Quotations and notes from "The Whole Story of Climate" - What Science Reveals about the Nature of Endless Change by E. Kirsten Peters
" ... most major climate changes in geologically recent times have occurred in a mere twenty or thirty years."
"No full climate crash has occurred in the span of written history."
" ... the Pleistocene ... alternated between long periods of cold - lasting roughly 100,000 years - and short periods of considerably warmer times - lasting about 10,000 years."
"If we think of climate change as our enemy, we will always be defeated."
" ... geologists ... realized that there must be diamond-rich rocks in Canada{in the Barren Lands about two hundred miles northeast of Yellowknife?!} that had sent a few gems thousands of miles to the south{New York, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illionois?!} courtesy of staggering volumes of ice."
" ... from pollen studies all around the world in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, it became abundantly clear to geologists that regional climate changes are always occurring on Earth."
"The Vostock{Antarctica} ice record of 420,000 years covers four great cycles of climate change on Earth."
" .. the jury is still very much out on the idea that relates the history of agriculture to greenhouse gases and global climate."
"On long timescales, increases in temperature, controlled by the Earth's orbit around the sun, create more methane and carbon dioxide. ... from what most scientists can tell, greenhouse gases are not the primary driver of long-term climate change on Earth .."
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Experimental Blog # 148
Notes and quotations from "Restless Empire - China and the World Since 1750" by Odd Arne Westad
This history of modern China begins with the Qing{also sometimes called Manchu} dynasty, which ruled for almost three hundred years, from 1644 to 1912. Even during the 15th century Chinese were emigrating along trade routes to other settlements in Southeast Asia; Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Java, Malaya, and Thailand. In the 19th and 20th centuries, besides the United States and Canada, Chinese also emigrated to Cuba and Peru. Eventually totalling about 20 million people, over 75% had gone to Southeast Asia.
Today, the author says, about 40 million people of Chinese descent live outside of China, compared to more than 350 million people of European descent who live outside of Europe.
Beginning in the 1830s several European powers began incursions into China for their commercial advantages. By the end of the 19th century these European powers were joined by Japan. "In 1911 ... an army mutiny forced the mother of the last emporer, the four-year-old Puyi, to issue his abdication. By imperial decree, China became a republic ..."
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 abruptly terminated Japan's occupation of China. However, the vigorous support of the Soviet Union gave the victory in the Chinese civil war to the Chinese Communist Party, or the CCP. There followed a very thorough "sovietization" of China, which possiblly cost an additional 4 to 5 million human lives.
However, the author calls the Great Leap Forward campaign, which ended in 1961, "the greatest man-made catastrophe in human history". Odd Arne Westad writes that an estimated 45 million people died from hunger, illness, or exhaustion.
"During the 1960s, China went through a period of isolation and increasing irrelevance in international affairs." "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was by far the largest and most intense government campaign in Chinese history. It killed fewer people than the Great Leap and it affected the economy less, but in terms of people's daily lives and of lives ruined and made meaningless it was far worse."
Odd Arne Westad writes over another one hundred pages to end his book on a somewhat more positive note.
This history of modern China begins with the Qing{also sometimes called Manchu} dynasty, which ruled for almost three hundred years, from 1644 to 1912. Even during the 15th century Chinese were emigrating along trade routes to other settlements in Southeast Asia; Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Java, Malaya, and Thailand. In the 19th and 20th centuries, besides the United States and Canada, Chinese also emigrated to Cuba and Peru. Eventually totalling about 20 million people, over 75% had gone to Southeast Asia.
Today, the author says, about 40 million people of Chinese descent live outside of China, compared to more than 350 million people of European descent who live outside of Europe.
Beginning in the 1830s several European powers began incursions into China for their commercial advantages. By the end of the 19th century these European powers were joined by Japan. "In 1911 ... an army mutiny forced the mother of the last emporer, the four-year-old Puyi, to issue his abdication. By imperial decree, China became a republic ..."
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 abruptly terminated Japan's occupation of China. However, the vigorous support of the Soviet Union gave the victory in the Chinese civil war to the Chinese Communist Party, or the CCP. There followed a very thorough "sovietization" of China, which possiblly cost an additional 4 to 5 million human lives.
However, the author calls the Great Leap Forward campaign, which ended in 1961, "the greatest man-made catastrophe in human history". Odd Arne Westad writes that an estimated 45 million people died from hunger, illness, or exhaustion.
"During the 1960s, China went through a period of isolation and increasing irrelevance in international affairs." "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was by far the largest and most intense government campaign in Chinese history. It killed fewer people than the Great Leap and it affected the economy less, but in terms of people's daily lives and of lives ruined and made meaningless it was far worse."
Odd Arne Westad writes over another one hundred pages to end his book on a somewhat more positive note.
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