tdaxp

Mark Safranski of ZenPundit declared de Blij the winner in the first part of our de Blij v. Parker death-match on the cores of the world.

Next up is climate change:



Who will win this round?

It's not a dispute

It's a deathmatch:

Loyal tdaxp reader Catholicgauze recently attended a lecture by H. J. de Blij in Washington, DC. Dr. de Blij is the author of Why Geography Matters: Three Challenges Facing America: Climate Change, The Rise of China, and Global Terrorism.

This post is the second of a three-part series on Catholicgauze's reflection on de Blij's presentation. Part I: Climate Change was published on November 18, and Part III: Global Terrorism on the 28th.

I have only heard three complaints against Dr. de Blij speech. Two of them were from liberals who decried his refusal to solely blame humans for climate change. The other complaint, the one with validity, was that he spent more time on climate change than the other two topics combined. However, in the limited time he had left, Dr. de Blij continued to wow the crowd and myself.

China: “I never lost sleep during the Cold War. While others were going bonkers with M.A.D., the Cuban Missile Crisis, and The Day After; I knew there wasn’t going to be any real war between the Soviet Union and the United States. They liked our music and we liked their ballet. We were from the same cultural realm. We mistrusted each other but we knew each other. Similar history, religion, and the ability to realize the stupidity of total nuclear war was found in both of us.

“With China; however, all this is thrown out of the window. I fear that a grave cultural misunderstanding may lead to a war involving all the powers of South-East and Southern Asia."

This is how Dr. de Blij began his section on China. The words have been stuck in my mind since he uttered them.

Dr. Blij pointed out how China is already an empire. While the vast majority of Chinese are descendants of Han Chinese, the vast expanses of land to the northeast and west are not “brothers or even cousins" of the Han Chinese. An interesting thing mentioned (which I ask all bloggers to try to find more information on and report back) is that on average there are “thousands of acts of ‘rebellion and insurrection’ against Beijing a year." Dr. de Blij most of these are incidents are in the minority areas of China like Manchuria, Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjian (It would be interesting to read Dr. de Blij book to find out what exactly is an act of “rebellion and insurrection’).

Dr. de Blij went on to show that China is not satisfied with its current empire. To demonstrate this he told us a story about his previous geography book Human Geography: Culture, Society, and Space. This textbook has been sold the world over but the publisher was unable to get an acceptable contract with China. However, one day a package from East China Normal University’s Geography Department came asking for Dr. de Blij to sign the book. Dr. de Blij, “being a good sport," signed the book without looking it over. Then, he started receiving angry letters from fellow Asian geographers asking why he was so pro-Chinese. He obtained another copy of the Chinese edition and saw something that disturbed him. The book talked about “lost lands" that included, but not limited to, portions of Eastern Russia, all of Mongolia, Taiwan, parts of India, Nepal, Burma, huge swaths of Indochina, both Koreas, and a good deal of Kazakhstan. He showed us a copy of the map that looked a lot like this

Click Image for Full Map

During question-and-answer time Dr. de Blij had to put up with what I call “lack-of-knowledge" or what most would call stupidity. The most LOK question was “Isn’t calling China an empire going to be sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. They haven’t been aggressive in the past." Dr. de Blij responded with a strong “NO." He pointed out China openly engaged US and UN forces in the past in Korea, openly talks about Nuclear War with its neighbors and the US, massacres its own citizens, and has an educational program which teaches aggressive foreign policy.

The main point of this section was political geographic knowledge. Dr. Blij compared the average Chinese classroom, where knowledge of the world around them is strong and schools teach how to succeed in the world, compared to the average American classroom, which all agree do not have a decent geography program and fail to give many children the skills needed to survive in the global market. Adding on to this point is a recent survey from National Geographic which showed 50% of 18-25 year-olds cannot immediately locate Texas on a map of the United States and 20% cannot locate the Pacific Ocean on a map of the world!

tdaxp's Comment: As before, thanks to Catholicgauze for his excellent post.

Several posts in the blogosphere help illuminate Catholicgauze's points. In particular, Curzon remembers Imperial Asia, Tom Barnett's sanguin, Publius looks at Chinese riots, Bill Rice looks at Chinese expansion into Latin America, John Robb sees China desperate for energy, Mark Safranski worries about Chinese corruption, Simon hopes for a China without Communism and updates on repression in Taishi, and tdaxp got censored.

Update: Coming Anarchy and Sun Bin both look at Chinese "expanionism" through maps. CA's more hawkish.

Recently, the crack team at tdaxp's Data Acquisition & Extrapolation Program ("tdaxp") succeeded in planting a mole deep within an influential NGO in Washington, DC. This covert operative, known only as "Catholicgauze," recently attended a lecture by Harm J. de Blij that was sponsored by the National Geographic Society.

“Harm de Blij on the Web” by H.J. de Blij, http://deblij.net/.

“Why Geography Matters: Three Challenges Facing America: Climate Change, The Rise of China, and Global Terrorism” by Harm De Blij, 30 June 2005,
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195183010/002-0066779-9652878?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance.

Usually when an organization like the National Geographic Society (which has been shy about the term “Society” as of late) brings a speaker who devotes most of his presentation to Global Warming, I, Catholicgauze, am very skeptical. However, after only one hour with this brilliant geographer I was able to see the problems (and some solutions) to three major problems the United States face in the early 21st century: Climate Change, Red “Anti-tdaxp” China, and Global “Anti-tdaxp” Terrorism.

I won’t waste time trying to give an adequate biography of Dr. de Blij because his website does an excellent job. I will only say that the Distinguished Geography Professor Dr. Gritzner and others consider Dr. Blij “THE” geographer.

Here is a breakdown of the Blij speech given Thursday, November 17, 2005 at the GrosvenorAuditorium.

Climate Change (Being the First Part)

Dr. de Blij believes in the Kyoto Protocol and efforts to obtain alternative, clean energy but views these options as being a good caretaker of the earth. He pointed out interesting facts on Climate Change.

The Ice Ages and periods in between are proof of climate change. He brought up how even in historic times natural climate change has affected man. When the Ancient Egypt was getting started records state that the Sahara was a savanna climate. Dr. de Blij said the Sahara dried up within 50-100 years. He recommended The Little Ice Age by Brian M. Fagan and referred to Roman Church documents which depicted Alpine glaciers swallowing up whole towns, monasteries, and villages.

(In an interesting side note: The Little Ice Age ended around 1850 with a warming trend that seems to be continuing. There was a slight reversal early on between 1860 and 1865. At the Association of American Geographers convention in 2004 I heard an interesting presentation from a professor from West Point who talked about how the cold snap made precipitation heavier than normal in the United States and affected both Union and Confederate armies with their long and short term strategic planning; i.e. one cannot march in the cold mud).

Dr. de Blij seems to have some sort of dislike toward The Economist magazine. An issue that irked Dr. de Blij was when an Economist editorial said even with climate change treaties in effect, climate change would continue for over 100 years. In one of his many “unpublished letters to the editor” Dr. de Blij responded by saying “I’m sure the world will be relieved that in only 100 years 4.5 billion years of change will stop.”

A surprising thing from this part of the presentation was reaction from the liberals with lesser authority in National Geographic. While Dr. de Blij agreed the increase of storms lately was a sign of global warming, he was more dismisses of human-caused reasons given. While it is clear he believes pollution does not help the problem, he was clear in stating Climate Change is natural. One liberal colleague of mine said in shock, “Doesn’t he know what he’s saying.”

The main point of this portion was calling attention the problem of climate change. A force which could melt glaciers at four miles a year (as what happened at the end of the last, “Wisconsin” Ice Age), cause the Black Sea flood by melting glaciers, or destroy the Sahara in less than a century is worthy of fear. Human reactions to climate change also are important. Barbarian raids on Han China, Western Rome, and the Byzantine Empire were motivated in part by climate change at the time. It is important, says Dr. de Blij, to make plans for every case scenario from catastrophic change to no noticeable change.

tdaxp's Comment: I thank Catholicgauze for his summary, and look forward to the next parts. I first leanred of the idea of quick yet natural climate change from Bell and Striber. Likewise, of irritation at The Economist from Derbyshire.

Written records of glaciers eating villages are scary. Check out Part II: China, Part III: Global Terrorism," and the reaction of the blogs.