China

Janet Yellen awkwardly bows to CCP official during Beijing trip: ‘Optics the Chinese love’

July 9, 2023 By Andrea Vacchiano 4 Comments

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made an unusual gesture Saturday when she bowed to a Chinese official during her visit in Beijing.

Footage shows Yellen approaching Vice Premier He Lifeng — her Chinese counterpart — and bowing multiple times while enthusiastically shaking his hand.

Former White House staffer Bradley Blakeman, who served during President George W. Bush’s administration, told the New York Post that the gesture was unseemly.

“Never, ever, ever…an American official does not bow. It looks like she’s been summoned to the principal’s office, and that’s exactly the optics the Chinese love,” Blakeman said.

Some Twitter users shared the same sentiment, calling the bow embarrassing for the United States.

“She did not realize bowing as an American official was a breach of protocol,” author Max Murray wrote on Twitter. “They don’t reciprocate. He even backs away to give her more space to kowtow.”

“Yellen’s flubs in China are not going to help the US stock market come Monday morning. Come home Janet!” “Taxifornia” author James V. Lacy wrote on Twitter.

During their meeting, He implied that the U.S. was an irrational actor towards China.

“We wish the US side would take a rational and practical attitude, meet with the Chinese side half-way, make joint efforts with China in maintaining the consensus reached between the two state leaders in their meeting in Bali, and put the positive remarks into actions, so as to stabilize and improve the China-US relations,” He said.

Yellen gently pushed back, defending the United States’ actions to defend national security.

“The United States will take targeted actions to protect our national security,” Yellen said. “While we may disagree on these actions, we should not allow that disagreement to lead to misunderstandings, particularly those stemming from the lack of communication, which can unnecessarily worsen our bilateral economic and financial relationship.”

Click here to read the full article in FoxNews

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: China, Yellen

How China’s Debt, Slowing Economy and One-Child Policy Will Increase California Emissions

April 9, 2019 By Todd Royal 4 Comments

Nothing will move the world and California emissions negatively or positively more than China. Though China’s economy is 12 percent smaller than previously believed according to the Brookings Institution their research backed up longstanding suspicion that Beijing hasn’t been keeping accurate, publicly reported economic statistics. The study also found “real growth has been overstated by 2 percentage points annually for years.” What likely occurs is China builds the cheapest and most abundant, scalable, efficient and flexible energy they have: COAL. China and the United States (US) “emit more than 40 percent of the world’s carbon.” With continued friction over the trade war this doesn’t bode well for California meeting ambitious emission, environmental and climate goals.

The biggest troubles ahead for China, world economies and energy are that China has mounting debt problems. Trillions of dollars in debt has run up for years to gain a debt-fueled prosperity of buildings, infrastructure and exports, which has caused environmental degradation. China’s historically slowing economy has Chinese President Xi clamping down, and these economic problems will further Chinese use of cheaper coal, nuclear and natural gas as their main sources of energy moving forward. This massive scale of borrowing and debt is a looming reason China will increase global emissions: they need cheap energy and electricity to service debt and grow their economy. California will catch rising Chinese emissions in the global jet stream no matter the measures we take for cleaner air and lower emissions.

Other additional woes for China that will directly or indirectly counter the China narrative of being the leader in solar and wind power along with electric vehicles (EV) are: “Wage growth has cooled, surveys show the Chinese manufacturing sector have begun shedding jobs, imports are down, hurting other major exporting economies,” but other issues are more troubling for energy and China’s future. China’s true energy nature is revealed in its “rapidly aging population and a falling birth rate.”

Since China enacted their one-child policy and terminated over 300 million Chinese pregnancies this has decimated their productivity, child replacement rate, and will be a leading reason why they will continue using the dirtiest, cheapest forms of energy. The US has also devastated many parts of their economy – particularly, African-Americans – over using abortion as population and birth control measures. This has deep implications for how energy is extracted, imported, exported, used and the overall wellness for a nation lacking children. Nations that heavily abort their children like the US, Russia and China are usually more combative with neighboring countries and either invade them (think US in Iraq or Russia in Crimea) or take over entire regions (China in the South China Sea) in a quest for resources and workers for their unproductive economies. These could be major reasons why global emissions have begun rising again. Dirtier air is a source of unproductive societies caused by global abortion rates remaining steady; over 42 million abortions took place in 2018.

Beijing has also been globally combative since the Obama administration attempted diplomacy and an open-hand of friendship to China, but was rejected. What you have now is President’ Trump’s US-led trade war and the Europeans confronting China over destructive trade, military, technical and illegal intelligence surveillance coupled with corporate theft that benefits Chinese state-run firms. European diplomats are openly excoriating China’s unsavory advances in the South China Sea and its economic gains that seek to do away with liberal, economic openness and cooperation at Europe’s expense. The Europeans said about the Belt and Road Infrastructure Project Initiative:

“Europe’s Belt and Road sceptics charge that it is opaque, strategically aggressive and can impose crippling debts on recipient states – all allegations that China denies.”

The Europeans though are their own worse enemy with “Eurosceptic remainers,” before, after and during the Brexit debacle. China will exploit this geopolitical weakness to their advantage and their energy usage will become a dirtier commodity under Beijing’s leadership. China is currently building hundreds of new coal-fired power plants throughout their provinces and cities.

Literally, China cannot afford to lose one bit of economic and social productivity and their aging population is what is causing their economy to begin grinding to a halt. The same problems of an aging population over rampant abortion-use are happening in the US, Russia, the entire European Union (EU) and Japan. This isn’t a Chinese phenomenon. What then occurs are other nations reliant on Chinese imports, their economies also slow, and renewable energy, transitioning to a carbon-free or low-carbon society and widespread adoption of electric vehicles all pause going into affect? The Chinese clean energy transition – even in the form of expansive use of natural gas – will fade in importance to debt and economy woes. China’s one-child policy that advanced their aging process decades ahead of time will take energy into a direction none of us can even quantify or imagine.

President Xi’s model for China, moreover doesn’t augur well for efficient Chinese energy usage since Xi made himself dictator-for-life leading to oppression within China, and environmental degradation will continue under his rule. Even US policymakers who hate President Trump are now tired of China’s overbearing style on the world stage. A possible takeover of Taiwan, a global trade war and Chinese pride on full display means more fossil fuels and higher emissions since militaries run on oil, natural gas, refined petroleum, aviation fuel and nuclear power – renewable energy in the form of wind turbines and solar panels – will always take a back seat when a country’s national security and foreign policy are on the line. Each of these geopolitical phenomenon means dirtier air and rising emissions for California – no matter the laws we pass – supposedly combating global warming/climate change (GWCC).

Add the takeover of the South China Sea, expanded influence in Asia, and it is not surprising China has increased their use of coal to fuel militarized activities. With China’s debt position wracking nerves globally it is not a far off to postulate the world will become dirtier through increased coal use over its “debt woes,” instead of using cleaner natural gas. Finding technological breakthroughs that are needed for renewable energy and energy battery storage systems to become scalable, reliable, affordable and flexible will not be at the forefront of Chinese forward-thinking. This system Xi ruminates over and contemplates has been tried before with disastrous results because it:

“Has a record of suboptimal performance that features despotic governance, long stagnation of economy, suffocation of science and technology, retardation of spiritual pursuits, irrational allocation of resources (oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear and renewable energy), great depreciation of human dignity and life, low and declining living standards for the masses, and mass death and destruction periodically and frequently.”

Is this the new normal for China or a return to Mao’s destructive big-red-time-machine? No one actually knows, but it likely results in overwhelming use of fossil fuels and higher emissions in Asia, California, and globally.

Countries will always choose their own self-interest rightly understood over energy policies and outcomes that don’t produce abundant, reliable, affordable, scalable and flexible energy results. California should pay attention to the societal, geopolitical rumblings coming from the second largest economy in the world.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: China, Pollution, Todd Royal

Californians Are Dedicated To Recycling, But It May Not Be Accomplishing Much

August 19, 2018 By Adriana Vazquez 10 Comments

From a young age, Californians are told that it is their civic duty, perhaps even moral duty, to recycle. Starting in elementary school, I remember that posters with green recycling arrows would line the halls, reminding you to do your part. But what does it really mean to recycle? Most people feel like their job is done when they’ve put their cardboard boxes or soda bottles in the blue recycle bin. Fill it up and you’ve helped save the environment!

But it’s not that simple. The basic idea behind recycling is that there is inherent value in some of the things you want to throw away and that it can be converted into a material that can be reused — plastic bottles can be turned into other kinds of plastic goods. But do you know what happens to recyclables after you throw them into your blue bin?

For the last few decades, we’ve been selling our recyclable materials to China. But as the country has developed, they don’t want these materials anymore. Sorting through our waste is not a glamorous job, and a growing Chinese middle class means it’s harder to find people willing to manually sort through trash.

The other issue is that much of the material we send them is contaminated. In January, China put a ban on materials that were greater than half a percent contaminated. It’s simply too costly for them to clean and convert anything with a higher rate of contamination into new material.

Right now, the average contamination rate of our recyclable materials is 25 percent. “It’s amazing what people put in recycling bins,” Mark Oldfield public affairs director at CalRecycle, said in the Los Angeles Times. “Dirty diapers. Broken crockery. Old garden hoses. Some of the worst offenders are old batteries.”

Of course many Californians probably think that they know better than to put dirty diapers in the recycling bin. But what about pizza boxes, plastic bags, or dirty jars and cans? All of those things are considered contaminated materials and cannot be recycled. Just because you want something to be recyclable doesn’t mean it is.

Brent Bell, Vice President of Recycling Operations for Waste Management, a waste and environmental service provider, recently wrote on the company’s website, “contamination significantly increases the cost to process recyclables.” Trying to get from 25 percent to a virtually zero percent contamination rate would cost a significant amount of money, investing hours of manpower to manually sort through each individual piece of trash. The cost of getting down to that half a percent contamination rate would likely be higher than the price China is willing to pay for it.

So if China isn’t going to take our recyclable materials, what are we going to do with them?

One option is just to switch to the next developing country that would be willing to buy the material, such as Indonesia. But in another 30 years, we’re likely to find ourselves in the same position that we’re in today. Once a country develops, they often decide they don’t want to process recyclables anymore. They simply don’t want to see “Third World” trashing sorting in their country anymore.

Are we really accomplishing any of the goals we hoped to achieve through recycling? Most people feel like recycling is good for the environment, and think that the process of diverting trash away from landfills is inherently better than the alternative. But when you actually track where your plastic bottles and cardboard boxes go, it’s not making much of a difference at all.

Contaminated materials still need to be sifted through and separated. If they’re too impure to reuse, it gets thrown out. So, many items get dumped in a landfill in the U.S. or shipped to another country to get thrown into their landfill.

If the material is clean enough to be recycled, what’s the environmental cost of the factories processing it? What are the working conditions like for the people in these factories? What resources need to be used to get old recyclable materials to factories in China or Indonesia, and what’s the environmental impact of shipping new plastic products back to the U.S.?

We need to be thinking about a long-term solution for what can be done about with this waste. One option is a waste to energy (WTE) program. WTE, which is the process of burning trash in order to create energy, is relatively clean and used in many places throughout the world, such as Sweden. But this option hasn’t gained much traction in the United States. One of the big problems is that not a lot of people want to live next to a WTE incinerator. This is partly because many people still believe that incinerating trash is bad for the environment, which is not a totally unfounded idea. Burning trash can be bad for the environment and release pollutants into the air, but WTE incinerators are far more advanced than a simple open fire in someone’s backyard.

Oddly enough, some of the big opponents to WTE are environmentalists who prefer recycling, composting, or simply just generate less waste. For them, incinerating trash is just not good enough. These two factors make WTE incinerators politically infeasible.

But there are some practical everyday solutions. We need to quit practicing wishful recycling and stop throwing things like pizza boxes and other contaminated materials into the recycling bin. In fact, recycling shouldn’t even be looked at as the best choice for dealing with waste. As the common phrase goes: reduce, reuse, recycle—in that order. Glass jars can be reused as drinking glasses. You can turn old clothes and fabrics into cleaning rags. We can all be a little more mindful when it comes to the waste we generate and stop putting blind faith into the inefficient model of shipping waste overseas, only for it to be dumped in another landfill, this time, one thousands of miles away.

Adriana Vazquez is a Bay Area resident and Young Voices Advocate. She has been published in Washington Examiner, San Francisco Examiner, and the East Bay Times. Follow her on Twitter at @VazquezAdriana.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: CalRecycle, China, Recycle, Waste Management

Beijing Targets California Agriculture as Trade Dispute Escalates

March 30, 2018 By Chris Reed 7 Comments

California’s massive agriculture industry is China’s top initial target as Beijing responds to the Trump administration’s vow earlier this month to slap tariffs on some $50 billion of Chinese steel and aluminium imports.

In an announcement over the weekend, Chinese trade officials said California’s nuts, fruit and wine were among 128 U.S. imports that would face a new 15 percent tariff upon reaching Chinese shores. The total annual value of the imports is about $3 billion, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report, suggesting that for now Beijing is not eager to escalate its trade dispute with Washington over alleged Chinese steel and aluminum dumping on the international market and theft of U.S. intellectual property.

After Canada and the European Union, China is the third biggest international customer for Golden State agriculture, importing more than $2 billion worth in 2016, according to an official state report. That’s around 10 percent of California’s total of $21 billion in international agricultural exports in 2016. Pistachios, plums, oranges and almonds were the state’s most popular products with Chinese consumers.

Even before the formal Chinese announcement of retaliatory tariffs, many observers were wary of how California could be buffeted by a U.S-China trade war.

“We could be in a really nasty trade spat, and we’ve seen that agriculture is usually a big target. … We are greatly concerned,” a California Farm Bureau Federation official told the Los Angeles Times in a March 2 story. A UC Davis economist interviewed by the Times voiced similar concerns, noting California agriculture is more dependent on international sales than other large agricultural states.

Some farmers welcome fight, cite unfair practices

But in Kern County, according to a Bakersfield Californian report, anxiety was tempered by a sense among some farmers that it was time someone stood up to the unfair trade practices they said they dealt with in the Chinese and South Korean markets.

Dennis Johnston, a partner in Edison-based Johnston Farms, said powerful farming lobbies in the Asian nations had established barriers to California imports that didn’t involve tariffs, such as additional fumigation requirements that cut into California growers’ profits.

It’s nothing new for California agricultural interests to be early targets in trade disputes, including with nominal U.S. trade allies like Canada and Mexico. Because food has a limited shelf life, tariffs can take a relatively quick toll on a targeted nation. Tariffs on familiar consumer products like wine or grapes can also grab headlines in ways that tariffs on machine parts probably can’t. Analysts say that’s why the next target of China after California – at least if Beijing’s trade dispute with the Trump administration escalates – is likely to be pork products from Midwestern states. There would also be a political factor in such a move – these states often swing from party to party and Donald Trump is likely to need some or most to gain re-election in 2020.

But there’s a third view evident in Golden State reaction to China’s tariffs beyond alarm and the belief that some attempt to confront Beijing over its trade practices is necessary. That’s the view that this fight might fizzle out.

In an analysis posted by the Times over the weekend, Richard Matoian, executive director of the California-heavy American Pistachio Growers, said, “From what we’ve seen, the Trump administration can be very unpredictable. … There’s still a month yet before any tariff would take effect, so there’s going to be a lot of political posturing.”

This article was originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Agriculture, Beijing, China, Donald Trump, Trade

Will China’s new recycling standards mean higher taxes in California?

October 30, 2017 By Susan Shelley Leave a Comment

Do you know where your recyclables go when they leave your blue bin?

Would you believe China?

But that’s about to change. In July, China notified the World Trade Organization that on Jan. 1 it will impose much stricter quality standards and will turn away shipments that don’t make the grade. In recycling, quality refers to how much non-recyclable material is mixed in with the recyclables. Anything non-recyclable is a “contaminant” that has to be removed in a sorting process. The stricter the standard, the slower and more costly the processing.

Recyclables are sold like any other commodity. Prices fluctuate according to demand. In order for recycling to be financially sustainable, the value of the recyclables has to exceed the cost of picking up the stuff, sorting it, shipping it, and recycling it into something that can be sold and shipped to someone who can use it.

In 2016, California shipped recyclables with a value of $21 million by air to Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany. Trash worth $108 million went by rail or truck to Mexico. But $4.6 billion worth of recyclables, 15 million tons, were shipped out from California’s ports. By far the greatest share of our recyclables, 62 percent, went to China.

Seaborne exports of all commodities from California ports in 2016 totaled 63 million tons, with a vessel value of more than $89 billion. Recyclable material accounted for 24 percent of the commodities exports by weight, 5 percent by value.

Some garbage is worth more than other garbage. Mixed paper, cardboard and paperboard made up 59 percent of the weight, but ferrous and non-ferrous metals accounted for 62 percent of the value.

CalRecycle, the state agency in charge of tracking these things, doesn’t know exactly how much of the garbage on the ships originated in California, and it doesn’t have precise numbers for local jurisdictions – reporting is supposed to start in 2019 – but Californians generated an estimated 76.5 million tons of waste material in 2016. The agency says 42.7 million tons were “disposed,” meaning buried in landfills, and the remaining 33.8 million tons were “source reduced, recycled or composted.” At least a third of the 33.8 million tons was exported to overseas markets.

Last year, according to CalRecycle, the overseas shipping of recyclables created 2.1 million metric tons of greenhouse gases.

In 2011, California adopted a law that set a statewide goal of 75 percent recycling by 2020. But it’s not happening. CalRecycle reported in August that California’s overall disposal—garbage that goes to landfills—increased in 2016 for the fourth consecutive year.

Why? Some of the factors cited by CalRecycle include “relatively low disposal costs, declines in global scrap values for recyclable commodities, and limited in-state infrastructure.” The agency also blamed “increased consumption” resulting from an improving economy.

That should be good news, but CalRecycle isn’t happy.

“Even as California continues to push towards new and more aggressive recycling targets, CalRecycle has not seen a meaningful decrease in the total amount of disposal since 2009,” the agency lamented.

California’s recycling rate has fallen from 50 percent in 2014 to 47 percent in 2015 to 44 percent in 2016. That’s the lowest rate since the 75 percent goal was established in 2011.

CalRecycle says the only way we’re going to hit the 75 percent target is if more than half of the solid waste that is currently disposed is “source reduced, recycled or composted.”

But how?

In its August report, CalRecycle suggests …

Click here to read the full article by the L.A. Daily News

Susan Shelley columnist and member of the editorial board of the Southern California News Group, and the author of the book, “How Trump Won.”

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: China, Recycling, Susan Shelley

The #NeverTrump Crowd Owes President Donald Trump An Apology

April 20, 2017 By Todd Royal 2 Comments

Before launching into this piece I know wonderful conservatives who are part of the #NeverTrump ideologues. I also have close, personal friends – even mentors – who are still part of this movement; but now for the good of the country, California and professional reputations I implore all of you to let prudence be your guide. Stop your continued misguided, ridiculous and frankly embarrassing behavior and admit he is a great, conservative president who actually stands up and fights for what is best for the United States and California.

Let’s review what President Trump accomplished in one week. He got Judge (now Associate Justice) Neil Gorsuch onto the Supreme Court, and according to Senator Tom Cotton (a former member of the 101^st Airborne, served in Iraq and Afghanistan), “Restored America’s credibility in the world,” after striking Syria over their chemical weapons attack. Senator Cotton further remarks:

“It’s also telling that the strikes in Syria occurred while President Trump dined with President Xi Jingping of China since the president has repeatedly expressed his concerned about North Korea and expects China to restrain Pyongyang.”

No fan of President Trump, Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, echoed the same sentiments as Sen. Cotton, that Trump understands the rough and tumble world of international diplomacy. He one-upped President Xi by making him wait an hour for his arrival at their recent summit the same way Ronald Reagan first greeted Gorbachev on a cold winter day wearing only a suit while Gorbachev was bundled in a heavy top coat and scarf. Trump understands what Obama didn’t, and the Chinese have begun changing their behavior after the summit, when it was reported by Reuters that China is turning back North Korean coal (North Korea’s main export) from their docks.

“But wait,” the #NeverTrump crowd will say, “Donald Trump is an ally of Putin and aligned himself with his crude behavior against American interests by wanting normalized relations with Russia.”

Sen. Cotton takes issue with that line of reasoning from the #NeverTrump crowd when he further stated in an op-ed for the New York Times (not the biggest President Trump fans by the way):

“Russia’s geopolitical standing has taken a severe blow. Mr. Putin was powerless to protect his client in Damascus. Moscow now faces a Hobson’s choice of empty words of condemnation or escalation on behalf of a global pariah, which risks further American action. After years of Russian aggression being met by empty American words, now Mr. Putin finds his credibility at stake.”

Or, as my former graduate school professor Victor Davis Hanson recently opined about “redline threats” in a brilliant article titled, “Ancient Laws, Modern Wars,” when smaller nations (Russia, China, North Korea, Iran) believe deterrence is nothing more than hollow words – which the former administration gave the U.S. and the world – then wars such as World War I are the outcome. Words need forcible actions and this president and his secretary of state are proving that on a daily basis.

Even a former high-ranking Obama administration official despaired over the moral depravity and ineptitude of her former colleagues and boss who knew chemical weapons were still in Syria, lied about it anyway, and did nothing to stop this latest chemical attack – except having the Treasury Department:

“Quietly introduce last minute treasury sanctions against Syrian officials involved in chemical warfare. Assad in particular.”

In other words, President Obama’s administration, led by former Secretary of State John Kerry (Kerry said, “100 percent of chemical weapons are out of Syria”), knew Putin and Russia had done nothing about Assad’s chemical weapons, continued the myth, or are such gross incompetents they had no idea that Putin’s government didn’t keep their promises to remove Assad’s chemical weapons.

That would mean the 16 U.S. government intelligence agencies, “that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities considered necessary for the conduct of foreign relations and the nationals security of the United States,” never spoke with, wrote a memo of, or even had an underling relay that information (chemical weapons still exist in Syria) to President Obama, his national security team (led by Susan Rice), or former Secretary Kerry.

But the Republican purists and #NeverTrump crowd will still argue and debate President Trump’s merit as a leader, policymaker and how he isn’t presidential enough for their liking. As Dennis Prager articulates in a recent column: “Purists Kill Whatever They Believe In,” whether health care reform (Obamacare is still law costing hundreds of billions in taxes, wages and premiums), no hope of tax reform (also costing hundreds of billions), or not having the ability, reasonable level of competency and skill to actually govern, which purist Republican are demonstrating right now in California and the U.S. Congress.

Why wouldn’t he go to Twitter to bash his own party and the press? Given the above example does any reasonable person believe he will receive fair coverage by the press and his own party at this time?

Ironically, his tweets of Sweden being overrun by terrorist-immigrants and President Obama spying on him have more truth than falsehoods to them. Read Eli Lake’s piece in Bloomberg on Obama officials spying on Trump transition team members where NSA Susan Rice was behind breaking the law and high-ranking national security officials (Deputy Defense Secretary Evelyn Farkas) admitted to spying on the incoming administration along with high-ranking officials from the National Security Council, Department of Justice, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA.

But Trump is a buffoon and un-presidential, correct? Now the Swedish Prime Minster has said, “His country will never go back to the days of mass immigration,” after the failed asylum seeker (who launched the recent Swedish terrorist attack) was let in Sweden without being vetted. The #NeverTrump crowd and Republican purists owe President Trump their deepest gratitude for their safety, because he doesn’t seem so wrong after all – now does he? And whom do you trust – the eloquent, former law school professor or the rough and tumble real estate developer?

Yet Republican policymakers are still blaming President Obama while not working with Trump for their inability to pass any of the above changes. This was confirmed by Congressman Frank Lucas (R-Ok.) to Politico when he said, “Clearly President Obama gave us a common focus. Now that he’s gone, we have to govern.”

Congressman Lucas and his ilk should be voted out of office. Either govern or at least support the president, because members like Congressman Lucas and California State Republican Senator Anthony Cannella are killing the Republican Party while making the case for the continuation of leftism perpetuated by the Democratic Party.

Using the reasoning that the enemy of the good is the perfect, here are a few questions for the #NeverTrump crowd: Who else was going to beat Secretary Clinton? I voted for Cruz and supported Rubio wholeheartedly until he dropped out of the race, but if it weren’t for Trump in Florida, Rubio loses, to the detriment of Florida and the country. Were Drs. Thomas Sowell and Victor Davis Hanson wrong for supporting Trump? Are they stupid, unwise, without domestic or international knowledge or simply non-prudent bumpkins? Not hardly.

Final question for The National Review and The Weekly Standard folks and California policymakers who didn’t support Trump, and still lost: After your high-priced and overpaid columns, speeches, lectures, luncheons, dinners, conferences, radio and television appearance along with week long cruises around the world, where you are all speak and no action, what would you have done if Hillary Clinton had won and the Democrats were in control?

Because for 99.9 percent of the world under assault from the U.S. and California Democratic Party over social issues (abortion, gay marriage – support it or else – transgender rights – also support it or else, and global warming – unfortunately, support it or else) not to mention the disaster that is taking place around the world echoed by Victor Davis Hanson and for California, written extensively by Joel Kotkin over its forthcoming financial and societal meltdown there are few options over our intrusive, leviathan government. What are your answers? As opposed to we hate Trump’s tweets and he isn’t Reagan?

Trump is confronting Russia, China, North Korea and Iran the way Reagan confronted Russia. Secretary Tillerson is exactly what is needed to deal with those four bastard countries. The day of niceties red-reset buttons with Russia are over.

Here’s what today’s Democrats are giving us: Higher taxes, horrible racist, crime-infested cities, poor infrastructure, failing universities and public education, higher taxes, global warming policies costing trillions and most Republicans go right along with it like lambs to the slaughter. Is it any wonder the country elected Trump? Paradoxically, these same Republicans and the #NeverTrump crowd still haven’t repealed Obamacare, cut taxes or begun rebuilding the military – it’s been Trump – and it’s why you owe him an apology. Begin working with him, and start preparing for the foreign policy disaster that is coming our way when California implodes and China/North Korea, Russia or Iran attacks us.

Todd Royal is a geopolitical risk and energy consultant based in Los Angeles.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: China, Donald Trump, NeverTrump, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Todd Royal

The Unintended Geopolitical Consequences of Abortion

January 5, 2017 By Todd Royal 8 Comments

Using moderate counts of worldwide abortions there have been over 1.2 billion babies aborted since 1980. This works out to approximately one death by abortion for each second of the year. Seemingly there’s no comparison to the efficiency of ending human life than abortion. Murderous regimes, plagues and even the HIV-AIDS virus, which has ravaged mankind, all pale in comparison to abortion. Nothing equals abortion for having the geopolitical and social ramifications for nations and regimes. The extreme impact is now being seen globally.

As an example, take the low birth rates in countries such as Germany, Japan and Russia. These countries are below the replacement level, and their diminished birth levels, not counting abortion into the mix, are 1.5 babies or lower. These developed nations, and the United States, have older citizens retiring at rapid rates in places like Southern California and other affluent areas worldwide. California isn’t having babies anymore, and that is a direct affect of polices popularizing abortion. No American state is more pro-abortion than California, and the results are disastrous for the United States, and its geopolitical standing in the world.

Popular entitlement programs, such as the U.S. Social Security system, are in danger of insolvency, as populations shrink via lower birth rates and abortions. The issue becomes having less people working and paying taxes into these programs, and abortion is a major factor towards these issues.

European nations have to let in immigrants – they don’t have a choice – Europe is literally withering away. Immigration in Germany and Japan is needed to boost productivity, maintain the current size of the population, and provide youthful infusion into their societies. If wealthy nations want to compete in global economics, they have to let in all sorts of immigrants, refugees and anyone who will work, no matter the circumstances. Germany in 2015 let in one million immigrants, while Spain, Portugal, Italy, and the U.K., also need more, not less immigration. Europe’s largest economy, Germany is projected to shrink by over 6 million workers by 2030. Europe is looking at a direct threat to economic growth, pension stability, single-payer healthcare and basic social services.

Add abortion into the mix with low replacement rates, and the makings of a geopolitical disaster looms on the horizon. Nowhere has abortion affected world economies and geopolitical rumblings more than China’s one-child policy, which it has finally renounced. Though the disastrous, emotional trauma still lingers, a policy that supposedly made sense at one time, has now proven an albatross around the Chinese and world economy’s neck.

Deng Xiaping’s move to limit population growth allowed China to focus more on industrialization, or so the theory went, but according to the United Nations, China has one of the slowest population growths in the world while aging exponentially. China doesn’t have enough youth, and young adults to overcome the amount of aging and infirmed in China, which is causing their economic expansion to rapidly halt. And that means trouble for the developed and developing world economies that rely on China being a fully integrated economic partner. Not an interloper of old age stagnation.

China has averaged over 13 million forced abortions a year since the one-child policy began in 1978 and now has over 30 million more male bachelors than women. The geopolitical question to answer is what does China do with disgruntled men who will have a hard time finding wives, starting families and living under a slower economy? If China even has a portion of the Middle East’s problems associated with male disgruntlement, then the world could be looking at disasters it hasn’t grappled with since World War II. China will have 60 million fewer people under the age of 15, because of their one-child policy. That’s the size of Italy – just one portion of abortions in China – has lessened the population more than a major European country.

Russia is another problem for the world. Their high ranking of abortions versus live births could have something to do with their foreign and domestic policy now being a global geopolitical headache. In 2008, Russia had equal number of births to abortions, and their demographic replacement rate is also dropping to insufficient levels according to the Russian Health Ministry. It can be argued that Russia is invading neighbors, because they are a dying country that needs the people and resources; by whatever means necessary.

Bolshevik rule implemented a public abortion culture the devalued human life, and it is now costing Russia dearly. Birth control can cost more than abortion procedures in Russia, and the ripple of Bolshevik population control policies have come to fruition. A 2013 U.N. report revealed Russia had 37.4 abortions per 1000 women aged 15-44. This was the highest figure of any country in the report.

A failed U.S. policy of resetting with Russia against the backdrop of NATO leaders recently meeting about a galvanized Cold War adversary should cause the world to take action against abortion. As Russia continues to arm itself with updated nuclear weapons and weaponry this should also give pause to anyone who cares about world stability and peace. But when your population is dying from an atheistic, birth-control policy, then Russia has to do something; invade neighboring sovereign nations, put Russian warships and fighter jets in close proximity to NATO military hardware, or attack a U.S. diplomatic official at the door of the American embassy in Moscow. Nothing is out of the question when you are aborting your future citizens at alarming, irreplaceable rates.

World leaders question why Putin is building up his nuclear triad, and armed forces, instead of working with the world community for greater economic gain and integration. Neocons would see weakness on the part of the U.S. as the issue, whereas western, social democrats find the root cause residing from the fact that Putin lives in a non-civilized existence.

While both reasons are correct, could it not be argued that abortion ravaging a population has caused the Russian leader to look elsewhere for the next generation of Russians? If abortion continues its destructive path among Russian women, then we could only be witnessing the beginning of Russia’s geopolitical adventures across the globe.

The most serious problem that overtakes Europe, Russia and China is the United States where the U.S. has aborted over 59 million babies since Roe v. Wade. The world’s largest economy and traditional defender of freedom now has a declining fertility rate, even with a stronger economy. Traditional U.S. people-groups who have usually had larger replacement rate (defined as 2.1 children per woman for population stability), Hispanic women are no longer true. No group’s fertility has fallen faster in a particular demographic group in the past 25 years. The U.S. should be producing babies at a faster rate than during the recession, but according to the University of New Hampshire, 3.4 million fewer births have taken place since 2008. Fifteen percent fewer children have been born since 2007 in the U.S., and that is a catastrophe.

The United States is now becoming Germany, and other low-birth rate European countries, as we are opening the floodgates to immigration that has never taken place in American history. Opening the U.S. to unstable areas such as Central America, drug-lord-ruled Mexico, the Middle East, East Asia and Africa for new immigrants, because of high abortion rates and low replacement rates will change the United States’ geography, politics, military preparedness and economic future.

Things are becoming so dire that according to ASPCA there are now 43 million households with dogs whereas in 2014 there are only 33 million American households with their own children.

Syndicated columnist Joel Kotkin puts it best about the future of American society when he writes:

“Without a strong familial structure the United States will be facing a rather grim future, as an expanding older population grows ever more dependent on a shrinking base of young working-age people. In the 1980s the Reagan boom benefited from demographics that had more workers than retirees – no such expansion may even be possible today.”

Now imagine if the U.S. had even half of the 59 million aborted? Would the same things about our economic future and demographics be contemplated – probably not – because more than likely – the numbers wouldn’t be so grim. Abortion will be the geopolitical game-changer in the coming decades, because of the United States. Yet greens and environmentalists such as Bill McKibbon believe in smaller families and more, not less abortion, as a way to save the planet.

This small, even childless future is their ideal-shibboleth, because these unwanted children only represent themselves as carbon emitters. Kotkin also calls men like, McKibbon, and Gov. Jerry Brown, “the green clergy, or clerisy,” in their attempts to limits families and do away with single family homes; which are best suited for raising children, in favor of high-density apartments for the masses. Believers in this doctrine (the U.S. Democratic Party’s platform – see page 19), Al Gore, and most left-leaning environmental organizations should be discredited and thrown out into the dustbin of history for their policies that favor killing helpless babies.

But nowhere has abortion killed an entire generation of people the way it has black Americans. This group of Americans is being slaughtered by abortion when you consider they make up only 12 percent of the U.S. population while accounting for almost a third of total abortions. One out of two black women choose an abortion over keeping the baby, and “a black baby is five times more likely to be killed in the womb than a white baby.” There have been over 16 million abortions since Roe v. Wade, which has caused a 36 percent reduction of the black population. In places such as New York City, and other large metropolitan areas, black babies are being aborted at a faster pace than being born.

Putting this into perspective there have been roughly 1,100 blacks killed by police officers in the last 10 years, yet abortions kill over 2,000 black babies every week. In 2015, police killed 300 black people, yet abortions wipe out that many black babies in one day. Certain African-American inspired political movements continue to stay silent about abortion, and even support the process vehemently, when enough black babies have been killed to fill over 200 football stadiums across America. But somehow law enforcement is evil, and the problem in black communities, yet the facts tell another story.

We have wiped out decades of Booker T. Washingtons, Michael Jordans and Robert L. Johnsons while black men and women overwhelmingly support the U.S. Democratic Party that advocates for the wholesale destruction of babies that America, and the world needs.

This abortion crisis, which has merged into a low-birthrate-immigrant-catastrophe will haunt and eventually overrun some of the world’s greatest cultures unless countries such as the United States, Russia, China and all of Europe begin to outlaw abortion and value children. Syria and North Africa immigrants alone will change Europe into something Saladin dreamed of, but never achieved without ever firing a shot. Abortion has changed everything for the worse.

It has become fashionable to ignore problems, and believe they will go away, but abortion is changing demographics and cultures in unimaginable ways. But it has to be remembered that the U.S., and Europe in particular, need low-skill, low-income, immigrants and migrants from the developing world to replace our weakened Christian foundations that has allowed abortion to flourish. Despite widespread opposition by electorates across the globe from unfettered immigration, it doesn’t matter what they say or vote, because the developed world needs the people, even if they come from the daily chaos of their developing nations.

Economic engines in Europe (Germany in particular), the U.S., Japan, Canada, Australia and even Singapore will grind to a halt without immigrants and migrants from countries that produce children and have lower abortion rates. If abortion continues under current projections then 99 percent of the world’s growth will take place in despondent countries, which leaves the future of the developing world bleak at best. This crisis of abortion is a clarion call to save black babies, save babies worldwide, and save storied countries who are literally dying as each day passes, because of abortion.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Abortion, China, Russia

The Type of Prosperity California Ought to Show the World

December 28, 2016 By Ed Ring 7 Comments

As reported earlier this month in the Los Angeles Times, California policymakers are expanding their war on “climate change” at the same time as the rest of the nation appears poised to re-evaluate these priorities. In particular, California’s Legislature has reaffirmed the commitment originally set forth in the 2006 “Global Warming Solutions Act” (AB 32) to reduce the state’s CO2 emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.

Just exactly how California policymakers intend to do this merits intense discussion and debate. As the Los Angeles Times reporter put it, “The ambitious new goals will require complex regulations on an unprecedented scale, but were approved in Sacramento without a study of possible economic repercussions.”

At the risk of providing actual quantitative facts that may be extraordinarily challenging for members of California’s Legislature, most of whom have little or no formal training in finance or economics (ref. California’s Economically Illiterate Legislature, 4/05/2016), the following chart depicts data that helps explain the futility of what California’s citizens are about to endure:

CALIFORNIA ENERGY CONSUMPTION, POPULATION, GDP, AND CO2 EMISSIONS
Comparisons to the rest of the USA, China, India, and the world

(For links to all sources for this compilation, scroll down to “FOOTNOTES”)

The first row of data in the above table is “Carbon emissions,” column one shows California’s total annual CO2 emissions including “CO2 equivalents” – bovine flatulence, for example, is included in this number – expressed in millions of metric tons (MMT). As shown, in 2014 (the most recent year with complete data available) California’s CO2 emissions were down to 358 MMT. That’s 73 MMT lower than 1990, when they were 431 MMT. While this is a significant reduction, it is not nearly enough according to California’s state legislature. To hit the 40 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2030, CO2 emissions still need to be reduced by another 100 MMT, to 258 MMT. That’s another 28 percent lower than they’ve already fallen. But California is already way ahead of the rest of the world.

As shown on row 8 of the above table, California’s “carbon intensity” – the amount of CO2 emissions generated per dollar of gross domestic product – is already twice as efficient as the rest of the U.S., twice as efficient as the rest of the world, more than three times as efficient as China, and nearly twice as efficient as India. We’re going to do even more? How?

A few more data observations are necessary. As shown, California’s population is 0.5 percent of world population. California’s GDP is 2 percent of the world GDP. California’s total energy consumption is 1.4 percent of world energy consumption, and California’s CO2 emissions are 1 percent of the world’s total CO2 emissions.

These stark facts prove that nothing Californians do will matter. If Californians eliminated 100 percent of their CO2 emissions, it would not matter. On row 1 above, observe the population of China – 1.4 billion; the population of India – 1.3 billion. Together, just these two developing nations have 70 times as many people as California. The per capita income of a Californian is four times that of someone living in China; nine times that of someone living in India. These nations are going to develop as much energy as they can, as fast as they can, at the lowest possible cost. They have no choice. The same is true for all emerging nations.

So what is really going on here?

If California truly wanted to set an example for the rest of the world, they would be developing clean, safe, exportable technologies for nuclear power and clean fossil fuel. Maybe some of California’s legislators should take a trip to Beijing, where burning coal generated electricity and poorly formulated gasoline creates killer fogs that rival those of London in the 1900’s. Maybe they should go to New Delhi, where diesel generators supplement unreliable central power sources and raise particulate matter to 800 PPM or worse. Maybe they should go to Kuala Lampur, to choke on air filled with smoke from forests being incinerated to grow palm oil diesel (a “carbon neutral” fuel).

According to the BP Statistical Review of Global Energy, in 2015, renewables provided 2.4 percent of total energy. Hydroelectric power provided 6.8 percent, and nuclear power provided 4.4 percent. Everything else, 86 percent of all energy, came from fossil fuel. In the real world, people living in cities in emerging nations need clean fossil fuel. So they can breathe. Clean fossil fuel technology is very good and getting better all the time. That is where investment is required. Right now.

Instead, purportedly to help the world, California’s policymakers exhort their citizens to accept a future of rationing enforced through punitive rates for energy and water consumption that exceed approved limits. They exhort their citizens to submit to remotely monitored, algorithmic management of their household appliances to “help” them save money on their utility bills. Because supposedly this too averts “climate change,” they restrict land development and exhort their citizens to accept home prices that now routinely exceed $1,000 per square foot anywhere within 50 miles of the Pacific coast, on lots too small to even put a swing set in the yard for the kids. They expect their citizens to avoid watering their lawns, or even grow lawns. And they will enforce all indoor restrictions with internet enabled appliances, all outdoor restrictions with surveillance drones.

This crackdown is a tremendous opportunity for a handful of high-technology billionaires operating in the Silicon Valley, along with an accompanying handful of California’s elites who benefit financially from politically contrived, artificial resource scarcity. For the rest of us, and for the rest of the world, at best, it’s a misanthropic con job.

The alternative is tantalizing. Develop clean fossil fuel and safe nuclear power, desalination plants, sewage recycling and reservoirs to capture storm runoff. Loosen restrictions on land development and invest in road and freeway upgrades. Show the world how to cost-effectively create clean abundance, and export that culture and the associated enabling technologies to the world. Then take credit as emerging nations achieve undreamed of prosperity. With prosperity comes literacy and voluntarily reduced birthrates. With fewer people comes far less pressure on the great wildernesses and wildlife populations that remain, as well as fisheries and farmland. And eventually, perhaps in 25 years or so, renewables we can only imagine today, such as nuclear fusion, shall come to practical fruition.

That is the example California should be showing to the world. That is the dream they should be selling.

Ed Ring is the vice president of policy research for the California Policy Center.

FOOTNOTES

Population
World Population Clock:
http://www.worldometers.info/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population
Directorate-General of the European Commission:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurostat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_member_states_by_population
US Census Bureau – California:
http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/06

Carbon Emissions
U.S. Energy Information Administration:
http://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/?sid=CA#series/226
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change:
http://unfccc.int/ghg_data/ghg_data_unfccc/items/4146.php
http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/overview.php?v=CO2ts1990-2014&sort=des9
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

Total Energy Consumption
BP Statistical Review of World Energy:
http://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/en/corporate/pdf/bp-statistical-review-of-world-energy-2015-full-report.pdf
California per capita energy consumption:
http://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/?sid=CA#series/12

GDP
World Bank:
http://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/GDP_PPP.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
US Dept of Commerce – Bureau of Economic Analysis:
https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_state/gsp_newsrelease.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP

Note: There are only minor differences between the nominal US GDP and PPP (purchasing power parity) US GDP:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal). With other nations, such as China and India, however, the differences are significant. Using purchasing power parity GDP figures for comparisons yields ratios that more accurately reflect energy intensity and carbon intensity among nations.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: China, Clean energy, Ed Ring, Energy, India, Renewable Energy

Paris Climate Conference a Chance for Jerry and Arnold to Blow Hot Air

November 29, 2015 By James Lacy 6 Comments

It is axiomatic that California’s liberal political leaders would gather in Paris at this sensitive time – to discuss climate change. And their assertions in Paris about their actual achievements in climate change in California will surely border on bombast.

News reports being put out by the governor’s office tout that California’s “hot” emissions have dropped 7 percent in the last 11 years. But that has nothing to do with Jerry and Arnold’s costly pee-wee war on climate change. The improvement has much more to do with increases in numbers of vehicles on the road that are meeting ever higher federal auto clean air standards, coupled with California’s decades-long stringent requirements on vehicle and fuel emissions. The fact is the air in Los Angeles today is 99 percent cleaner than it was in 1990 and there hasn’t been a smog alert in over 20 years. (The cleaner air today logically even calls into question whether California should continue to regulate the smell of baking bread, for example, under its current and dated clean air regulations.)

Yet none of the accomplishment in the Los Angeles basin will be touted, or has much of anything to do with the additional costly regulations that Jerry Brown will be talking about in Paris on the climate change issue. Jerry and Arnold and the other liberal California politicians will push their climate change policies as “taking a firehose” to the problem. The truth is more like a phrase attributed to William F. Buckley – California’s efforts here are like an “ant farting into a windstorm.” If there is a windstorm.

If there is global carbon to be reduced, it comes from China, not so much California, and the Paris conferees would do a lot better for themselves to browbeat the Chinese communist leaders during the entire event, to adopt significant industrial pollution standards, than listen to what Jerry and Arnold have to say about California’s tiny contribution to the world global carbon “footprint” in comparison to China. It is hard to get reliable statistics about Chinese pollution, however, in 2007, the New York Times wrote, “Environmental degradation is now so severe, with such stark domestic and international repercussions, that pollution poses not only a major long-term burden on the Chinese public but also an acute political challenge to the ruling Communist Party.” The article asserted that according to the Chinese Ministry of Health, industrial pollution has made cancer China’s leading cause of death, that 500 million people in China were without safe and clean drinking water, and that only 1 percent of the country’s 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the European Union, because all of its major cities are constantly covered in a “toxic gray shroud.”

The Chinese pollution, according to the article, has spread internationally: sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides fall as acid rain on Seoul, South Korea, and Tokyo; and according to the Journal of Geophysical Research, the pollution even reaches Los Angeles. But even with the Chinese pollution coming our way, California’s environment has greatly improved over the last decades and it has little to do with Jerry Brown’s new intentions to levy even more consumption taxes on working and poor families, raising their cost of living, their utility bills, and the cost of basic necessities, for some sketchy sort of de minimus attack on global carbon. In the meantime Chinese pollution has certainly gotten worse.

Finally, it is simply a lie for Jerry and Arnold to say in Paris, as they will, that the new California carbon regulations have been implemented without hurting the state’s economy. In the same period these new carbon taxes have come online, California has seen significant increases in the cost of living, reduction in disposable income for average families, and the highest poverty rate in the nation for what looks to be three years running. California’s carbon taxes are making our poor, poorer. And that deserves much more focus than falsely premised victory laps in Paris.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: China, Climate change, environment, Jerry Brown, Paris, Pollution