Why climate talk should be a daily thing
There was a time when northern China was largely associated with cold weather — winters were long and dreaded, and summers were brief and bearable.
Heat and humidity were issues that residents of the country’s southern and coastal areas had to deal with, not people living in Beijing, for instance.
But every passing summer in the capital has felt warmer than the previous in recent years.
Until last week’s rain in Beijing and a sudden temperature drop in Heilongjiang province, this summer has been hot in the north.
Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei province and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region witnessed daytime temperatures of higher than 35 C in May. The provinces of Jilin and Liaoning in the north-
This Day, That Year
ItemfromAug1,1987,in ChinaDaily:ABritishdoctor triescuppingonapatientat theShanghaiInternational AcupunctureTrainingCenter.Severalforeigndoctors areattendingthethreemonthtrainingcourse.
About3,700peoplefrom 60countrieshavemastered traditionalChinesemedicine sofar.
Many foreigners are now pursuing studies in traditional Chinese medicine, one of the oldest therapies in the world. east experienced similar days that month. In the northwest, the city of Turpan, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, recorded consistently hot weather in June.
Heat waves swept other parts of China last month as well.
Shanghai issued an orange alert as temperatures rose to 40 C. Photos in the papers of July 18 showed an employee at a Chongqing zoo placing large ice cubes beside a giant panda to cool the place. A friend who recently visited the Chengdu sanctuary in Sichuan province said some of the pandas there were being kept in air-conditioned enclosures.
In 2013, the Chinese summer was symbolized by the image of a boy trying to “cook” an egg and some shrimp in a pan over a manhole cover in Jinan, Shandong province. That year media reported many heatrelated deaths in China.
As the Earth’s temperature rises on land and water, peo-
TCM is gaining popularity worldwide because of its unique methods of treating patients, such as herbal medicine, acupuncture and massage. More than 100 countries have set up TCM institutes, with the United States and Japan investing heavily in related research.
In June, a TCM center was established at Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary’s oldest medical school.
TCM companies are also eyeing the global market for further growth. ple will need to pay more attention in their daily lives to climate change, or global warming as it is commonly called. It affects the overall balance of energy in nature by altering surface and sea temperatures, precipitation, and atmospheric and oceanic circulations on massive time scales.
Both man-made and natural reasons are behind climate change. Our role has been significant since the Industrial Revolution. Greenhouse gases — emitted from cars and household appliances (not just factories) — slow the process by which the planet can reflect a part of the sun’s absorbed heat back to space.
To write a ground report on the fallout from climate change, I undertook a trek to the Mingyong glacier in June. Perched at more than 3,000 meters above sea level in Southwest China’s Yunnan province, it is considered to be the lowest-lying of the country’s more than 48,000 glaciers.
In the next five years, Beijing Tongrentang Group plans to increase investment abroad and open at least 200 overseas branches.
As of June, the company had set up 115 retail stores and clinics in 25 countries and regions, and treated more than 30 million patients.
The State Council, China’s Cabinet, issued a guideline in February on developing
An expert from Yunnan University said the glacier had receded by some 300 meters and similarly thinned between 1975 and 2009.
Other scientists in Beijing told me many glaciers in China and “high-mountain Asia” are melting, and the situation could lead to a shortage of water for irrigation and drinking later.
Are these glaciers sensitive to climate change? Yes, they said, like glaciers elsewhere.
Globally, climate change could make countries like the Maldives sink.
The average annual global temperature had risen by 0.99 C by last year.
Sixteen of the 17 warmest years in a 136-year record have occurred since 2001, according to the NASA website.
Whether human-induced or through natural causes, climate change is real and here. Adding carbon footprints is not the way forward.
Contact the writer at satarupa@chinadaily.com.cn TCM during the 2016-30 period, and intensified efforts to expand it outside the country.