2006 China's Warmest Year In More Than 50 Years - AP

[hatrack]

BEIJING (AP) _ China had its warmest year in over half a century in 2006, with an average temperature of 9.9 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit), the Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday. The report, which cited the China Meteorological Administration, said the temperature was the highest on record since 1951. It did not give the previously recorded highest annual average temperature.

In a sign of how widespread the warming trend was last year, 13 out of 39 climate observation stations on the usually frigid Tibetan plateau recorded record high temperatures, Xinhua said.

Nineteen of the past 21 winters have tended to be warmer than usual, Xinhua said, and the current winter is also likely to hold to that trend if temperatures stay as warm as they have been since December.

EDIT

http://www.planetsave.com/ps_mambo/The_News/Climate/Report_says_2006_was_China's_warmest_year_in_half_a_century_200702208505/

[Deja Q]

1. They have a much longer history of ignoring the environment.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/02/12/china_pollution/index_np.html



Excerpt:
China has become a global environmental problem. Initially, it was only the economists who were shocked by how the country was changing the world with its cheap clothes, televisions and washing machines. But now climate researchers are concerned about another Chinese export -- the pollution it is spreading across the planet. The massive nation is already the world's second-biggest producer of greenhouse gases after the United States.

And particularly in North America and Europe, awe over China's booming economy and its ability to produce cheap goods for the entire world is now often giving way to a critical question: Can the planet handle China's growing damage to the environment?

China's economy is booming -- with an annual growth rate of more than 10 percent. But the more the country's population of 1.3 billion strives to raise itself out of poverty with a mostly antiquated industrial base -- and the cheaper the Chinese goods the world's consumers buy -- the higher the price the world will pay for China's economic miracle.

The Chinese are no longer simply destroying their own environment. Just as trade is global these days, so too is the threat against nature.

The US's big cause for greenhouse gasses is too many cars - driving. Plenty of solutions exist; they had in 1969 as well (the DUer who posted the lead battery powered car). China does a lot more to generate its problem... :(

[Mrspeeker]

2. They also make all the product we buy

which of course is not environmentally friendly!

So yes WE ARE TO BLAME TO!

When we pass a clean air act here all the companies just take there pollution to another country, even though its all the same world and obviously everything that goes into the air effects us all.

[On the Road]

3. In Heilong Jiang Provice in the Northeast Corner of China

the temperature has warmed very noticeably over the past several decades. My girlfriend's family is from that region and can attest that the change is large and undeniable.