Still a controversy
I am glad that Paul Deacon agrees with me that electric cars do not necessarily decrease carbon dioxide emissions (Letter, Oct. 3, page 8). In fact, they increase the emissions if electricity is generated from coal.
The belief in global warming should be respected even though Google has cited 1,370,000 references for “global warming controversy 2010” and 545,000 references for “carbon dioxide global warming myth.” Many of these controversies are scientific, while some political in nature, and exist in many countries.
There are also 101,000 references for “hockey stick graph controversy.” A sharp temperature rise is shown for the last century in a graph of the estimated temperatures over a period of 1,000 years — like a hockey stick. A reference mentions “The Hockey Stick graph — the foundation of global warming theory — has shown to be scientifically invalid, perhaps even a fraud.”
Fox News recently reported that a sharp temperature peak before the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide was shaved off from the hockey stick.
Last winter, many parts of the US experienced record high snowfall and the lowest temperatures in 100 years and this was claimed as part of the global warming phenomena.
Some criticized such a claim as “Heads, I win; tails, you lose.” Global warming is now used interchangeably with climate change.
Achim Steiner, head of the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme, said that extreme weather this year, such as floods in Pakistan or Russia’s heat wave, was a “stark warning” of the need to act to slow global warming.
I hope he has not “confused local weather events with the global climate,” as Deacon has indicated.
Charles Hong
Columbus, Ohio
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter used a structured question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Mitter highlights the differences between the repressive and authoritarian People’s Republic of China and the vibrant democracy that exists in Taiwan, saying that Taiwan and China “have had an interconnected relationship that has been both close and contentious at times.” However, his description of the history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. First, he writes that “Taiwan was always broadly regarded by the imperial dynasties of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will stop at nothing to weaken Taiwan’s sovereignty, going as far as to create complete falsehoods. That the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never ruled Taiwan is an objective fact. To refute this, Beijing has tried to assert “jurisdiction” over Taiwan, pointing to its military exercises around the nation as “proof.” That is an outright lie: If the PRC had jurisdiction over Taiwan, it could simply have issued decrees. Instead, it needs to perform a show of force around the nation to demonstrate its fantasy. Its actions prove the exact opposite of its assertions. A
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
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