Australia's naïveté on China: Climate Change should be the least of their worries

Now it is just dangerous. While the world holds its breath over the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, the Chicoms are doing what thugs and bullies do. They have banned the import of a number of Australian commodities: coal, barley, wine, and lobsters. The first reaction of Australia's trade minister to China's ban on Australian coal was "But it will increase China's CO2 emissions!" if China burns Indonesian, Mongolian, or Russian coal instead of the high-quality stuff that Australia produces.

The stupidity and naïveté of that reaction was enough to generate a headline on Instapundit: "Australia: Chinese Embargo of High Quality Aussie Coal is increasing CO2 Emissions."

The trade minister hasn't been able to figure it out for himself, and nobody has told him: CO2 as the bogeyman is just a distraction for the masses. China couldn't give a tinker's cuss about CO2. The Chinese have said they will be emissions-neutral by 2060 and will be increasing coal use up to 2040 in the interim. The details don't matter because it is just verbiage for gullible foreign audiences.

The politically acceptable line as to why China has banned imports of Australian coal, barley, wine, etc. is to punish that country for calling for an inquiry into the origins of the Wuhan virus. According to that theory, China is giving Australia a whacking at little cost to itself — there are other sources of wine and barley and crayfish.

But in banning Australian coal, the Chicoms are taking real pain, and that means the bans have a higher purpose. Cold is a killer, and winter has come early to northern China. Deaths from cold start rising once indoor temperatures fall below 17°C.

In the 1950s, the Chicoms brought in the Haui River policy. The area north of the Huai River receives free or subsidized coal for winter heating. The people south of the river miss out. The line is shown on this map:

From the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 2013.

As a consequence of the particulates associated with burning that coal, Chinese living north of the Huai River have their life expectancy reduced by five and a half years relative to those living south of the Huai River. Traditionally, stone beds in northern China had coal-burning stoves built into them.

The Chicoms could put scrubbers on all their coal-burning factories and power stations, but they would rather spend that money on building aircraft carriers and other ways to kill foreigners. Killing foreigners has a higher priority in China than clean air and clean water.

Due to the early onset of winter, coal is now in short supply in northern China, and the Xi regime has reacted, in some areas, by banning internal heating until the external temperature falls below -3°C. A lot of people are going to die this winter in northern China due to respiratory failure caused by the ban on Australian coal.

So what is the higher purpose of all this? It is to winkle Australia out of the Quad. The Quad is the grouping of India, Australia, Japan, and the United States formed to counter China's aggression. A few years ago, a Pentagon study concluded that to win against China, the United States just needed bases in Guam and Australia. President Xi must have come to the same conclusion, so he is trying to take Australia out of the picture, and his war is coming soon.

Australia faces a critical moment in time in regards to China.

Do the right thing and it will greatly harm the Australian economy, which is very dependent on trade with China.

Give in to the bullying of China and the long-term ramifications may be worse.

There is pain either way for our Aussie friends who seem to elect global warming zealots at every turn.

This is the key passage:

[The Chicoms could put scrubbers on all their coal-burning factories and power stations, but they would rather spend that money on building aircraft carriers and other ways to kill foreigners. Killing foreigners has a higher priority in China than clean air and clean water.]

On the other hand, the author’s “American Gripen: The Solution to the F-35 Nightmare” is a solution looking for a problem.

The first reaction of Australia's trade minister to China's ban on Australian coal was "But it will increase China's CO2 emissions!" if China burns Indonesian, Mongolian, or Russian coal instead of the high-quality stuff that Australia produces.

It is indeed amazing how clueless some politicians are about China.

I'm in China for work quite often. Anyone that's ever been to China, or India for that matter, knows that they don't AT ALL about pollution. I've had my eyes watering and nose dripping within a couple of minutes of stepping off the plane in Shanghai, and that's one of their cleaner cities. Guangzhou is a cesspool all itself.

That's why any emissions agreement with China is just tilting at windmills, they're not going to pay any attention to it. They're solely focused on one thing, economic output and dominating the world economy. A cut to their productivity in the name of cleaner air isn't going to happen with them, it's at the bottom of their list of priorities.

That's why I shake my head ad how naive our "climate change" fools are in the U.S. and Europe. We're hamstringing our economies by adding $20,000 worth of emissions equipment trying to squeeze the last bit of emissions out of an over the road truck while killing their fuel mileage. We're trying to make everyone drive electric cars which wastes people's time and money dealing with their limitations because they're not ready to replace gas. We're enduring rolling brownouts in some states because we're reliant on "green" energy like windmills that don't work when the wind doesn't blow. All of these things decrease the viability of the U.S. economy which China is happy to see, they'll just keep dumping more coal in when they need more electricity while we sit and shiver waiting for our electric car to charge from the solar panel. Meanwhile they're being productive while we're producing nothing while patting ourselves on the back over how green we are. The air isn't getting any cleaner because we all live on the same planet and China is happy to crank up the output while we virtue signal ourselves into oblivion.

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