Final Blog

Dr. Soren Larsen’s guest lecture on Oct. 27 was the most informative for me.  His discussion of the Chesletta Carrier First Nation in British Columbia, Canada really brought to life the idea of state crime.  The Canadian Department of Indian Affairs mirrored our own such department in a tragic way, coercing the populace and using forgery to force people out of their homes. 

China is participating in the Paris climate talks
in an effort to curb emissions

Additionally cruel was its 10% compensation rate for lost possessions.  These possessions, by the way, were torched and flooded.  There was little effort to recover any lost goods.  Burial grounds were desecrated, causing poverty and various other domestic issues.  Additionally, the government did not pay for the transportation of the people from their homes to the new land.

I was happy to see that in later years the cemeteries were brought back and some “power” was restored to the people.

I learned a lot about China this semester.  More than anything, I learned that its environmental degradation is a crippling issue that it is working to solve.  For instance, I learned that China’s Carbon emissions have been increasing by 7.5 percent annually since 1997 (as reported by Reuters).  However, these statistics are up for debate given China’s history of providing false statistics on energy consumption.  The variance, however, is not great enough to undermine the fact that China has been the world’s leading polluter since 2006 (per the Center for Climate and EnergySolutions). On the same Center webpage, I learned that China has been taking a five year approach to counter these statistics.

 “China’s twelfth five-year plan (FYP), covering 2011-15, spelled out a number of reforms to domestic energy and climate policies. The headline targets were to reduce energy intensity by an additional 16 percent, and carbon intensity by 17 percent, by 2015. It has been widely reported that China is currently on track to meet these 2015 targets. The thirteenth FYP is expected to be announced in early 2016.”

Additionally, as I’ve stated multiple times in my blogs, China and the United States have been working together for about a year now to mutually curb emissions by 2030.  These talks have helped spearhead the current set of talks happening in Paris as I type this. 

The NGO paper opened up my eyes to the street children problems that China is facing.  The Baoji Xinxing Aid for Streetkids provides children with poor or non existant home lives the food, medicine, shelter and education they need to be productive members of society.  I argued in my paper that educated citizens is exactly what China will need as it continues to combat global climate change.