average temperature rises, we have extra dollops of heat day and night. Potentially, over time, this all adds up to a nightmare scenario for rice farmers and the general population as, in such an environment, rice yields invariably will edge down progressively. Ecological risks materialize again. The future of the iron rice bowl becomes just another big worry for everyone at every point in time thereafter. Our grandchildren are not happy with us, with what we have wrought.

Many, if not most, maritime ecosystems are considered to be all but unsalvageable. One-half to two-thirds of waterways, surface water and groundwater is polluted to the point of being unfit for human consumption. Untreated waste including fecal matter abounds in part from open defecation that hundreds of millions of people are still faced with doing. Diarrheal disease is commonplace as a result of exposure to contaminated water. Some government insiders say tributaries of virtually every river are effectively, ecologically dead as are the vast majority of lakes. The Bohai Sea, a dump for prodigious amounts of untreated wastewater, chemicals and fertilizer is close to being devoid of all life forms. The Yellow Sea has been stricken by algae due to high levels of nitrogen from untreated sewage, chemicals, fertilizer and other agricultural runoff. Upwards of half a billion people depend on the Yellow River in some way yet it remains seriously polluted and water levels have already been in decline. Dianchi Lake is said to be so polluted the water is hazardous for organisms (that includes us) to come into contact with.

Most water across China is not drinkable. According to the central Chinese government, one-quarter of surface water is too foul to be used other than for industrial purposes or possibly to irrigate agricultural land. One-sixth of their rivers are said to be too-polluted to use that water for general agricultural purposes. Lately however, aggressive measures were taken to ensure drinking water for about 100 million people was safe. It is now said by officials that 90% of county towns in China will have operating sewage and wastewater treatment facilities before 2011. If it happens, that would have to rate as an Olympian-effort fix of what were monstrous environmental problems. But that still leaves perhaps 200 million others drinking questionable water or water unfit for human consumption. Further, many millions of Chinese people encounter drinking water shortages every year, as do livestock. Northern rivers, the Haihe and Liaohe, were listed as being seriously contaminated by the Ministry of Environmental Protection. Heavy metal toxins abound there. In northern China now there are said to be over 4.5 million people and nearly two million farm animals experiencing severe water-stress. The numbers are apt to swell as Himalayan glaciers continue to melt as a result of global warming thus, in the medium term, threatening water levels in great river basins such as the Yangtze and Yellow River watersheds. The Yangtze, Yellow and Pearl River deltas are very vulnerable to the implications of global warming. Some authorities believe the time is not far removed, perhaps by 2025, when except during flood episodes not a single river in China will have enough hydraulic force to reach the ocean.

Clearly, many parts of east coast China are vulnerable to devastation from sea level rise. According to the State Oceanic Administration, the rise in sea level affecting Hainan Province has been at a rate of approximately 10 meters per century for many years already. The prospect that this magnitude of rise will continue unabated for decades to come is all-too-real.

Over the last generation, temperatures in the water and air along China's coastal areas have risen by about one degree Celsius already. Ditto for the air temperature across much of Tibet including Lhasa as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has already endured nearly a two degree Celsius rise over half a century. In less than a generation, it has lost more than 5% of the areal extent of its massive glaciers. Some informed sources are now saying two-thirds of China's glaciers, including from Qinghai-Tibet Plateau alpine areas, will be gone by mid-century as the rate of melting is expected to accelerate.

Many grassland areas have deteriorated and been parched to the point of desertification. Soil erosion affects almost half the land area in China, desertification, about one-quarter. This is despite the fact that net forestation rates have actually been positive overall in China. However, despite heroic tree planting and other efforts, desert areas continue to expand and now comprise over 20% of the total land in China. In addition, in many regions including on the Tibetan Plateau, vast grasslands have deteriorated into semi-arid areas due to poor farming practices, overgrazing, increased dryness and the effect of sandstorm-driven erosion. Desertification has been on the march in northern China for a long time and it encompasses many areas not just ones peripheral to the Gobi Desert. The Badain Jaran and Tengger Deserts are expanding, too. Approximately 150 million people have been disrupted, having to relocate to escape advancing parched, scorched Earth conditions. Inner Mongolia has been stricken by the worst drought and parched soil conditions in a century or more. Drought has also been reaching into southeastern and central China such as near Qiangongping. Especially in the northern regions of China, massive yellowy-gray dust storms are frequent due to rampant desertification. Seasonal weather systems bring air-borne polluted clouds of dust and other particles from Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. Cities such as Lanzhou are regularly blanketed in dust and sand. The dust is carried far and wide in China and easily reaches Korea and Japan, too. Sand grains, dust, metal flakes, specks of soot and photochemical smog produce a near-continuous haze of one sort or another. The gray tinge of this originally-yellow dust apparently comes from coal, arsenic, lead, cadmium, zinc, antimony, selenium and/or other content picked up en route, as the wind blows and the sandstorm moves along. Not a pretty travel story, this one. Furthermore, in terms of reach, ozone, dust and other pollutants from Asia, a lot likely originating in China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia, potentially arrives and descends through the troposphere towards the earth's surface as far afield as the west coast of North America, after an apparent lag of about two to four weeks since it departed from Asia.

China is an amazing country. But we remain very concerned that China with its very high population density and very fast, mostly-coal fired growth, are flirting with ecological catastrophe and any ensuing possibly-global chain-reaction of biophysical repercussions and social consequences. This ecological horror flick is still filming but we believe the Chinese government has been making many moves recently to seriously address environmental problems. We are quite hopeful that China will achieve their goal of becoming an "ecological civilization". People generally realize China is starting their clean, green development rush from a position quite far "up the track" but they have definitely "kicked in" to turn their troubling situation around. A variety of energy conservation, pollution abatement and ecosystem restoration initiatives have been undertaken lately.

Implementing a hefty carbon tax in China that directly applies to the sources of greenhouse gases would be a gigantic achievement. Apparently by 2015, there will be implemented a carbon tax for large emitters but at the ridiculously-lowball rate of less than $2 per tonne. Planet-wide, we need more like $50 a tonne of greenhouse gas emissions to start yesterday, and heading up from that cost. The modest-magnitude fuel tax in-place now in China is only a beginning and is limited in scope. As would be true anywhere in the world for the same basic reasons, invoking a comprehensive supply-side penalty initiates a long-awaited process of non-negotiable consequences for all the perpetrators of pollution (beyond some modest threshold level). Only in such a milieu are correct economic decisions and resource allocations made. This is critical in a world characterized by scarce resources and tight credit conditions. These decisions are ones that are purely in the public interest, in the name of progress, health and wellness of society, as opposed to being at least in part for the benefit of insiders, influence peddlers or entrenched commercial interests. If the latter holds, we really do not have free competition nor the invisible hand of the marketplace at work. Market forces may be distorted for long periods of time if there persists systematic biases or cheating such as "we can pollute and offload our waste out here for free, what a competitive advantage we have". Most children know before they reach the age of four that they, not someone else, is responsible for cleaning up their own mess. So how can corporations or other actors in our political economy pretend not to know this? Making money, cost-cutting and increasing efficiency is fine so long as it does not come packaged with yet-another incremental hit on our collective environmental survivability. The domain of all known life, our Earth, has had one too many blows against its natural empire. If this empire collapses, we're all going down with it.

China is progressively increasing energy efficiency, albeit from modest levels, as outdated operators are shut down and the carbon intensity of other fuel-burning activity is gradually reduced. China may try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by half per unit of output before 2020. They have imposed more stringent fuel economy standards on various vehicles. That seems to be doing a lot when there's lots to do. China aimed to reduce major, noxious pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and various particulates by 10% below 2005 levels before 2011. The energy intensity of aggregate output was to be curtailed by 20% during the 2006 to 2010 time interval so energy use per unit of gross product was supposed to decrease by about 4% a year. Further reductions in this energy intensity measure are being targeted in the 2011 to 2020 time frame. Carbon dioxide per unit of national income is now slated to be reduced by 40% to 45% by 2020 versus the situation in 2005. This means they are already about half-ways to that particular goal.

The central government has reported in 2011 that sulfur dioxide emissions in China have peaked whilst nitrogen oxide emissions soon will. In addition, the presence of ammonia nitrogen is likely to be curtailed sooner rather than later. This has to be good news because talk by any jurisdiction within any country of "action" by 2020 or even 2030 on peaking contamination from any serious pollutant strikes us as being queer as a peering, leering meerkat. Why not 2019 or 2017? Where does the inertia come from that a planet on the brink has to wait until 2030 before it has a chance to resuscitate? Just the well-rounded date, until January 1, 2030, tells us something is fishy. Why doesn't the deadline calculate as November 28, 2027 instead? Or April 14, 2026? Surely such a deadline should be justified on a physical basis, not political expediency. The mindset still has to change right around the world! We know it's certainly not only in China or not just in some other particular country that has to get moving fast on enhancing our collective ecological survivability. It's everywhere, the critique is across the board, which is quite obvious if you read everything published at this website. Complacency regarding, and reacting to, climate change, wherever on Earth that occurs, has the potential to do us all in. And we do recognize the central Chinese government is not being complacent in dealing with pollution, global warming, climate change and ecological survivability.

We encourage the acceleration of solar, geothermal and wind power developments. China's target is for renewable sources of energy to account for 40% of domestic energy use by 2050. Our advice: Don't think 2050 with a grand plan for renewable energy deployments and reducing absolute emissions, think 2019, 2029 or 2039! Happily, our information is they are now aiming far beyond their original short run goals for implementing renewable power projects which is promising news. China targets 15% of total energy use to come from renewable sources or nuclear energy before 2020. Potentially, there could be a 10% contribution from renewables towards total domestic energy demand by 2015 but this includes about an 8% share from hydropower. Even geothermal power may take-off, being penciled in to supply 1% or more of China's overall energy needs by 2015.

Given that there is expected to be around 8% of energy requirements satisfied by natural gas by 2015, that still  leaves 75% to 80% of the country firing on "the hard stuff". This remains a very worrisome level of pollution having severe ecological risks and survivability issues associated with it. In with new, alternative energy developments and out with the old, pollution-intensive ways; we like that dynamic for every country. The generations-old problem remains outstanding, unresolved. We all need the transition to clean, green energy to happen ever-faster, before it's too late to prevent a very scary runaway climate change scenario.

China already has one of the largest solar power industries anywhere. China is now aiming to scale-up their domestic generation of solar power by an order of magnitude by 2020, that's 10 times more in less than a decade. Rooftop solar installations are a big part of this plan. This is exciting, heady stuff! Moreover, before 2011, China became the world's biggest wind power in terms of installed capacity and generation of electrical energy from wind. They are also the biggest builder of wind turbines. China could have 100 gigawatts of wind power facilities installed by 2020. Inner Mongolia has huge wind energy potential. Jiuquan is the city in far northwestern China where people are already at-work constructing the first 10 gigawatt wind power station in China, scheduled for completion by 2016. New, very high voltage, direct current transmission lines are being constructed, targeted for completion by 2015, to help bring more electric power to where it's needed. This massive smart grid will be capable of transforming and transmitting intermittent and base-load power from virtually any source of energy that connects to it.  

China was one of the first to ban logging widely and begin massive afforestation and reforestation. Looking back half a generation, China has seen a net gain of some 40 million hectares of forest during that time frame and they aim to add another 40 million hectares of net forest lands by 2020. Thanks to an outsize reforestation effort so far, about one-fifth of China is forested area. The Green Wall of China undertaking to try to thwart creeping desertification affecting the country is a Jim Dandy. The magnitude of efforts by the people of China to date to improve the ecological state of their homeland has to be well-appreciated. To us, trees are the ones holding key-life insurance for us all and we believe these arduous actions will pay off big environmentally, especially in the decades beyond 2019 and 2029.

China was also among the first countries to recognize and pan cropland-based biofuels. However, now some food-based ethanol projects are proceeding apparently. So are ones involving jatropha shrubs and other sources of second generation cellulosic biofuels. Tung trees can grow on hilly and marginal land in China. Oil derived from their seeds has been determined to be feasible for use as a component of jet fuel. China has also been processing wheat straw into pulp for paper production for over a century thus saving woodlands. China is a leader in waste cooking oil to biodiesel and biomass utilization including for application on agricultural lands as organic fertilizer. They do not want their soil to degrade or be contaminated any further with metallic and other toxic residues. They are focusing on increasing food quality and cropland productivity. This means the purity of water used in agriculture has to improve and available water be used more parsimoniously.

China was also one of the first jurisdictions to recognize the potential value of implementing quantitative taxes, tariffs, fees, fines, levies, shifts, etc to penalize polluters directly to force them into compliance, to clean up their act and to pay the full environmental costs of their acts or face being shut down. Many polluters and inefficient operators were shut down. Electronic biking was promoted heavily and there is apparently some 100 million e-bikes on the streets already, albeit mostly ones with archaic lead acid batteries. A Chinese company has mass-produced and is marketing the first plug-in hybrid car, powered in part by lithium ion batteries that are chargeable from a wall outlet. We also have many electric vehicles and an initial network of electric-charging stations in-place now to service batteries. Some 10% of residents in the country already have a solar-powered water heater of one kind or another. Futuristic light-emitting diode lights are produced abundantly in China now. Sizeable low-carbon cities such as Gongqing are slated for completion as early as 2013. China was also first at wide-scale population control, something this planet needs now in our view. That is a lot of important firsts for China. Most dear to our heart, China, the original bicycling nation, is now making a comeback. Bike-sharing programs have taken off in many cities. Hangzhou may soon emerge as the most bicycle-centric metropolis on Earth, and we very much want to visit Hangzhou and join in this exciting revitalization of their civic scene. It's so hopeful!

We think every country recognizes by now we are all in this pollution quandary together. The ecological survivability of life in every country is unlikely to improve in the aggregate unless and until reductions in absolute levels of various pollutants is achieved, the concentration of various pollutants decreases and concentration gradients turn negative. Merely aiming to overwhelm ecosystems at a slower rate in future is not the answer to improve the health of our biosphere. We need an extended, perhaps permanent, course of actions reversing out damage we have already done. The deleterious impacts cannot continue to accumulate from a myriad of sources of pollution. That's impossible for our physical, living Earth and its inhabitants. Rather, there has to be an unwinding of chaos from pollution, a cure for diseases inflicted or it's lights-out. When the cascade of pollution starts to unwind or the disease stops spreading, affecting more and more cells and tissue, only then over time can affected ecosystems and organisms have a chance to naturally resurrect, replenish, recuperate, rejuvenate and finally recover. Ecological survivability, health and well being is thereby enhanced. We need to ensure that given the constraints our finite Earth imposes, with continuing human population growth and no other planet available currently where we can move to, we do not all end up in the toaster one day. When children first learn about the uniqueness of life on Earth, the delicate balance that exists to enable our existence and sustain us, in short, how lucky we are to be here, it moves them greatly.

Wholesale concentration of anybody's portfolio in fossil fuel segment issuers is likely to end disastrously. For an entire jurisdiction to be loaded-up on petroleum and petrochemical stocks, assets and tax base means risk is not moderated by diversification. Now is the time to diversify, to markedly reduce exposure to issuers stuck with far too many projects that depend on pollution-offloading for free or at a bargain basement cost. There are now a great many competing forms of energy that are viable and feasible if you consider their valuation in the context of ecological risks being taken by an issuer, and our collective ecological survivability. We are all in this jam together. Start retooling your situation and heading in the right direction by eliminating fossil fuels.

We acknowledge that Saudi Arabia is investing a lot in solar power development which, of course, they should have done long ago. They have set objectives for 7% to 10% of domestic energy needs to come from renewable sources before 2020 which is a welcome beginning to ending their drastic over-reliance on hydrocarbons. The era of cheap, highly-polluting energy ended once and for all with the onset of the new millennium. That's where we believe historians will draw the line one day, proclaiming it was over by 2000 even though a super majority of people around and about at that time did not realize it yet. It shows how quickly attitudes can change. Most folks do not want to be caught adrift on the stormy sea of some ecological catastrophe.

The plan to jump into nuclear power in a big way is questionable given that Saudi Arabia does not have a surfeit of non-corrosive coolant. Artesian and fresh water is very much lacking in the desert kingdom. However, they can very well afford to operate energy-inefficient desalination plants to assure themselves of supply. So we have a proliferation of these installations there already, a sure sign of the challenges they face collectively to their ecological survivability. The move to complete dependence on desalination and possible importation of water by tanker could happen to Saudi Arabians before 2020. When the real price of fresh water escalates as it does if you're heavily involved with desalination, the common folk begin to wonder what is going on: they cannot drink oil to sustain their life and they can conceivably get along fine in everyday life without oil. Desalination generates considerable waste heat, emissions and salt which are returned to the environment as (hidden) external costs that degrades the state of our remaining stock of natural capital.

As carbon and water use pricing become increasingly institutionalized, the last chance hail-Mary desperation pass by fossil fuel companies is apt to come much sooner than your favorite gray bank advisor would have you believe. Oftentimes, ecological risks specific to oil and gas projects have not been properly recognized. So some heavily-polluting projects that were given the go-ahead should not have gone ahead, and that is now the operator's problem. To the extent that private interests are involved in those projects, it should not become the problem or expense of the general public.  The tolerance of public opinion towards such projects will continue to deteriorate as time goes by. Around the world, people are becoming fed-up with entities that pollute too much and worse, then see the project operator run-away during the wee hours or try to get poor Joe Smoe public to pay for cleaning up the mess on their behalf. This practice has become all-too commonplace, and it is offensive to us to see this happening over and over again in different parts of the world.

There are high levels of noxious nitrogen oxides in the air from dirty oil-fired power generation. We have debilitating nitric oxide concentrations in the atmosphere and the prevalence of nitric acid appears to be on an upward trajectory. Use of energy is excessive in everything from big, gas-guzzling vehicles to various luxuries such as air-conditioned beach sand and bus shelters. Plus there is the ever-present problem of where do you dump garbage that is not reused or recycled? Reckless dumping of oil sludge and releases of methane gas has added to their environmental woes. In the emirate of Ajman, there's a colossal dump-and-burn site for pretty well any kind of waste you can imagine. In Kuwait, oil refineries near or in Umm Al-Haiman have discharged gargantuan quantities of carcinogens over the years. Due to the concentrations of vile pollutants emanating from these industrial point sources, it has become clear that the associated air, water and soil contamination is making people who live not-far-away very sick. Marine environments nearby have been found to have way-too-high levels of bacteria and ammonia from untold years of dumping sewage into the sea. The Kuwaiti Sea also has very high levels of volatile organic compounds and heavy metals. As well, Kuwait's vast "oil lakes" pose an unresolved but apparently contained eco-threat.

UAE has been losing its natural defences against rising sea level and sea-going pollution. Mangrove forest, littoral and near shore sea grass environments have been severely compromised by various industrial and real estate development. Unfortunately, while the coastal plain is home to some 90% of the people, dwellings, buildings and infrastructure, it is also an area of no more than a meter or two above sea level. Abu Dhabi has little or no elevation at all with respect to current sea level. Modern, gleaming cities such as Dubayy and Abu Dhabi are something to behold and we do not want to see huge swathes obliterated by the forces of climate disruption now upon us. There are a lot of rolls of the dice we, including UAE, have to win if global warming and climate change are upon us forever-more. This applies "in spades" to UAE where the ocean saltwater at their doorstep looms as a wild card. In this region as elsewhere, a big transition away from fossil fuels has to occur quickly just so these people have a reasonable chance of ensuring their ecological survivability does not deteriorate any further. If you're already heavily-into desalination plants for your water supply, to us, that's another warning indicator light coming on, if you need another such alert, that you're living in an unreal, petroleum-based plastic world of some sort.  

UAE aims to reach 7% of all electric power in the country being driven by renewable sources of energy by 2020. They are also investing in nuclear energy in a big way to diversify and reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. Many people love Masdar City and UAE's emphasis on capturing solar energy. Innovative solar thermal projects are proceeding. For example, aluminum troughs are being deployed rather than glass mirrors to reflect and concentrate solar radiation. We do believe the potential exists for UAE to quickly develop into being a solar power. To us, that is fantastic news especially given the oil riches that exist in this country. Unlike the fossil fuel energy era which is nearing a conclusion forever more, solar power will always be with us. To oil, oil sands and coal salesmen, remember the sun's reserves are essentially infinite. Try and top that with your story.

Qatar has vast natural gas reserves, production and processing including liquefied natural gas for export. Qatar is a small but highly industrialized country that creates emissions at a rate about three times higher than United States on a per capita basis.  In particular, carbon dioxide releases into the atmosphere on a per person basis are said to be the highest of any nation. So clearly, instead of allowing flaring of gas, Qatar should be dictating tying of it into production or re-injecting it back from whence it came. Some of their heavy industry has had lead, cadmium and mercury contamination issues.

Qatar is a country characterized by low-elevation and being surrounded on three sides by saltwater. Their mangrove areas are vulnerable over time to the cumulative, combined, atrophic forces of land use downgrading, stripping and economic development, more and more pollution, and increases in average ambient temperature and sea level. These days, a center such as Ras Laffan Industrial City is really not in a desirable position geographically anymore.

Water generally comes from desalination, making it precious, energy-inefficient and expensive. Due to the environmental bills and consequences which continue to come in, subsidizing peoples' use of water or fossil fuels is a losing policy of the past. People have to be educated to realize the way it is out there. Otherwise, there will be limited effort by civil society, industry or government to adapt. We cannot continue to live in a bubble, to be shielded by dubious subsidies. No one should remain aloof and oblivious to what's happening in our real world that supports all life even if they happen to be OK.