AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
James Taylor
Endpoint Analysis
Skynet Terminator Speaks Chinese
By JAMES TAYLOR
Skynet, the evil artificial intelligence in the Terminator movies and television series, gained consciousness this week. According to the Terminator television show, Skynet became self-aware on April 19 at 8:11 p.m., and on April 21 will begin directing machines in an all-out war to exterminate the human race.
If we listen to Terminator director James Cameron, however, Skynet is actually evil global warming rather than evil artificial intelligence. If that is truly the case, then Skynet must speak Chinese.
At exactly 8:11 p.m. Tuesday night, the exact time and date Skynet achieved self-awareness in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Cameron tweeted, “Skynet was supposed to go operational tonight. Instead of machines taking over, we have the very real threat of global warming.”
Forget for the moment that even after 150 years of global warming, global temperatures remain strikingly cool compared to the temperatures that have predominated during most of the history of human civilization. Forget for the moment that global temperatures haven’t risen at all during the past decade. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that we really are facing a global warming crisis.
If that is the case, the Terminator series got Skynet’s location wrong. According to just-released U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) statistics, the evil global warming Skynet must be based in China rather than California.
According to a March 31 report issued by the EIA, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from energy consumption were 7 percent lower in 2009 than in 2000. Even before the longstanding economic slump began in 2008, U.S. emissions remained essentially flat, rising merely 2 percent between 2000 and 2007. If the fear is that constantly rising carbon dioxide emissions will bring on a global warming catastrophe, we can confidently cancel that alarm, at least as far as U.S. culpability is concerned.
The real cause for concern, if we believe global warming is truly an imminent crisis, is China. China emits more carbon dioxide emissions than any nation on earth. In 2009, according to the EIA, China emitted 42 percent more carbon dioxide than the United States. Between 2000 and 2009, China alone accounted for fully 74 percent of the growth in global carbon dioxide emissions.
China not only emits more carbon dioxide than any other nation on earth, it is emitting it at an accelerating pace. Chinese emissions have nearly tripled since the year 2000. Even under the weight of the global recession, Chinese emissions rose 13 percent in 2009 alone.
If China is removed from the global equation, there is no global warming crisis – even if we believe alarmist global warming claims. With China removed from the equation, global carbon dioxide emissions are rising less than 1 percent per year. That minimal upward trend may well turn negative soon as a result of recent advances in energy technology and the discovery of massive natural gas deposits that can replace carbon-intensive coal power.
The projection of globally declining carbon dioxide emissions holds true, however, only if China is removed from the global equation or if China commits to halting the rapid increase in its carbon dioxide emissions. China is not going to disappear from the planet anytime soon, which eliminates the first option. As far as the second, China has repeatedly stated it will under no circumstances commit to carbon dioxide restrictions.
Environmental activist assertions that China would agree to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions if only the United States were to demonstrate leadership is pure propaganda. The United States has already reduced its carbon dioxide emissions, yet China has explicitly stated it will not commit to carbon dioxide restrictions no matter what the United States or the rest of the world does.
With global temperatures remaining below the long-term average, and with temperatures rising relatively slowly if at all, the identity of Skynet is quite unlikely to be global warming. But if Skynet truly is global warming, Skynet most definitely speaks Chinese.
James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute () and managing editor of Environment & Climate News ().
