At the New School, Tooze made a similar argument. He cited another favourite statistic: whereas the US’s total installed solar capacity is on the order of 250GW, “China currently has the capacity to churn out 1,200GW of photovoltaic panels in a single year.” In those Chinese solar panels Tooze sees a climate-era analogue to the Soviet T-34 tanks. At development and climate meetings, he said, you can go a long time without hearing anyone acknowledge that China matters vastly more to the climate-change story than anything happening anywhere else, very much including the US. The point of all this, Tooze insists, is not to chasten liberal self-regard – or not only that. The point is to get people to confront our radical new reality.
Tooze told me that the climate book he started working on after Crashed, which is now nearing completion, will argue “that if we’re serious in the west, if you’re serious about climate, then you have to face the popular front question”. In other words, many of the same countries that chose 80 years ago to ally with the Soviet Union to fight Germany will have to decide whether and on what terms they want to work with an economically dominant China on the climate problem.
Interesting, no? I wasn't expecting to read something like that.
From lj's Guardian link:
Interesting, no? I wasn't expecting to read something like that.