Holding a Vital Key to Humanity’s Future

February 20, 2010

China controls the production to several vital, rare earth elements, and is the only country today that produces europium, dysprosium and terbium. Why are these rare elements important to humanity’s future?

Europium is a rare, critical chemical that makes the red color for television monitors and energy-efficient LED light bulbs, and lanthanum is a primary component of the nickel-metal hydride battery in Toyota’s popular hybrid car, Prius.

Toyota Prius

Deposits of these rare elements exist in other countries, but only China had the foresight, thanks to engineers, who are also among the rulers of China, that supported building the mining and refining industries capable of processing these materials. The leaders saw the future and acted.

If other countries like America do not support mining and refining these minerals soon, the supply may vanish since China is developing energy efficient industries and products that will stay in China.

One example is China’s wind production efforts to generate energy that could consume all the available neodymium production and leave nothing for the rest of the world’s booming wind industry.

Discover Greenpeace in China

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

To subscribe to iLook China, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

5 Comments | America, business, China, economy, environment | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Wheezing for Profits

February 20, 2010

Thomas L. Friedman wrote in an OP-ED column for the New York Times, “China, of course, understands that (about Global warming), which is why it is investing heavily in clean-tech, efficiency and high-speed rail. It sees the future trends and is betting on them. Indeed, I suspect China is quietly laughing at us right now.”

It is obvious from Friedman’s OP-Ed piece that there is a benefit when Chinese engineers run the country instead of lawyers, accountants, corporate CEO’s with next quarter’s profits in mind, lobbyists, professional politicians and people like Rush Limbaugh, who confuses his ditto heads with bogus opinions.

If China’s engineers and scientists are laughing, it is because of the American fools that preach that carbon emissions are not the cause of global warming as if they are fighting a crusade against the infidel while ignoring all the other reasons why oil and coal are bad.

coal burning power plant - how would you like to breath this?

Let’s examine some other reasons why carbon emissions are not good and why humans should wean themselves from this dirty source of energy as quickly as possible.

1. Living near a freeway is not healthy
2. Carbon emissions and asthma
3. Dirty power from coal
4. Ocean acidification
5. Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

Leave a Comment » | America, business, China, environment, government, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Chinese “Face” – Part 1/4

February 17, 2010

No, this is not about looks or Botox or face lifting creams or hairstyles, or the desire to have a rounder, paler moon face—the standard of beauty to the Chinese.

What I am writing about is the meaning of “face”.

Dr. Martha Lee wrote, “Nobody ever said what you do with those who have ‘disgraced’ the family name by getting divorced.”

In China, if you do something that is considered a disgrace, like getting divorced, that may be considered a loss of face for everyone in the family.

When our daughter was a pre-teen, we went on weekend hikes in the hills behind our home. The end of the hike was a large park across the street from the La Puente Mall. On one fateful day, when she was nine or ten, she was the first to discover a dead man. She came running back with a shocked look on her face.

It turned out that the dead man was an architect from Taiwan and his company had gone broke.  His loss of face for failing had driven him to take an extension cord from his mother’s house, find a suitable tree in an isolated portion of that park, and hang himself.  He was dead when we reached him.

Continued at Mothers “Face” – Part 2 or learn of Human Rights – East versus West

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

To subscribe to iLook China, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click
on it then follow directions.

7 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, education, parenting, religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

About Tibet

February 16, 2010

How does Communist China treat its minorities compared to the way minorities have been treated in the Americas?

Yes, human rights violations did happen in Tibet, but most happened during the Cultural Revolution. Mao ruled China for twenty-seven years (1949 – 1976) but the Cultural Revolution started in the mid 1960s and ended in 1976 with his death, and everyone in China suffered during that decade.

Since Mao considered Tibet to be part of China (and recorded, nonbiased evidence from primary sources prior to the rise of Communism supports that claim), those who suffered in Tibet were treated the same as the rest of China. Monasteries in Tibet were destroyed–but this was going on everywhere in China and after 1976 many of the major monasteries were rebuilt by China.

The next post shows what happened after Mao died—facts we seldom if ever hear. It is always good to have the facts to see who sins and who doesn’t.

Learn what happened After Mao and more about Tibet – Inside China

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

1 Comment | American culture, Chinese Culture, religion, Tibet | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

American Genocide

February 15, 2010

Christ once said let he who has no sin cast the first stone.

The topic of the next few posts will be about minority native treatment in China and America. As I have done before, I will compare China to America. This post will focus on the United States with some historical background.

Atrocities abound in the history books concerning treatment of Native American Indians during the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. The Spanish destroyed the Aztec and Inca civilizations with disease and warfare. The Catholic mission system in California enslaved American Indians.

After the Civil War, the United States military was sent west and drove North American Indians from the land they had lived on for thousands of years and slaughtered men, women and children—millions died. Today, many of the surviving natives live in horrible poverty on reservations.

Trail of Tears

Then the American government grabbed Hawaii from the native Hawaiian people against their will. (There’s a native Hawaiian nonviolent separatist movement asking for freedom from America.)

It is always good to have the facts before passing judgment, and history counts.

Discover more at An American Shadow over the Philippines

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

2 Comments | America, American culture, China, Chinese Culture, Christianity, government, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
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