Ape Rifle

Is North America’s love affair with large, gas-guzzling vehicles finally fizzling out? GM suddenly seems to think so, much to the detriment of workers at one of its truck-producing Canadian plants. The story has dominated Canadian airwaves over the past week, rich in the intrigue of corporate betrayal and linked as it is to the media darling of the moment: high oil prices. Old vs. New Economy, Jobs vs. the Environment, Labour vs. Capital- no familiar framing of the issue has been left dormant. 

Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of this whole affair is the perception that the North American collapse in truck sales came out of nowhere. You would figure that a major global corporation such as GM would have at least a few strategists looking beyond the next quarter. Sure, trucks are much more profitable to sell than small cars, but even your average layman would be hard pressed not to notice the economic and geo-political storms gathering over the industry. GM should have been all over this years ago, not days ago.

But then again, blaming GM is the easy way out. In recent years, the national governments of North America have been notoriously unwilling to put any real pressure on the automobile industry to clean up its act or reduce the size and fuel consumption of its vehicles. Freedom has meant twenty miles per gallon, and forward-looking energy policy reduced to developing the oil sands in Alberta, and developing them quickly at all cost. It’s not hard to see how car manufacturers could get so complacent in such a permissive and supportive environment. Gaz-guzzling had protection from the very top.

With governments and manufacturers mired in their do-nothing myopia, it’s refreshing to see change come from those so often labelled as least willing to alter their behaviour: the consumer (or as known outside of government and academic circles, ‘normal people’). The consumer, in fact, has been a convenient straw man for interests opposed to any real progress on environmental and energy issues: environmentalism is too expensive, the average consumer isn’t willing to pay for it, the reasoning went. Well, this ‘consumer’ in North America has apparently turned the tables: wasting energy is now expensive, and people are no longer willing (or even able) to pay for it.  

North America is built around the automobile, its societies and economies dependent on the gas pump to get anything done. Perhaps this, alongside government complicity, gave GM comfort that its trucks and the like could rule the roads for a while yet. But the error in this logic is that while North Americans can’t go ten minutes without driving, they can easily do so in a vehicle other than a souped-up pickup truck or a Cadillac Escalade. How many SUVs and pickup trucks in your average urban area are necessities to the driver? Probably not many. How many of those drivers could get the exact same utility out of a smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicle? Probably quite a few. It’s strange that ‘utility’ is one of components of the SUV acronym, since to a large proportion of their current owners they are effectively useless. Unlike oil, demand for large vehicles is rather more elastic. The era of the Soccer Mom Monster Truck is likely in its welcome twilight.

At least in North America, that is. 

Jay Peak, Vermont, USA

If Bali were a glass house, the stone-throwing at the UN climate change conference would already have reduced it to a heap of shards. A few days ago, China said the West should take the lead on fighting climate change by reducing its extravagant lifestyle. Then, Brazil and the US took the opportunity to bicker publicly over trade issues. While there are certainly substantive issues underlying these pronouncements, I’m nevertheless left disheartened that the conference is devolving into the usual global warming blame game rather than acting as a space for constructive dialogue. The story is now a tired one and many are weary of hearing it. ‘Developing’ countries blame large industrialized states for producing the historical lion’s share of emissions, and dump the onus on them to spearhead change. Major ‘developed’ countries refuse to move ahead unless their less industrialized counterparts commit themselves to action. And of course, neither side dares question the sacred mantra of economic growth for its own sake.  It is hard to imagine a more potent recipe for inaction. 

In these disputes, all sides involved have recourse to some long-standing myths to defend the stubbornness of their positions. These myths run deep throughout the global economic, political and cultural consciousness, and are quick to emerge in any context where transnational issues are at stake, be they environmental or trade-related. They are at the core of how people order the world and understand their place in it. Unfortunately, these myths are also increasingly mismatched to realities on the ground and impediments to constructive change. The difficulty in addressing climate change, for example, rests as much on the persistence of these myths as it does on the technical feasibility of limiting emissions.

The most persistent of these myths is perhaps the conceptual division of the world into ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries, or ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ nations if you will. China, for example, is quick to decry its poor, wretched state as a ‘developing’ country whenever its development path is called into question. “How can we worry about the environment?”, the argument goes, “we are a poor country just trying to provide for our people”. While few would argue that many hundred of millions of Chinese are still struggling for basic survival, I nevertheless find it increasingly difficult to stomach this argument. While most Chinese people might indeed be ‘poor’, Chinese society in the aggregate certainly is not- in fact, it is completely awash in money. If a government can spend untold billions on a sporting event lasting only two weeks, or pack its urban avenues with more Audis per square mile than any other place on earth, it can hardly claim to lack wealth or resources.

It is thus quite rich that China is pointing a finger at the West for its excess and extravagance. Many Chinese cities, I would argue, have utterly usurped their Western counterparts in the departments of glitz, glamour and luxurious waste for its own sake. Of course, this is not to say that vast swathes of the country and its people are not lacking in basic resources and services- in fact, that is exactly the point. There is a difference between a lack of resources and a misallocation of resources. I would argue that, increasingly, countries such as China which are labelled ‘poor’ are in fact nothing of the sort- rather, its wealth is just so tremendously misspent or misallocated that the large majority of its people remain wanting.China certainly has enough funds and wherewithal to address its environmental concerns- it is just unable (or unwilling) to do since so much of its wealth gets sucked into a corrupt vortex of neon lights, redundant vanity mega-projects and official extravagance.

This environmentally devastating development-on-the-cheap benefits a minority of well-connected urbanites, often to the direct detriment of China’s much more unfortunate masses. And that is why I find it twisted that the plight of these masses be invoked by these same elites in defense of polluting business as usual. The persistence of whole countries being labelled ‘rich’ or ‘poor’ does little but provide an excuse for self-serving elites not to get serious about issues such as climate change- and then allow them to blame their inaction on their fellow citizens whose conditions are much more unfortunate. This will have to change. 

Lest you think only China is in for a drubbing in this post, I will let you know that I am an equal opportunist and will not leave other deserving targets unscathed. Governments in countries such as the United States and my beloved home, Canada, are also particularly attached to self-serving and increasingly counterproductive myths. One of these myths is the conception of the world as a collection of clearly defined nation-states with corresponding economies. Sure there is all that talk about globalization and economic integration, but these are still largely portrayed as actions by states and between states.

Why does this matter? Because when it comes to issues like climate change, this simplification of utterly complex transnational realities only serves to obfuscate responsibility- or in other words, let some major industrialized nations off the hook for the consequences of our consumption habits. For example, it’s very convenient for us to blame China for all its emissions, as if it were some self-contained economy devilishly intent on flooding North American markets with a sea of cheap junk. The reality, however, paints the West in somewhat less of an innocent light- our politicians consistently fail to mention that it is our very own corporations that have essentially built the Chinese economy as a manufacturing backlot. It has been estimated that fully 25% of Chinese emissions result from its exports to the Wal-Marts, dollar stores and Best Buys of the world. 

Pretending the world is an orderly place of neatly divided nation-states might make for some colourful maps, but it doesn’t help us realize the transnational consequences of our own actions. It allows for countries like the US and Canada to claim that China “needs to do more” while conveniently papering over our own fundamental complicity in its mess. It is quite sobering to realize that a major portion of China’s devastating ecological footprint in fact belongs to us North Americans, swelling our already immense impact on the planet. We fight tooth and nail to get our corporate fingers into every global nook and cranny, to hellishly industrialize other places for our own benefit- and then get to blame other governments for everything because there are supposedly in complete control. That’s a pretty good deal. It’s no shock, then, that there is little incentive for Western governments to truly address the massively inefficient wealth allocation in ‘poor’ countries like China- the right people are too busy getting rich, and us peon consumers just simply don’t know or don’t care. This will have to change.

These myths will need to give way if constructive action is to be taken against climate change. We live in a world that is no longer neatly divided between ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ nation-states, and these outdated labels should be shelved so that those who would hide their greed and complacency behind them can no longer do so. Increasingly, people must expose the usual excuses for what they are: self-serving farces. China a ‘poor’ country? Please. The resources are there for action- they are just being grossly misspent. Industrialized Western countries at an economic disadvantage if ‘developing’ countries are not subjected to emissions caps? Please. In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve already moved our manufacturing industries offshore in a wholesale swoop of cost-cutting glory. How much more is there even left to lose?

It would be wonderful if our politicians and government officials in Bali exhibited the seriousness and maturity that climate change deserves. We all have a part to play in affecting positive change, such as examining our own consumption habits, but what is truly needed now is leadership from someone- anyone ! -as opposed to smug, self-serving bickering and empty soundbites based on tired economic ideologies. Unfortunately, all the usual myths remain entangled in the process to mire the proceedings, as they are just too profitable for those interests holding such a death grip on the politics of our globe that I fear our elite classes can no longer even distinguish a difference between corporate profit and societal good. Now if only they would stop treating the global public, be they Chinese or Canadian, as consumption-bloated idiots with no understanding of the issues as stake, our leaders might be shocked at the number of us ready to sacrifice and compromise for a common good. Yes, even in extravagant dens of luxury like Canada. 

After several years as a Western media darling full of flashy skylines and get-rich-quick stories, it would seem that China has been having a bit of a bumpier ride as of late. First came the stories of tainted exports products, then came the uproar over slavery in rural brick kilns; now, a Dutch environmental group has estimated that China may have already overtaken the US as the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter. This announcement comes at a particularly bad time for the Chinese government, what with the Olympics on their way and the public in many industrialized countries deep in the throes of global warning worry (well, at least in between driving their SUV to the corner store). China as the world’s top polluter is obvious ammunition for the anti-China lobby, but Beijing is not taking this loss of face lying down. The Foreign Ministry spokesman was recently quoted firing back this repartee:

“The developed countries move a lot of manufacturing industry into China. A lot of the things you wear, you use, you eat are produced in China,” he said at a regular news briefing. “On the one hand, you shall increase the production in China, on the other hand you criticize China on the emission-reduction issue.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself. As a media junkie, I’ve always been a bit bewildered about all the accusations flying the Middle Kingdom’s way regarding Chinese-Western (well, largely American) relations. China, revalue your currency. China, clean up your act. China, jump through this hoop and do a somersault. Meanwhile, those of us in the more Western reaches of the globe might want to check out what our own multinationals have been up to over the past decade or so- there’s a good chance that if I ply the aisles of some suburban big-box warehouse, the junk filling my shopping cart is from everyone’s favourite East Asian nation. As much as we might loath to admit it, as eager consumers we are all responsible for the Chinese environmental meltdown and its growing effects on the world at large.

So it’s almost comical to hear members of the American political class, for example, taking China to task; I have some bad news for you guys. You know that military/economic/environmental threat you keep going on about? Well, it’s a lumbering Frankenstein largely of your own creation. While economists go on about about the genius of Chinese planning (a sequence of words that might seem rather strange to those who have actually spent some time in the country), an equal salutation should be given to the West’s voracious and guilt-free appetite for cheap consumer goods, without which the Chinese ‘miracle’ would never have been possible. Of course, as the few regular readers of this site should know, this does not mean I’m excusing China’s bulldozer-happy, growth-at-all-costs-including-your-life approach to societal change. The sustainability of this frenzy has yet to be truly tested, and the wholesale destruction of environmental quality might well be the first- and ultimate- manifestation of its limitations. Yet, I do not think it is constructive to pile the emissions blame largely on China, as the West has been just a bit complicit in its mad industrialization in the first place.

So where do we go from here? Well the Chinese government has released a climate change plan that promises to address the issue, but of course not at the expense of those cherished growth figures. And seeing how the Chinese approach economic development with an “All Smokestacks Go!” mentality, I suspect we won’t be seeing meaningful reductions in emissions anytime soon. As for the strategic waffling and delay of many Western governments on the issue, enough has been said already that I don’t need to remind anyone how pathetic the whole situation is.

While it is tempting to imagine that all of this is caused by cartoon-like villains at work, hellbent on planetary destruction, I propose there is something less sinister going on. A recent headline, equally as newsworthy as global warming but likely to garner much less attention, notes that for the first time in history humanity will be more urban than rural. Simply put, ever more people are joining the ranks of those already thoroughly alienated from their environment, through desperation as much as choice, and this is reflected in the actions (or inactions) of leaders of lands industrialized, rapidly industrializing or somehow hoping to industrialize. While the urban condition has provided much that is good to humanity, I would argue that its principal drawback is in the way it distances us from the relevance of the land on which we depend. We are so removed from the processes which sustain us that many of us urbanites no longer even consider them within the scope of our daily lives. Urban survival depends on the accumulation of a virtual wealth which designates who can do what with how much- with precious little regard for the ultimate physical effects this may have on our surroundings. The urban condition allows us to convince ourselves that we are above and beyond ‘nature’ and its whims- or that we can at least forcefully control it through engineering.

And so it is no surprise that environmental issues have to such a large extent been considered a societal niche, a compartmentalized matter alongside and equal to politics, business, sports and entertainment in the classification of our busy lives. Environmentalism can thus be portrayed as a luxury, a left-wing annoyance, something to get around to eventually so that things look nicer and smell better- this is what happens when we imagine ourselves as above and beyond our own environments, in no way connected to the particular lands which we occupy. In this sense, the ‘environment’ is some separate entity which can be preserved or destroyed without much relation to the compartmentalized urban spaces in which we increasingly conceptualize ourselves. Cities may set us free in many ways, but they also provide a very false sense of security.

This alienation of humanity from its environment, embedded so forcefully in the Western doctrines of modernism and industrialism and happily pushed worldwide under the friendly guise of ‘development’, runs so deep in our societal consciousness that it can even be found within environmentalism itself. Hence the talk of preservation, of conservation, as if there is some desirable ‘natural’ state of the world apart from human activity. Our environment becomes something to be managed, but from the outside. This is the sort of mentality that leads to the creation of large national parks from which people are cleared out, as if their presence on this landscape is somehow ‘unnatural’.

And then we get to that whole issue of whether climate change is natural or man-made. Well I would say this whole debate is completely pointless: this is a false dichotomy. Something can only be man-made or natural if you understand these as two mutually exclusive spheres, which I would argue they are not. Human beings are part and parcel of this earth as much as any other creature, as are our actions. So anything we do, including spew pollution into the atmosphere, can and should be considered a natural process. I think it is high time that we relink our idea of ourselves, our cities and our industries with the wider world around us.

So if climate change and pollution can be considered natural, does this mean they are acceptable? Well, I guess it depends on how you approach the issue. From the perspective of the planet, these are neither good nor bad: they just are. I do not believe we can attribute any moral state to the machinations of our planet; continents move, species come and go, weather changes, life goes on in some form or other. The one constant seems to be dynamic change. And part of this change is certainly the work of the particularly busy and industrious species that is humanity. Is it evil or wrong that we so fundamentally affect the way our planet works through industrialism? No. But what if we turn it into a barren, smoggy rock? Hey, shit happens. The dinosaurs cashed out, someday it will be our turn. But the earth will still be the earth and life will go on somehow- maybe it will be the age of cockroaches.

Of course, from a human perspective, we could be in a bit more trouble. We might not be destroying the earth in a cosmic sense, but we are most likely changing the earth in a way that is increasingly hostile to us. From a species-selfish perspective, I worry we are at the very least setting ourselves up for some serious pain in the standard of living department. The more we alienate ourselves from our environment, the more we gleefully allow its ability to sustain us to diminish. Climate change might not be bad for the planet on the grand scale of things, but I have a sinking feeling it could mean a pretty bumpy ride for us humans. Has anyone ever tried eating money or metal? I can’t imagine it’s a very pleasant or nourishing experience.

So while many would accuse our contemporary politicians and unelected autocrats of pandering to short-term interests and their cronies’ pockets, I would argue the opposite: it would seem that our pollution-happy politicians are adhering to a long-term view, perhaps too long, as in “we are all dead in the end anyways, and nothing more than insignificant blips on the grand scale of things”. While it is perhaps admirable to demonstrate such cosmic consciousness, somehow I don’t think these are the best guidelines with which to run governments and states.

But is this lack of real action any surprise, after all? While superficially panicked about global warming, most people are just as unwilling to affect any sort of meaningful change in their lives as their politicians are hesitant to put any hard-hitting policies in place. We can consider ourselves environmentally conscious, or maybe “worried” about the environment, but this often does not reflect at all back onto the habits of our daily lives. We can sit in a fume-belching SUV stuck in traffic while lamenting the crazy weather and threat of climate change- and not even recognize the lunacy in our position. Thanks to our complete conceptual separation from our environment- fueled by modernism, industry and urbanism -we can decry the state of the environment (not our) while not considering for even a few seconds how our own behaviour plays any part in this whole spectacle.

For argument’s sake, there is always the possibility that climate change and growing pollution are not the dire threat to humanity they are often made out to be. As a species, we have proven to be incredibly adaptable, and we could very well evolve to survive on a radically different earth. But then climate change and pollution become an even starker socio-political choice: do we want to live on a polluted planet? Do we truly accept that an industrial world and all its consumer goods mean an increasingly spoiled environment as we understand it? Do we accept that the number of smog days will keep rising? The trade-off for pursuing our current ideas of wealth, happiness and modernity- largely to be found in plastic and redundant packaging - is a planet that is dirtier, more unstable and likely much less beautiful. Are we willing to make that sacrifice? I would argue that many of us already have without even thinking about it.

I guess you could say I’m a glutton for punishment. Working in China was a great time, and studying at LSE is shaping up to be one, but for such international experience I am forced to make significant sacrifices. Over the past three years, I have become accustomed to life without blue sky. Whether breathing the intense industrial smog of Northern China or, more recently, getting dumped on by the perma-clouds in the UK, I have to make do with a life largely devoid of clean, crisp sunshine.

It is such that when I come across a clear, blue day, I must look at the sky and stand in awe of whatever warped entity endowed such beauty on us poor humans. Not much on this planet is more beautiful than a beautiful day.

Now you might be surprised that when the sun comes out in London, it is indeed a gorgeous place. Air pollution here really is minimal; kudos to whomever managed to get it cleaned up. Unfortunately, these nice days hide among an onslaught of cloudcover, mist, fog, drizzle, rain and whatever else you can do to the sky to make it naturally gray. If London can be beautiful, it can alternatively also be quite depressing. And cold. And wet.

But this morning, as I opened my curtains I was treated to a vast blue expanse, disturbed only by the numerous airliners criss-crossing the sky as they line up for landing at Heathrow. So, to commemorate this remarkable time, I present the first annual, completely biased Blue Sky Awards.

The “Not as Bad as You’d Expect” Award (China): Shanghai

Ok, ok. Shanghai’s air can be pretty bad. But compared to most other places in the country, this east coast megalopolis is pretty tame in the particulate matter department. Granted, this has probably been achieved by banishing filthy industry to the countryside, but I guess Shanghai still deserves some credit. Blue sky can actually be seen here, and was experienced upon several visits.

The “Not as Bad as You’d Expect” Award (International): New York, London

New York

London

For such huge, industrialized urban agglomerations, the air quality in these places is absolutely top knotch (unless you are a native, then you will bitch about it constantly, especially in London). When people talk of escaping London’s ’smog’ for the countryside, they must be referring to the smoke in bars, because there is nary an industrial emission in sight. Now, if only they could work on that street level diesel stench…

Granted, success here has probably been achieved by banishing filthy industry to developing countries, but I guess New York and London still deserve some credit. Unlike some places, they seem to have stumbled upon an amazing invention: emission controls.

The “Worse Than You Can Imagine” Award: Chongqing and Zibo, Shandong

I think these pictures are pretty self-explanatory.

Dear God.

Chongqing

Zibo

The “Not as Good as You’d Expect” Award: Hainan, Xishuangbanna

These two major tourist destinations offer sunlight and relaxation, and are definitely miles ahead of the more populated areas of China in terms of blue sky. Yet, they still seem incapable of completely escaping the haze that sits over all of Asia. Hainan, through no fault of its own, sits just a bit too close to the Guangdong industrial powerhouse. I’m not too sure where the haze in Xishuangbanna came from, but it was sadly noticeable on my last visit.

A certain something sits over the Mekong in Xishuangbanna

The “Absolutely Stunning” Award: Lijiang, Yunnan and Dunhuang, Gansu

I think these pictures are pretty self-explanatory.

Lijiang

Dunhuang

Wow.

The “Really Amazing for a City” Award: Kunming and Montreal

Kunming

Montreal

There is not much better than the shock of fresh air one gets in Kunming upon arrival from Eastern China. Along similar lines, there is not much better than realizing that my hometown of three and a half million people has cleaner air than many rural areas on the planet. A smog warning in Montreal is a complete joke: who is smoking the cigarette?

The “Most Frustrating” Award: Hangzhou

Hangzhou on a good day

Hangzhou on a bad day

My second home in China was perhaps the most annoying in terms of air quality. One day would be gorgeous, and then the next would be so filthy as to simulate life inside an exhaust pipe. It could be a beautiful place and an industrial hell all wrapped into one, neat Chinese package. Not quite paradise on earth, but an occasional clear autumn day by West Lake was good enough.

The “Complete Shock” Award: Arriving in Vancouver from China

I guess Canada really is, uhh, beautiful and clean.

The “The US Is The Biggest Polluter on Earth?? What??” Award: Rhode Island

Star and Stripes, lookin’ good

I’ve always loved New England, and for good reason.

The “Pretty Bad for a ‘developed’ Country” Award: Paris

Ok, I haven’t been there since 1997, but when I lived there was a certain stench in the air. Being a fresh-faced Canadian boy, it was my first experience of life with diesel and without catalytic converters. I still remember the brown cloud that usually greeted us upon our final descent to the airport. I’m sure that it pales compared to the Chinese effort, but, hey, I’ve got to bash some Western places too.

Reports are flooding in from across the US of massive gridlock, running hundreds of miles up to the US/Canadian border, as millions flee the expected purge of liberal America. With a Bush victory now confirmed, most of those interviewed weren’t sticking around long enough for the speeches. “Cheney’s got a list, he’s checking it twice…and I’m on it”, said one man as he bundled his family into the back of their car.

In one particularly frantic scene, a helicopter was swarmed by thousands of desperate refugees on a rooftop in New York City as rumours spread that Republicans had reached the outer suburbs. As the helicopter took off, several Republicans known to have supported Kerry hung on to its landing skids for dear life. “Tell my wife I love her!” yelled one of the distraught men.

Elsewhere in America, liberal bastions sat in an eerie calm of empty streets, discarded posters and shuttered windows.

Some stragglers nervously scraped Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers off their cars and hung “We Welcome Our Dear Leader” banners from lamp posts. “John Kerry? Who’s that? I’m a patriot! Long Live Bush and the Red Revolution!” said one unidentified woman as she burned her Kerry/Edwards lawn sign.

John and Suzanne Bailey, two Californians who found refuge at their relatives’ home in Hamilton, Ontario, were “very lucky to have made it out before the border closed”.

“I mean, how bad can Canadian winters really be?”, John asked, as he inhaled deeply from his quasi-legal joint.

Back in Chicago, however, Mike Smith seemed more resigned to his fate. He hadn’t seen any Republicans yet, but claims to have heard sporadic outbursts of “4 more years!” coming from the outskirts throughout the night. “They should be in the city within a day at most”, he predicted, “I don’t expect much of a fight”.

“I just hope the re-education camp serves decent coffee”.

Update: CNN picks up on the story.

Well, it would seem that life has quickly outpaced my ability to write about it (go figure). Here we are in early September, and yet my blog seems stuck somewhere back in the wilds of Northwestern China circa early July. I’m leaving for London in a week and I still haven’t managed to finish my travel journals. Oops.

I guess it is because I’ve been having so much fun playing tourist in my own neck of the woods. I’ve been approaching once familiar and mundane scenes with a completely new and rather sinocized perspective, aka “the sky is so blue!” syndrome. From exploring Old Montreal to canoeing on an isolated lake in pristine Quebec wilderness, I’ve been having a grand old time.

Today I just got back from a weeklong trip that took me through two of my favourite places on earth: New England and New York City. They have both had a significant effect on my life; the former because I spent a month there every summer for sixteen years, the latter because I was so frikkin’ obsessed with it when I was a kid. I hadn’t been down to the States since 1999, so it was great to visit the southern neighbour that is so familiar, yet still so very different. In Canada, a “small” beverage is not larger than a bucket. : )

For those very few dedicated readers wondering where China fits into all this, fear not: I still have travel journals from Turpan and Dunhuang to post here, and they definitely feature some of the more amusing experiences from the whole trip. But as Ape Rifle changes continents once again and moves further away from life in China, I’m not sure which direction this blog will take. I will still follow everything of interest in China-related news, but sadly there will be no more first-hand tales of life in the Middle Kingdom. Perhaps we will have to settle for accounts of mangled Mandarin in the Chinese eateries of London.

So to reflect the gradual move away from China that this blog must make, I’ll take the lazy way out and post some pictures of the places I’ve explored this summer in North America.
Montreal, Ottawa, Rhode Island and New York will all, in good time,get the dedicated posts they deserve. For starters, though, I offer some simple eye candy.

Hotel-de-Ville
Montreal, Quebec

Boulevard Rene-Levesque
Montreal, Quebec

St-Lawrence River
Montreal, Quebec

Parliament Hill
Ottawa, Ontario

Chateau Laurier
Ottawa, Ontario

“Trout Lake”
North of Shawinigan, Quebec

Newport, Rhode Island, USA

7th Avenue
New York, NY

Downtown Canyons
New York, NY

Before I start rambling on about my adventures on this continent, however, I will give my China experience the proper closure it deserves. So, next up and last stops: Turpan, Xinjiang and Dunhuang, Gansu.

When I was little, I used to draw a lot. Buildings and cityscapes were my preferred themes, although the occasional superhero snuck in there (I seem to remember a particular fondness for all things Batman, circa 1989). Transformers, Fraggle Rock, comics, some “in the future” book I loved to borrow from the library; I had numerous influences. But somehow, no matter what I was working on, I almost invariably managed to sneak a cityscape in somehow.

Recently I’ve been thinking about a drawing I did sometime in the late 80s. The memory is a bit hazy but I recall that, for some reason, I had decided this scene would take place in 1997. Of course, to any young kid way back then, that year seemed like a distant, wondrous future. My drawing was thus a utopian scene of flying personal vehicles, sky transportation links and cathedral spire-like glass towers among the clouds. This was a pretty slick 1997 I was imagining for myself.

Yet here we are in 2004 (even further into the future!), and my twenty-three year old self is thoroughly disappointed. A transportation revolution? Forget it, the antiquated internal combustion still rules supreme. Sky links? Nope, most people are still stuck in grinding traffic at ground level. Futuristic architecture? This area is doing a little better, but most new buildings are just the same basic structure type with an extra layer of glitz slapped on to look shiny. So what happened to the 21st century? Where is this new world promised to us by popular culture back in the day? 2004 could be a shinier, sleeker 1974.

In the past few years, I for one feel like I have been assailed with talk of how much the world is changing. Technology, globalization and the internet are supposedly working together to revolutionize human existence. In this world of change, everything invariably improves as the wonders of progress march on. Sure there are big bumps on this road, like worldwide terrorism , but they will soon be defeated. Fitter, happier, more productive-a world of endless, problem-free growth.

But somewhere along the line between the late 80s and the present, I lost my faith in progress. As much as technological changes pile upon us, so many things have stayed exactly the same. Despite the exterior gloss of our civilization, we are the same animals. Reading world headlines, you could argue that we haven’t moved much beyond our time in the trees, eagerly clubbing the other ape for its bananas.

Governments around the world have given up on true innovation, instead repeating stale mantras about “competition” and “economic growth”. Some administrations, such as the one currently running the United States, are even quite happy to turn back the clock: why bother with new technology when the old, destructive methods are much better at stuffing your cronies’ pockets? Coal, the energy of the future: hmmm, sounds like progress to me. If you are living in 1790, that is.

My time in China has not brought me any closer to believing in true progress. I will of course admit that, compared to its own situation thirty years ago, this country has come leaps and bounds. But on the frontier of progress it is not, despite what Shanghai looks like. It is quite busy trying to catch up with the 20th century, let alone the 21st. The idea of modernity around here seems lifted right out of 1950s America. It only looks glitzier because it’s happening fifty years later. I see a lot of copying and imitation, but no innovation. “You see, we have this wonderful new invention that will revolutionize the world. Ladies and gentlemen, we are proud to present to you…the fossil-fuel based private car!”

Lest you think the point of this post is China bashing, I will now heap some scorn on the most deserving of continents, North America. It has the money, education and culture to pump out tons of true innovation, and yet it is hopelessly stuck in a rut. We seem resigned to tweaking the status quo, simply because it’s easier and more profitable in the short-term. Many urban areas have developed permanent rush hours on their congested roadways, and suburbs sprawl endlessly in all directions. But instead of tackling fundamental causes, DVD players are tossed in new car models in the hopes that people won’t get so pissed when they are immobile for three hours. Is the problem poor transportation planning? No, no, it’s that people aren’t entertained enough while they are waiting.

Perhaps the problem is that the age-old human traits get in the way. Greed, selfishness and short-term thinking have all survived remarkably well over the past few millennia. We are inventing products we don’t need, and still producing ones that should have been replaced long ago. Pollution and waste are as present as ever.

This lack of vision is getting increasingly urgent as developing countries with unfathomably large populations strive to be “just like America”. Judging by some stats I saw in a recent issue of National Geographic, the US consumption levels of energy and resources are completely and unsustainably out of control. But instead of providing real change and leadership, the rulers of the ‘free world’ seem instead intent on bringing everyone back to the Industrial Revolution. What an inspiring world model. (not that any other country would be better if it were to suddenly find itself at the top)

Of course, you could throw a litany of counter-arguments my way. Most of them would invoke technology, efficiency of the free market system and so forth. But I find many of these smack of intellectual laziness: “Oh, don’t worry, technology will progress and solve all our problems, just kick back and relax” or “oh, just let the market do its magic, and everything will be fine”. In the end, technology and the “market” aren’t sentient beings; we can hardly rely on them to change things. They are fictive notions created mostly so that we humans can blame something other than ourselves (”it wasn’t me, it was the market!”). Our planet is run not by some unseen force of progress, but by very real people. And not much will really change before we dirty humans do.