Time Magazine’s profile of Energy Secretary Steven Chu this week had a stunning comparison of attitudes toward global warming in China and the U.S.
...Chu is the kind of scientific savant the Chinese revere, a techno-geek who scored a Nobel for developing methods of cooling atoms to a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero, who shelved his quantum-physics career to try to save the planet but on weekends still tries to cure cancer with lasers. "In the U.S., rock stars and sports stars are the glamour people. In China, it's scholars," Chu told me during his trip to Beijing. "Here, Nobel laureates are the equivalent of Britney Spears."
China’s people not only revere scientists; they tend to listen to them as well.
That's one reason Chu's message doesn't resonate all that well with Americans. They ranked global warming last in a national survey of 20 top priorities; in a global poll, only 44% of them wanted action to be taken on the issue, vs. 94% of Chinese. Most Republican leaders flatly reject prevailing climate science, while many Democrats from coal, oil and farm states are equally protective of the fossil-fuel status quo. This is why the American Clean Energy and Security Act — a far-reaching Democratic bill that would cap carbon emissions — has been marketed to a confused public on the basis of issues that poll far better: gas prices, foreign oil and green jobs. It narrowly passed the House, but it's in trouble in the Senate, and the President, while supportive, is now preoccupied with health care.
Of course China is not a democracy; its people hear, for the most part, what the government wants them to hear. But apparently their leaders take global warming very seriously.
Why are the people (and leaders) of a country, that for most of the past 100 years has been mired in poverty and totalitarian oppression, better informed about science than the people (and leaders) of the world’s largest, richest democracy? I thought the free-flow of information was a characteristic of democracy. And what does this tell us about our future competitiveness?
I argued recently that, on the global warming issue, we should not wait for China to agree to carbon caps but should aggressively take the lead in setting our own caps, since it was in China’s interest to follow our lead.
If reports about the level of concern about global warming in China are correct, we won’t have to worry about being out front on this issue.
Dwight Furrow is author of
Reviving the Left: The Need to Restore Liberal Values in America
For political commentary by Dwight Furrow visit: www.revivingliberalism.com