Yes the future problems stemming from China's growth appear insoluble. But one ray of light may come from revisiting nuclear power.

Its indisputable that the US now directly controls oil rich Iraq through its military power - under the guise of suppressing terrorism and installing "democracy". Western China borders oil rich central Asian regions but the US and Russia have been largely successful in getting to the oil supplies first.

Australia has the coal and gas to partially feed China's economy. But these fuel sources have significant greenhouse gas emission costs.

Australia, however, also has large deposits of uranium, without the greehouse gas costs. Uranium and reactors themselves generally have significant costs and dangers in terms of handling, disposal and terrorism. China's internal security apparatus, for better or worse, may make it a more secure uranium handler than most - and besides its already got "the bomb".

I argue that nuclear fission (using uranium) and eventually cold fusion (if developed) are more realistic answers to increasing economic development (specifically in countries that already have nuclear weapons) than simply hoping these countries will decide to stop developing

It is automatically assumed that China's growth will follow the pattern of the climate change hook curve of a couple of years ago, and that we can extrapolate past growth and project forward; this view is unsustainable. There are many examples where this has not happened.
It is pointed out that there is a strong work ethic in China, who carried out the survey, in an authoritarian regime and with a poor human rights record there is no alternative to hard work.
I know that I would prefer my Grandfathers 40 year old drill to short lived bits that are sold today.

A key point that Ross makes is the environmental cost of the goods and services that we purchase is currently not reflected in their price. Therefore, there's no signal to the consumer, eg, no tangible way for the consumer to assess whether it's a good environmental purchase or otherwise. Short of a major shift toward full cost pricing (which is unlikely due to its perceived unpopularity such as in the case of water), there are low financial cost opportunities to improve consumer information. Australia is the only OECD country without an accredited program in terms of environmental labelling.

its been obvious for many years...there are no free lunches...wake up the western world

Thank you Ross Buckley for raising an issue which should long ago have sent alarm bells ringing. Nearly all of the supposed discussion about China's economic growth has, up until now, been dominated by economists who apparently lack any understanding of the physcical limits of the world.

You may appreciate the following letter I wrote in April that was printed in at least one newpaper (The Geelong Advertiser) and possibly others, although I can't remember :

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10 April 05

Dear Editor,

For years economists and other analysts have been singing the Siren song of the boundless riches to be had by all from the phenomenal rowth rates of China and India.

It should have been obvious to anyone with a grasp of the fact that petroleum reserves are finite that attempts by these countries with populations almost unimaginably higher than our own to emulate our wasteful consumption of the earth's resources would quickly lead to the exhaustion of those resources.

Informed scientists have been warning for decades that this was inevitable. Now this obvious fact seems to have finally sunk through to Peter Costello ("We're running out of oil, says Costello", The Age 9 Apr).

Let us hope that we haven't left it too late to dig ourselves back out of the hole, into which past short-sighted thinking, such as that shown by our own Treasurer, has led us.

James Sinnamon

on behalf of the Brisbane Oil Awareness Group

James (or daggett) almost everyone has been in denial about the soaring demand for oil. It doesn't really matter to the world oil supply if we economise in Australia given our tiny population - even if we Aussies use more energy than our fair share.

The "right" of 1.3 billion Chinese and 1 billion Indians to have a car is undeniable politically and even racially.

So how about revisiting the nuclear power option to produce electric or hybrid powered cars?