China's green zeal

Like I stated in a previous post, one of the most pleasant surprises from my recent trip to China is that the country's surprisingly green. While the most salient signs are in the area of energy conservation, there is also an increasing awareness of the need for pollution control and biodiversity. I believe I even heard a couple of mentions of climate change on CCTV (the state owned TV stations).

One of the most common sights in Northern China is the solar water heater. On the train ride from Beijing to Qingdao, I can see one of these on just about every building. They look like this



At first I thought this is only used by poorer folks who can't afford gas, but I was able to find a lot of these in the cities too.



In addition to widespread use of solar power, the locals adopted a wide variety of power saving measures that I thought are both simple and effective. For example, the windows of many Chinese high rises can be opened, saving money on heat and air condition.



Another innovation is that appliances that don't need to be on are shut off. In many malls in China, the escalators have sensors that detect movement, and when there's no one around it shuts down. Similarly, the lights on the hallways of most apartment buildings have sound detectors that switches them off when not needed. This can present a slight inconvenience for people who don't talk all the time, but is a small price to pay if you consider the kilowatts that can be saved.

I also detected a high level of awareness for the importance of biodiversity. Here's a poster of Yao Min promoting a boycott of Shark Fin Soup. Since that's mostly a Cantonese delicacy, I'm not sure if such a campaign will make a lot of difference in Beijing. I hope this campaign is also taking place in Southern China.



Thomas Friedman said in his new book that we're entering a Climate-Energy Era, and the country that can take the lead in developing new green technologies will dominate this new era. If President-Elect Obama fails to follow through on his promise to invest heavily in green technology then the US will surely lose its leadership position to China.