This past Wednesday I went to a lecture on China by Orville Schell who is a guru on everything China. What is happening in China is so very interesting and will undoubtedly affect us all.

Some facts I jotted down from the lecture.

- China and USA have an unstable and strange relationship.

- China sells North America tons of 'stuff' that we need, and in this way the USA is empowering Chinese economy and making China wealthy. China then uses money from USA to buy US Treasury Bills, giving China some big influence in US economy. China recently threatened to shift it's investments into Europe, which would have a significant effect on US economy. This threat was seen as somewhat empty since relationship between US and China mutually beneficial and they are very much codependent. But this codependency does not exclude such events from happening, if in the future the US economy seemed no longer economically viable to China.

- China is running out of natural resources, like everyone else. Glaciers in Tibet are melting which means China will have no fresh water source in the future. To cope China is working to re-plomb the whole country with aqueducts.

- China is polluted from so much industrialization and economic growth, much of this pollution travels by air to North America. Often in China the sun isn't visible for weeks on end. China's economic growth is measured at 11%/yr versus US 2-3%.

- 70% of China's energy comes from coal (50% in USA). 1-2 new conventional coal power plants are built every week! Coal is huge contributor to greenhouse gases, and thus China is a major contributor to global warming.

- If China and USA don't sign Kyoto and fight to combat climate change, other nations efforts will make very little difference. These two big players must be on board to make any real change.