Articles by Kit Stolz

On who is accountable for Chinese greenhouse-gas emissions

Yesterday a D.C. nonprofit, the Center for Global Development, released an inventory of the world's power plants. Its nifty database shows that on a national level, China trails only the the U.S. in total emissions of greenhouse gases, and not by much.

This will disappoint the global warming proponents at the National Review, who have been predicting for months that China will surpass the traditional emissions champ -- the United States -- this year.

But both the scoffers on the right and the worriers on the left may be overlooking a central question, which was broached this Monday in a news story from The Wall Street Journal.

Simply put: a high percentage of Chinese emissions are produced in factories making products for buyers around the world. Shouldn't that be considered in the emissions accounting?

The vast majority of the world's MP3 players are made in China, where the main power source is coal. Manufacturing a single MP3 player releases about 17 pounds of planet-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. iPods, along with thousands of other goods churned out by Chinese factories, from toys to rolled steel, pose a question that is becoming an issue in the climate-change debate. If a gadget is made in China by an American company and exported and used by consumers from Stockholm to São Paulo, Brazil, should the Chinese government be held responsible for the carbon released in manufacturing it?

The story hints at the complexity of fault-finding when it comes to emissions, which we as a nation and as a species have barely begun to unpack. Not only must we contend with the fact that carbon dioxide is indivisible -- and equally warming no matter if it's emitted in a Communist nation such as China, a capitalist nation such as the U.S., or a third-world nation such as India -- but there is also what The Stern Review calls the "intergenerational" aspect of emissions. Carbon released today may have catastrophic effects thirty years from now, when the original emitters are long dead. Who will the children of today blame then?

But to continue with Jane Spencer's thoughtful, probing story:

Revisiting Into the Wild

When the news broke 15 years ago about an idealistic young man who starved to death in the Alaskan wilderness, I reacted badly.

Plenty of folks, myself included, go alone into the wild and emerge unscathed; in fact, restored to Muirean health and sanity. The national fascination with Chris McCandless' sad end seemed morbid to me -- a morality tale told by the comfortable to justify their easy, unexamined lives.

I still think a sick fascination is part of what made Jon Krakauer's book Into the Wild a bestseller. But I confess I have read only the excerpt from it published over a decade ago in Outside magazine, which may not do the book justice. It was somewhat misleadingly subtitled "How Christopher McCandless Lost His Way in the Wilds," and mostly focused on the mistakes he made, his tragic death.

Many people who heard of this story didn't want to take time to follow a reckless youth. I was one of them. But then I saw the movie, and I saw the young actor playing Chris McCandless make him become the man he wanted to be -- "Alexander Supertramp."

He had an extraordinary life; giving away his inheritance, burning his cash, walking off into the desert. He wanted meaning, more than anything. You could question his sanity, but not his sincerity. And nearly everyone he met fell in love with him, one way or another.

New study finds that pollution from ships kills 60,000 a year

It's surprising how much pollution ships emit: over 2,000 tons of diesel soot a year in southern California, for example, about 10 percent of the total in the region.

Worse, a new study by researchers at the University of Delaware and Rochester Institute of Technology finds that the burning of cheap, dirty, sulfurous "residual oil" on ships kills an estimated 60,000 people around the world. "Premature mortality" is the phrase used in the study.

Annual average contribution of shipping to (particulate matter) PM<sub>2.5</sub&gt concentrations for Case 2b (in µg/m³). Copyright © 2007 American Chemical Society

(h/t: The Blue Marble)

Who is at fault for the fires in SoCal?

After burning nearly half a million acres, the devastating wildfires of this past week in southern California have been put down. Controversy raged with the flames; now that the air is beginning to clear, it's time to comb through the wreckage for some insight worth remembering. And there's a lot to examine, as experts of all types came forward with reactions -- some to lead, some to offer insight, and some to smear.

The San Francisco Chronicle had uncharacteristically kind words for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Bill Whalen pointed out that:

Throughout the week, he stayed optimistic, talked action and results, and resisted the media's bait to blame someone -- anyone -- for California's misfortunes. It's exactly what you look for in a leader.

The governor won accolades, and the firefighters, working brutally hard while in danger, battling day and night against sixteen fires, fueled at the start by 100-degree temperatures and gale-force winds.

Watching the fires in southern California burn through the night. (Photo: San Diego Fire photo pool, via flickr)