We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

China’s drivers and planetary ecological collapse

Click here to access article by Richard Smith, PhD in economics, posted as a PDF file in the latest professional journal of the Real-World Economics Review.

Unfortunately this author has a very common name which has caused me endless minutes/hours to access his writings or to verify writings by him. However, I have no doubts that this is the same "Richard Smith" who has authored an article (entitled "Capitalism and the Destruction of Life on Earth") which I consider a "foundational" article that supports my concerns about the prospect of climate destabilization that is now facing humans.

I am posting this scholarly article by him because it offers another rather comprehensive view of China's political and economic policies with particularly emphasis on environmental issues. I have had considerable difficulty in accessing unbiased articles in alternative websites about China's policies in relation to the issue of climate destabilization. Recently articles authored by Jeff Brown of China Rising have been posted and re-posted on alternative websites, but I consider him as too much of a cheerleader for all things China nowadays. He is rarely critical of anything regarding China. I offer this to you as a counter-balance to such articles, and I will leave it to you, as a critical thinker, to decide on the merits of Smith's observations about China and its leadership regarding this issue.