The Green Revolution in China
A couple of weeks ago, China’s highest government body published their conclusions from the second research session on continental climate change over a period of twelve months. Due to China’s new global role and the number of unprecedented environmental issues in China, the Chinese prime minister was very keen to raise climate change as an important issue at the upcoming G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan.
It should be highlighted that the Chinese central government also had a similar meeting and that China is a rapidly industrializing country with new coal-fueled power plants opening every week. China is like a terrifying carbon-guzzling monster. As a result of thirty years of industrialization, China now has the highest level of carbon dioxide emissions in the world. Carbon dioxide emissions are increasing up to eight per cent a year. The EU achieved a twenty per cent reduction, but China’s emission rate was twice as much approaching the 2010 IPCC deadline for carbon dioxide emissions reduction.
However, it could be misleading to put too much emphasis on these statistics. A non-governmental organization (Climate Group) newspaper report presents a slightly different picture. According to the Clean Revolution in China, China is a nation that is more than aware of its environmental issues but also has the potential to achieve a second miracle in 30 years.
The environmental price of the first “miracle” was that Chinese people always saw their daily lives. That’s why most of the policies are related to energy efficiency, energy-saving and other alternative energy sources. Those policies have already been met with some concern.
Whilst the personal sectors are so strong and developing, they are able to aid the central government to introduce laws, like the National Renewable Energy Law in 2006. This has set hard targets, including increasing the amount of energy made from new renewable sources from eight per cent to fifteen per cent until 2020. Also, it has guaranteed at least three per cent of renewable energy sources, such as biomass, solar and wind.
Both wind and solar power are so successful, but their origins are very different. With 6 gigawatts of energy made from wind turbines, surprisingly China is now ranked behind Germany, the US, Spain and India. Also, some believe China will reach 100 GW by 2020.
Wind power successfully shows that with central government aid China is ready for new policies, subsidies and advanced technology. This situation also has a role in the domestic market. The amount of electricity produced by wind farms can be a burden to fund.
Even though western countries invented an open marketplace set to dominate in China, there were few domestic incentives for solar power. In the global solar photovoltaic cell market, it is second only to Japan and growing fast. In China, the solar market has been a small business, because the cells are so expensive. This puts pressure on the government to rapidly follow up on their policies, for example, the role of the Climate Group is important in developing domestic markets.
However, the image of new coal-fueled power stations still looms large as they are opening every week. It is hard to imagine that China has achieved a 10.5 per cent of growth rate without such stations in the last quarter. However, how many people actually know that China has been closing its small power stations over the last couple of years? Step by step China is reducing its small power stations, first the 50-megawatt ones then the 100-megawatt ones and next will be the 300-megawatt power stations.
This policy is operated by the Chinese central government and backs up the new generation of coal station using the most advanced technologies with supercritical and ultra-supercritical improved clean coal. Capture functions and plants of carbon are researched and developed, but advanced thinking for the future is based on the technology of Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) that turn coal materials into synthetic gas to make power.
These days, Chinese consumers demand better homes and vehicles. Public awareness of energy-saving is on the rise. The Chinese government introduced a standard fuel economy for vehicles in 2004 of 15.6 kilometers per litre. This is higher than the US, Canada and Australia but behind Europe and Japan. In the meantime, in spite of a high 20 per cent tax on SUVs (Sport Utility Vehicles), the sale of these sorts of cars continues to increase.
Up to now, China has been the kingdom of the bicycle, importing the electric bike at 1,500 yuan ($220) per vehicle. Some of these vehicles have adopted an intelligent recovery system similar to that of hybrid cars. In 2007, the sale of electric bikes increased considerably and China is estimated to make up three-quarters of the world electric vehicle market.
China, already, is doing a lot on the bottom line. So, could it do more? The answer is yes, China should learn and open its mind through international communities. According to the Climate Group, they report the world should refine their image of China, just not fear it and, constructively, work in unison. At the same time, China’s government should develop a clean revolution and maintain internal pressure for improvements.
The Efficacy of Hypnotherapy
In the 1840s Scottish neurosurgeon, James Braid coined ‘Hypnotherapy’. At that time, in India, British surgeon, James Esdaile, practiced hundreds of scrotal and abdominal operations, adopting hypnosis as the only anaesthetic. It was unfortunate timing that he reported his research dissertation on hypnosis to London Royal Society just as chemical anaesthetics were discovered. The technique was not agreed on by the medical establishment.
These days, whilst an increasing number of people are asking about private practitioners, the level of studies within the hypnotherapy field is meaningful enough that it remains on the fringes of medicine. In a report on alternative and complementary medicine in 2000, the Science and Technology Committee of the UK’s House of Lords has given hypnosis a bad reputation by putting it in the “poor research/regulation” category. In other words, the therapies were unlikely to enter mainstream medicine without substantial changes.
If you research the PubMed database using the term “hypnotherapy,” you find 11,518 hit-words, so there are plenty of studies out there. However, most of the researchers are not satisfied with the gold standard of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) instead of taking the frame of reviews or case studies. Only 91 relevant RCTs conducted in the world have worked in the past four years. The researchers propose that hypnotherapy can be an effective treatment for pain control, irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety disorders and smoking cessation.
There is clear evidence that hypnosis has psychological and physiological effects. That’s why Peter Whorwell at the University of Manchester has researched the efficacy of IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) surgery for gastrointestinal modulation with hypnotherapy and possible immune function support. But even though IBS is one of the best-covered areas, the action with mechanism is not clear and the Cochrane Collaboration from assessing clinical trials has criticised the size and quality of the studies.
In spite of the evidence that hypnotherapy reduces pain, anxiety and stress, there are a couple of reasons why few trials have been done. From these stages, hypnosis’s usage doesn’t aid its image. Also, it has the same problems as other “talking” therapies. Alternative funding should be built up, as the drug companies do not benefit from funding expensive studies.
But, one of the biggest obstacles to hypnosis being considered on a more scientific basis is the therapists themselves. Its effects are a result of a unique interaction between the practitioner and the patient. The expectation is similar to that of a drug and therefore should follow the same trial testing criteria. However, this argument is not helpful.
I strongly believe that whilst meeting with a living, breathing person, it is hard to decrease the process of clinical hypnosis and to receive YES or NO responses that are able to be reliably repeated in other conditions. However, for hypnosis to be considered medical, it should be measurable, replicable and vigorous. Actually, we need to model a body of clinical evidence in order to adapt to the medical profession.
With standardising protocol used, we demand quantitative measures of the effects on the patient, so studies can be compared. Ideally, researchers would have access to state-of-the-art brain scanning equipment. In reality, we are able to get simple biochemical markets of hypnosis and after-effects under suitable usage.
Coming out of such studies in England, Ursula James founded the Medical School Hypnosis Association with her colleagues. According to Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, she explains schemes to bring medical professors and students together with hypnotherapists to operate coordinated national trials and build up a large body of evidence from research replicated at multiple locations. Most of all, one of the first questions is whether clinical hypnosis is able to decrease stress. That is an important component potentially in an illness. We work towards using standardised questionnaires to calculate lifestyle, stress and depression and to measure various stress hormone levels in saliva samples taken from case applicants.
If we are able to present that there is a decrease in stress, we hope that hypnosis will be supplied to patients to treat their condition. With a wide range of usages, it could open up study into other areas including decreasing the thoughts of pain and improving recovery times.
THE WELL-BEING LIFE
A Going back to the 1970s, few people listened to scientists’ warnings of global warming. It got worse as nobody was interested in curbing economic growth to protect the environment. Nowadays, we are more cautious. We are hearing about the conflict between living on the earth and expanding the demands of the global market.
B However, Tim Jackson reports that people and governments claim the growth agenda to ensure our future and are still in denial of the conflict. A reason for this is the presumption that support for the green campaigners will ultimately make our lives worse.
C All representations of a pleasant and easy life which aspire to come from advertising do not help. Also, our happiness is dependent on consuming more and more “material.” We have never listened to ways of escaping stress, noise, congestion, and the ill-health that comes from our “high” standard of living.
D Actually, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that a workaholic mentality and an affluent lifestyle does not give us a pleasant life and that switching to a more sustainable community to work could make us happier. For instance, rates of depression and occupational illness have been indicated to be relative to the number of hours we are working. Once a certain income level is reached, more wealth is not linked with growing happiness.
E The unreasonableness of our situation can be explained by the way in which our economy tries to sell us happiness. For example, leisure and tourism companies sell customers “a good quality time,” catering services offer us “home cooking,” dating agencies sell relationships; the sports centre sells health and as a result of modern car culture it can be unsafe to walk outside. With the economy steadily expanding, consumer culture is becoming more and more reliant on our desire to adopt this lifestyle.
F An increasing number of people are beginning to realize that there is more to life than work and money. Troubled by the effects of a stressful life, people are starting to make their lives more simple and rethinking their values and desires. If people were to switch to a less work-intensive economy, it would decrease the rate of people, products and information delivered, reducing carbon emissions and the use of resources.
G There are a number of advantages to making sacrifices to our lifestyles. We would be able to have more time for ourselves and our families. We would commute less and enjoy healthier ways of travelling such as walking, cycling, and riding a boat. Large supermarket chains would be replaced by local family businesses resulting in the creation of more communal town centres. Our local areas would become more tranquil and give us more chance to reflect on things. These changed ideas for a “good life” might also motivate less developed countries to reconsider their goals, enabling them to avoid some of the less attractive aspects of the current system.
H Of course, we must sacrifice some conveniences and pleasure such as regular steaks, hot tubs, luxury cosmetics and easy foreign travel. But constant comfort can blunt as well as satisfy our desires. And human ingenuity will invent a wide range of eco-friendly excitement.
I Moving into a safe-state economy is an intimidating prospect. However, Herman Daly explains it is unrealistic to continue with current rates of development in production, work and material consumption over the next decades, let alone into the next century.
J Under the financial disorders and broad cynicism over government commitments to global warming, more honesty would win cooperation and esteem from the voter, especially if politicians emphasise the advantages of the sustainable society.