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I first visited China in November 1986. I was representing the New South Wales Government on a multinational mission to our Sister State Guangdong. My photo taken for the trip is still in the State archive [click here]. The theme was regional and small business development. The group heard presentations from Chinese bureaucrats and visited a number of factories in rural and industrial areas in Southern China. It was clear then that China was developing at a very fast rate economically.
It's now past two years since SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) spread beyond China and became a pandemic.
From the outset, I've covered aspects of the pandemic on this website, beginning with Love in the time of Coronavirus back in March 2020, so the passing of the pandemic's second birthday seemed an appropriate time to review what we've learnt.
The positive news is that: Covid-19 has been far less deadly than the 1918-20 "Spanish Influenza' pandemic.
This relative success in limiting the number of deaths this time round is entirely due to modern science.
Except of course, that a lot of politicians and bureaucrats have put in a lot of air miles and stayed in some excellent hotels in interesting places around the world like Kyoto, Amsterdam and Cancun.
In the interim technology has come to our aid. Wind turbines, dismissed here, have become larger and much more economic as have PV solar panels. Renewable energy options are discussed in more detail elsewhere on this website.
Climate change has wide ranging implications for the World, ranging from its impacts on agriculture (through drought, floods, water availability, land degradation and carbon credits) mining (by limiting markets for coal and minerals processing) manufacturing and transport (through energy costs) to property damage resulting from storms. The issues are complex, ranging from disputes about the impact of human activities on global warming, to arguments about what should be done and the consequences of the various actions proposed. The following paper explores some of the issues and their potential impact.