Fighting for survival
Reports show that carbon in the atmosphere has reached 400 parts per million. This means that it will stay at that level even if we cease all carbon emissions instantly. The media is not reporting this.
Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump, who denies climate change, could be the US president. Yes, his debate performance showed that he is unstable, however, he has been unstable from the very beginning of his campaign.
Numerous times many people have said that his campaign was over, but no matter what outrageous thing he says or does, nor how many irrational things he says or does, he still polls strong.
Between 2050 and 2100 humans will no longer have enough oxygen to breathe. Overfishing will result in no more fish in the oceans. This combined with the oceans heating up and becoming more acidic will destroy phytoplankton. Phytoplankton produces most of the oxygen we breathe.
The warming planet will also thaw the permafrost. This will release trapped methane into the atmosphere. The reduced oxygen and increased methane will asphyxiate us. We will become extinct.
We must do what US Senator Bernie Sanders suggests. We must mobilize as we did during World War II. We must end all commercial fishing.
We must end all commercial killing of animals for food. It is a scientific fact that humans do not need to eat animal products. It is a scientific fact that we can, but it is unnecessary. We must consume less. The fight against climate change is a fight against the rampant materialism that defines our lives. We must fight for our survival.
Andres Chang
Taipei
Licensed to kill
The ongoing saga against Zain Dean (“Government vows to fight Dean extradition decision,” Sept. 25, page 1) is certainly tinged with racism. Just ask yourself: Does the media spend as much time on any other hit-and-run case involving Taiwanese drivers?
However, I want to focus on an entirely overlooked aspect of this case and the many similarly tragic cases of deadly car accidents: the deep-lying fault of the government.
When it comes to enforcing traffic rules, Taiwan’s police are known to be notoriously off-hand, leading to almost complete lawlessness on the streets (“Enough is enough,” Sept. 4, page 6). Every foreigner tells stories of police officers willfully turning their heads away when they see cars speeding, riding roughshod over red lights and zebra crossings, and engaging in other illegal and dangerous driving.
I know a police station in central Taiwan where every day drunk drivers and scooter riders without helmets pass by. I suspect the officers are busy drinking tea.
The government’s abject failure to put more police on the street, and especially to make police do their jobs, is partly at fault for the whole sorry Dean mess, because, I would argue, in a nation with a serious police force, Dean might never have even considered driving while drunk because he would have known there would likely be a high chance of getting caught.
In Taiwan, though, I might as well drive myself, most likely nobody will stop me.
Cars are deadly 1 tonne weapons, and trucks are deadly 40 tonne weapons. I witnessed a trailer truck overtake and then run a red light at about 70kph along a dangerous two-lane coast road. No officer was around, and if there was a camera, it was probably not working.
The absence of traffic rules enforcement equates to a license to kill.
While I feel immensely sorry for the family of Huang Chun-the (黃俊德), the man Dean killed, his father should also criticize the government for allowing this lawlessness on the streets. Indeed, I feel extremely angry that the government stands by allowing thousands of people to be killed or maimed on Taiwan’s roads each year.
Apparently, the government would rather be complicit in these killings than to actually do something about it.
The media is also at fault because it too often focuses on the individual case instead of the failure of the entire system.
In these times of the neo-liberal world view reigning supreme, in which society supposedly does not exist, only the individual (“Market myths and the link between social status and morbidity,” Sept. 25, page 7), is it surprising that the media also focuses on individual cases, but not on the systemic problems underlying them?
I guess the daily death toll on Taiwan’s streets is not interesting news anymore, except when it involves a foreigner.
Flora Faun
Taipei
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under