Thomas Friedman misses again

In today's New York Times, Thomas Friedman contrasts the attitudes of China and America to global warming, and smiles approvingly on the Chinese. We have not adopted legislation regarding greenhouse gases, while the Chinese are busily making their economy more energy efficient, with the intention of creating jobs.

Nonsense. The problem is not that we don't confront greenhouse gas emissions enough. We do quite a bit, and our economy produces more GDP per ton of CO2 than the Chinese do or can expect to do in the near future. The Chinese recognize that they don't want to depend on foreign oil, so if they intend to grow, they must become more efficient and generate more energy themselves from renewable sources. Nevertheless, if CO2 is causing AGW, then the prime drivers of the increase are China and, lesserly, India.

The Chinese are not becoming efficient to benefit the world, just themselves. We, on the other hand, adopt policies aimed at helping the world by reducing GHG's and shoot ourselves in the economic foot. We let the Chinese become the leaders in producing solar panels. We force our last incandescent light bulb plant to close and switch to itsy bitsy flourescents, which we buy from China.

We aren't generating green jobs and China is, but this is just one more symptom of the epidemic.