The Leading News Stories Of 2007: THE GLOBAL WARMING SCAM

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.

-- Charles Dickens

I continue our countdown of the top stories of the year with #4: the battle over global warming.

On the one hand, the big story of this year was the spectacular success of global warming prophet Al Gore. He began the year with an Academy Award and ended it with a Nobel Peace Prize, and in between he was treated like a rock star at his "Live Earth" concerts and fawned over by senators when he testified before Congress.

But the actual main story of the year is not that the environmentalists have made huge strides in transforming global warming into a universally accepted dogma. The story is that they have met widespread resistance, not only from free-market commentators, but from a growing number of scientists—undermining their claims to be supported by a unanimous scientific "consensus."

I have has commented on this story in great depth, and I regret that I can only reprint a tiny sampling of our coverage below. A number of excellent articles on this topic have been posted at RealClearPolitics.com: "Taxing Us for Breathing," "What Al Gore Really Wants," "Guilty Until Proven Innocent," "Is Climatology a Science?," "Al Gore's Insolent Assault on Reason," and "The Seeds of the Global Warming Police State."

Yet despite the environmentalists' best efforts, industrial civilization has still managed to thrive, and I have provided extensive coverage of the spread of capitalism across the globe, from Eastern Europe to Vietnam (regions emerging from the disaster of Communism), from Israel to India (free societies emerging from failed experiments with "democratic socialism"), from Mongolia to Africa (societies that are just beginning to experience the benefits of industrial civilization for the first time).

I saved the three final news links below for only one of these stories, the one which struck me as reaching a crucial turning point in this past year: the development of the concept of individual rights and specifically of private property rights in China. But I also couldn't resist including a brief feature article about the magnificent new sense of life that is emerging from the explosion of wealth and opportunity created by India's free-market reforms.

(All links were good at the time these items were originally published but may have expired or moved into archives since then.)

Top News Stories

The Global Warming Struggle
"The Ground Shifting" for Global Warming?
"The Great Global Warming Swindle"
"Post-Normal Science"
Al Gore, Rock Star
The Nobel Prize for Luddites
The Global Warming Battle
"Weiquan"
"Is It Time They Were Consigned to a Museum?"
"Chairman Gates"

Feature Article
India's Choice, One Billion People Choose Between the Sky and the Abyss

Top News Stories

1. The Global Warming Struggle, February 20 seems like a good opportunity to discuss my policy on covering bad news—because there's an awful lot of it to cover these days.

I am an "optimist" about the future of the world—though I don't really like the term "optimist," because it implies some kind of unvarying emotional preference for good news or for a positive assessment of the world. To state my actual view more exactly, I would say that the current state of the world is a contest: forces for good and evil are in contention, and the outcome is not determined. But I would then add that we should never forget that the good is more powerful than the evil.

Hence my approach to covering bad news. It has to be covered, because it's the news. There's no point in avoiding what is happening in the world, whether it is good or bad. But I always try to present the bad news in context—a context that reminds us that this is still a struggle and that the good is still fighting and has a chance.

Thus, for example, in covering one of the biggest stories of the day—the resurrection of the global warming hysteria under the new Democratic Congress—I could lead with an awful story in the Daily Telegraph proclaiming that we have reached a "tipping point" on climate change, in which even the United States is giving in to international controls that will strangle our supply of power.

Or I could highlight a story about the Australian government moving to ban the light bulb—or at least to ban the incandescent light bulb, forcing all of its citizens to live under fluorescent light. This small sacrifice is calculated to take advantage of scientific and technological ignorance—since the energy saved will be an insignificant fraction of the amount of energy used by Australian industry—but it serves as a symbolic declaration of national devotion to the new environmentalist faith.

These stories are bad, and they are real. There's no use denying them. But they are not the whole story, and that's why I try, whenever possible, to put the emphasis on any effort to fight back against disastrous ideas and policies. So, for example, I will end today's coverage of the global warming battle by mentioning a fairly good article describing how the global warming hysteria is being pushed by an "Enviro-Industrial Complex" of scientists with a vested interested in producing politically correct results, and by linking, below, to an even better article by Georgia Congressman John Linder comparing the science of global warming to the pseudo-science of eugenics—a pretty hard-hitting comparison.

Jack Wakeland summed it up for me a while back when he explained that the first question he always asks about the news—the question that provides his motive for following the news—is: who's holding the roof up? Hence my policy toward covering bad news: whenever possible I will give the good guys the last word—because the most important story of the day is not about attempts to wreck our civilization, but about the actions of anyone who is trying to save it and make it grow.

"Global Warming Theory and the Eugenics Precedent," John Linder, Washington Times, February 19 "Global Warming" had a precursor in capturing the hearts and minds of the world. Michael Crichton, in his novel "State of Fear," brilliantly juxtaposes the world's current political embrace of "global warming" with the popular embrace of the "science" of eugenics a century ago. For nearly 50 years, from the late 1800s through the first half of the 20th century, there grew a common political acceptance by the world's thinkers, political leaders and media elite that the "science" of eugenics was settled science. There were a few lonely voices trying to be heard in the wilderness in opposition to this bogus science, but they were ridiculed or ignored….

One must ask, "How in the world did university researchers come to conclusions that defended this outrageous affront to society?" A look back at the research concluded that the researchers adjusted their outcomes to support the theory of those paying for the research. This is not unusual. It is very easy to believe that the settled science regarding climate change is just as suspicious, and indeed may be another example of pseudo-science capturing the imagination of politicians, actors, and the media elite who have a desperate need to embrace some "science" which may force us to change the way we live our lives. H. L. Mencken once wrote, "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it."…

In fact we are being treated to a modern scientific shell game. The most prevalent and efficient greenhouse gas is not CO2; it is water vapor, which accounts for about 60 percent of the heat-trapping gases while CO2 accounts for about 26 percent. So, why are we being served a daily diet of our destroying the environment with our behavior as it relates to CO2? Because our behavior has little to do with the amount of water vapor, so it is a non-starter when it comes to those whose principal goal is ruling our lives….

The predictions by scientists in Time magazine's "Another Ice Age?" in 1974 and Newsweek's "The Cooling World" in 1975 come to mind. The latter article stated that scientists "are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climactic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic."

2. "The Ground Shifting" for Global Warming? February 26 The global warming hysteria is gaining new steam as environmentalists realize that a Democratic Congress is willing to enact their agenda, while the Bush administration seems to have given up trying to stall global-warming legislation.

Hollywood gave the juggernaut more energy Sunday night when it awarded Al Gore an Oscar for his role as televangelist for the First Church of the Warming Globe—Hollywood's official new religion.

Donna Brazile is probably carried away when she proclaims that "This was one of those rare moments, similar to the civil rights movement, when you experience the ground shifting." And let us hope that she is wrong when she predicts that this will revive Gore's presidential aspirations.

But we are certainly entering a very dangerous time, as the environmentalists get much closer, much more suddenly, to building the legislative apparatus for a "slow bleed" of the energy required to power industrial civilization.

"Gore's Oscar Fuels Call for Late Run," Mike Allen, Politico.com, February 26 Former Vice President Al Gore's triumph at the Oscars is already stoking activists’ pleas for him to make a dramatic late entry into the fractious presidential race, and some key strategists insist he could announce as late as September or October and still win the nomination.

“Honestly, this was the inaugural parade we all envisioned,” said Donna Brazile, his former campaign manager. “Gore's political stock is hot right now. I don’t know if I would cash in now with so many players still on stage. There’s no reason to force him to declare tomorrow. ”

Indeed, Brazile said the former vice president could wait as late as the time states begin requiring delegate slates and statements of candidacy, since he could raise money quickly and much of the campaigns’ budgets are devoted to a long nominating process he would avoid. "This was one of those rare moments, similar to the civil rights movement, when you experience the ground shifting," she said. "Perhaps it’s not a movement for a presidential run, but a moment for the debate to start for real change on how we live on planet earth."…

Michael Feldman, who served in the Clinton-Gore White House for eight years and was a senior adviser and traveling chief of staff to the vice president, said the Oscar means that “more people are going to see the movie and more people are going to get information about the issue of global warming, which will help build the collective political will to get something done on the issue.”

3. "The Great Global Warming Swindle," March 12 I asked our British readers to report back on last Thursday night's Channel 4 documentary, "The Great Global Warming Swindle." All of the reports were positive, but it turns out I didn't have to take their word for it. Several readers e-mailed me a link where you can watch the film for yourself.

It is as good as I had hoped and well worth the investment of a little more than an hour's time. Although some of the filmmaker's choices of music and images were a bit odd, the show's script cogently lays out its case, backed up by interviews with a variety of distinguished scientists and well-presented graphs showing the relevant scientific data.

The film makes the case, not just for "questioning" the global warming hysteria, but for dismissing it as a massive scientific fraud. In its final few minutes, two lines sum up the film's message. The narrator concludes that "The global warming alarm is now beyond reason." Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace who has since turned into something of a defender of industrial civilization, says of the environmentalists: "I think it's legitimate for me to call them anti-human."

In short, the film does a terrific job of presenting both the scientific and the moral case against the global warming hysteria. Watch it for yourself, recommend it to your friends—and begin lobbying American television networks to broadcast it.

There is no usual link and excerpt to go with this item, just the link to the video of "The Great Global Warming Swindle." But I'll add one other bonus. One of the ideas presented in the documentary is the theory that global climate is actually determined by increases in solar activity, which blocks the cosmic rays that would normally increase cloud cover and chill the earth.

That theory is presented in more detail by its originator, Hans Svensmark, in the new book The Chilling Stars,

4. "Post-Normal Science," March 16 The scientific veneer of the global warming hysteria just keeps on peeling. Today, a reader sent me a link to the blockbuster article below in the British leftist newspaper The Guardian, which sets out the real philosophy behind the global warming hysteria: a postmodernist pseudo-scientific outlook called "post-normal science." It is "dialectical materialism for environmentalists," a formal system of pseudo-logic meant to rationalize the irrational.

The theory—as much as it is possible to put it into intelligible terms—is that if environmentalists claim really dire consequences for global warming, that entitles them to bypass the need for actual scientific proof of their claims. Instead, they can push through their agenda based on the social consensus of an "extended peer community" of scientists and political activists. It is a manifesto for unlimited rule by a self-appointed ruling class of environmental alarmists.

I found out about this article through the Belmont Club blog, which covered it here (see particularly the YouTube link at the bottom) and then provided an excellent analysis here, tracking down a Wikipedia entry that describes "post-normal science":

Post-Normal Science is a concept developed by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz, attempting to characterise a methodology of inquiry that is appropriate for contemporary conditions. The typical case is when "facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent." In such circumstances, we have an inversion of the traditional distinction between hard, objective scientific facts, and soft subjective values. Now we have value-driven policy decisions that are "hard" in various ways, for which the scientific inputs are irremediably "soft."

The Belmont Club's "Wretchard" replies:

All in all, the notion of "post-normal science" seems like a complete contradiction in terms or a perversion of the standard definition of science as commonly understood. It appears to be an elaborate and dishonest attempt to pass off the preferences of a single group as some kind of pseudo-science. There's a much simpler term for this dishonest phrase: politics. Post-normal science is nothing but a cheap and lying term for a political diktat; for the rule of the self-appointed over everyone else.

I would add something more: this article is an admission that the global warming hysteria cannot claim a basis in scientific fact but is instead merely the environmentalists' wishful projection of their anti-industrial ideology, backed by the rationalization that "climate change is too important to be left to scientists"—and yes, that is an exact quote.

This is a dangerous idea, but it is also an admission of defeat for those who have attempted to sell global warming as "settled science."

"The Appliance of Science," Mike Hulme, The Guardian, March 14 Deploying the machinery of scientific method allows us to filter out hypotheses…as being plain wrong. But there are two other characteristics of science that are also important when it comes to deploying its knowledge for the benefit of public policy and society: that scientific knowledge is always provisional knowledge, and that it can be modified through its interaction with society….

The other important characteristic of scientific knowledge—its openness to change as it rubs up against society—is rather harder to handle. Philosophers and practitioners of science have identified this particular mode of scientific activity as one that occurs where the stakes are high, uncertainties large and decisions urgent, and where values are embedded in the way science is done and spoken.

It has been labelled "post-normal" science. Climate change seems to fall in this category. Disputes in post-normal science focus as often on the process of science—who gets funded, who evaluates quality, who has the ear of policy—as on the facts of science….

The danger of a "normal" reading of science is that it assumes science can first find truth, then speak truth to power, and that truth-based policy will then follow. [Global warming dissident Fred] Singer has this view of science, as do some of his more outspoken campaigning critics such as Mark Lynas. That is why their exchanges often reduce to ones about scientific truth rather than about values, perspectives and political preferences. If the battle of science is won, then the war of values will be won.

If only climate change were such a phenomenon and if only science held such an ascendancy over our personal, social and political life and decisions. In fact, in order to make progress about how we manage climate change we have to take science off centre stage….

Self-evidently dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth seeking, although science will gain some insights into the question if it recognises the socially contingent dimensions of a post-normal science. But to proffer such insights, scientists—and politicians—must trade (normal) truth for influence. If scientists want to remain listened to, to bear influence on policy, they must recognise the social limits of their truth seeking and reveal fully the values and beliefs they bring to their scientific activity….

Climate change is too important to be left to scientists—least of all the normal ones.

5. Al Gore, Rock Star, July 9 The famously stuffy Al Gore is now officially a rock star following his hosting of Live Earth, a global series of rock concerts with the goal of indoctrinating two billion people in the catechism of the global warming creed.

Some folks were impressed with the global box office returns for Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, viewing this as an ominous sign of the impending cultural takeover of old-time religious theocracy. The film was indeed a gruesome throwback to medieval death-worship, but these concerts should give us an idea of how far Christianity has to go to even think about matching the propaganda campaign behind its competitors on the secular left.

But the environmentalist faith has its own internal problems, and its strictures are not easy for even its own devotees to live up to—so note the criticisms of this series of concerts by the environmentalists themselves, who complain (with some justice) of the "carbon footprint" of giant rock concerts with stars jetting in on private planes.

"Stars Join Their Voices to Support Live Earth," Alan Riding, New York Times, July 8 They joined forces two years ago to combat global poverty under the flag of Live 8, and rock and pop stars and their myriad fans around the world threw their voices behind a good cause again on Saturday, this time that of raising awareness about global warming through a campaign called Live Earth….

“We’re here to save the world,” Chris Moyles, a British DJ, told the crowd at the start of the nine-hour show at Wembley Stadium here. “Will you help?” After a bit of prodding, a loud “Yes” was the response.

The entire venture has Al Gore as its guardian guru. The former vice president’s environmental documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” inspired the American producer, Kevin Wall, to apply the formula he used to organize Live 8 to the fresh challenge of global warming. And Mr. Gore enthusiastically backed the 24-hour initiative.

“It’s the largest entertainment event in the history of the world,” he said Thursday with some hyperbole on CNN’s Larry King Live, noting that an audience of two billion people was expected.
Starting at Aussie Stadium in Sydney, the concerts were timed to spread west throughout the day, to Tokyo and Shanghai, to Johannesburg, to Hamburg, Germany, to Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro and on to Giants Stadium, in East Rutherford, NJ, and a smaller event in Washington, as well as London….

Even harsher has been criticism in newspapers of the energy-expending habits of many performers, some of whom, it has been reported, flew their private planes halfway across the world to play in the concerts.

“The artists formerly known as huge carbon footprints” was the acerbic headline of a newspaper commentary by Marina Hyde in The Guardian on Saturday.

6. The Nobel Prize for Luddites, October 12 I almost cancelled today's entry altogether rather than be required to report that Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize—which now apparently has nothing to do with world peace and is simply an all-purpose vehicle for promoting leftist causes. So Gore has the distinction of being recognized as a moral hero by the Nobel Committee—the day after he was scolded by the London High Court for distorting and inventing facts "in the context of alarmism and exaggeration."

I was pulled back from the brink of despair on reading a perfect response from John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has been the best and most effective conservative opponent of environmentalism. Berlau points out how Gore's crusade contradicts the mission of the Nobel prizes. Here is the central passage of Berlau's excellent article:

In direct contradiction of Alfred Nobel's last will and testament, the selection of Gore essentially means the Peace Prize can no longer be said to be an award for improving the condition of humankind. Looking at Gore's writing, it's far from clear that Gore even believes that humanity is his most important priority….

Rather, his stated desire is to stop human activity that he sees as ruining what he calls the "ecosystem." Awarding the prize to Gore in 2007 is the equivalent of honoring the Luddites who tried to stop the beneficial technologies of Alfred Nobels's day.

A common theme of selection for the Nobel Peace Prize and the other Nobel awards has been the use of science and technology to overcome problems afflicting humans such as starvation and disease…. In creating the annual prizes for physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and the promotion of world peace (roughly the same five fields for which Nobels are awarded today), Nobel stated the desire in his will to honor "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind."

According to Alfred Nobel: A Biograpy by Kenne Fant, an earlier draft of Nobel's will stipulated that prizes in all categories should be "a reward for the most important pioneering discoveries or works in the field of knowledge and progress."

But for Albert Gore, Jr. the fields of knowledge and progress are suspect, and so are many types of technology with benefits to mankind.

This is the real, essential issue, and Berlau's piece captures the essential perversity of giving a Nobel Prize of any kind to an avowed enemy of technological progress.

7. The Global Warming Battle, October 25 Pro-free-market commentators John Stossel and Steven Milloy are taking full advantage of the British court ruling naming nine glaring scientific errors in Gore's global warming propaganda film An Inconvenient Truth. Milloy's article is the best, because it makes it clear how essential those errors are to Gore's film. Milloy asks, "would there be any science at all left in Gore's 'truth' if these errors and their progeny were excised?"

But I have saved today's main link for the report below. Rather than covering attacks on Gore's errors, this report discusses legitimate advances in the field of climatology—advances that happen to thoroughly sink Gore's claim that carbon dioxide emissions cause global warming.

"Report: CO2 Not Responsible for Past Warming," Michael Asher, Daily Tech, October 17 Its the strongest evidence for the Greenhouse Gas theory of global warming—that warm periods in the earth's past were typically accompanied by rises in atmospheric carbon dioxide. But that evidence is under serious attack, from new research funded by the US National Science Foundation.

The research team, led by Paleoclimatologist Lowell Stott, demonstrated CO2 levels after the last Ice Age started to rise some 1,300 years after the warming began. According to Stott, earlier researchers had cause and effect reversed—CO2 increases were the result of warming, and not the original cause. Stott's paper is not the first to show CO2 rises followed warming trends, but it is one of the most detailed and thorough rebuttals of the linkage.

The work comes hot on the heels of other research downgrading CO2's importance in climate change. Earlier this year, the Belgian Royal Meteorological Institute issued a study saying CO2 effects had been "grossly overstated." Dr. Steven Schwartz of Brookhaven National Labs concluded that CO2-based warming had been overstated by some 400%, and a pair of Chinese researchers used mathematical modeling to demonstrate the majority of current warming was natural in origin….

Stott's model showed how the warming generated changed ocean conditions, which then generated massive releases of CO2 from the ocean into the atmosphere. As natural CO2 sources still constitutes more than 97% of all emissions, this may not come as much of a surprise.

But if CO2 didn't cause the warming, what did? Stott's model links the forcing to periodic changes in the Earth's orbit which increase solar radiation over Antarctica.

8. "Weiquan," February 27 The good news is that China has a growing movement devoted to "weiquan"—"rights defense." That the Chinese have a word for this concept is, by itself, the best news we can hope for. The long article excerpted below is worth reading in its entirety (just follow the link) as an overview of this "weiquan" movement.

The bad news is that the "rights defense" movement is still small and splintered by a rivalry between those who accept the Chinese leadership's fiction that it really wants the rule of law and those who grasp the fundamental insincerity of dictators proclaiming their interest in the rule of law.

Yet the most important fact that comes out of this report is that China's Communist leaders have publicly committed themselves to introducing the rule of law to China—and that is a crucial ideological concession that the "weiquan" activists are seeking to exploit.

"Rivals Seek to Expand Freedoms in China," Joseph Kahn, New York Times, February 25 Li Jinsong and Li Jianqiang…are part of a momentous struggle over the rule of law in China. Young, well educated and idealistic, they and other members of the so-called weiquan, or rights defense, movement, aim to use the laws and courts that the Communist Party has put in place as part of its modernization drive to constrain the party's power.

The informal network of rights defenders may be the only visible force for political openness and change in China at a time when the surging economy and the country’s rapidly expanding global influence have otherwise strengthened party leaders. The authorities have refrained from suppressing it entirely, at least partly because it operates carefully within the law and uses China’s judicial system, as well as the news media, to advance its aims….

A joint interview on Radio Free Asia devolved into a shouting match over whether rights defenders could work with party leaders or should actively oppose them.

As their confrontation grew, Li Jianqiang, the more combative of the two, wrote a manifesto that called China a “super jail” and described its leaders as “ruthless dictators.” He listed Li Jinsong’s name as the lead author and posted it on the Internet….

They and the dozens of other advocates who consider themselves rights defenders have had notable victories, mostly by calling attention to problems at the local level that more senior officials move to fix. They have exposed corruption, illegal land seizures and labor and environmental abuses that have prompted policy changes or at least made many Chinese more aware of the concept of human rights….

Yet they are, as the nationalist leader Sun Yat-sen lamented about Chinese opposition groups in an earlier era, “grains of sand.” They divide into camps on the fundamental question of whether to try to improve the current Communist Party-run system by supporting well-intentioned party leaders, or to seek an end to Communist rule. “Some of us are waiting for a good emperor, some kind of Gorbachev, to come and fix the system,” Li Jianqiang said. “Many of the rest of us think that is a waste of time. We need to be building a civilization outside the Communist Party.”

9. "Is It Time They Were Consigned to a Museum?" April 6 Here is a further report on the significance of the "nail house" case, in which a stubborn couple held out for three years against China's version of eminent domain and finally received compensation in what seems to have been a voluntary agreement. It is a small victory for the concept of property rights in China.

But that small victory has enormous implications. As the article below points out, this case has served to ingrain property rights as a popular cause in China, and more: it has served as an example of individuals asserting themselves against the state.

Take, for example, this passage about the case in an editorial in the state-owned People's Daily: "The popular outrage pulsing at the heart of the episode seemed to hint at an awakening of the public's awareness of their private property rights in a country where people have long been taught that public property comes before private gain."

The article below ends with speculation from an old Party reformer who recalls Mao's statement that power flows from the barrel of a gun—a classic motto of rule by brute force. He then speculates that such statements are no longer operative in China and should be "consigned to a museum."

Even more broadly, remember that China is the nation that produced the aphorism, "The nail that sticks up gets pounded down," as a warning against the perils of individualism. That aphorism is the source for the description of this as the case of the "nail house." But notice that the nail that stuck up did not get pounded down: the homeowners won. What does this say about the potential for individualism in China?

"A Couple's Small Victory Is a Big Step for China," Howard W. French, International Herald-Tribune, April 5 On the face of it, theirs was a hopeless task, two simple citizens against a mighty and murky alliance of an authoritarian state and big development money.

In reality, though, the couple was anything but alone. They won out in the end, receiving a handsome compensation for their property where so many others had merely been bulldozed—because not only did they realize this fact, in a society where people have been effectively atomized, but because they also figured out how to glue millions of discrete individuals together in sympathy for a cause not directed from above….

None of this mobilization would have been possible without media to transmit the message, and Chinese journalists, both traditional and virtual, carried the ball, spreading the word far and wide, turning this into a truly national story. Not so long ago national stories existed only when the government wanted to launch a campaign or put across some message….

In a front-page commentary, The Beijing News, for example, spoke of an "emerging age of civil rights." Commentary like this would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

Other commentators who spoke with relief about how the Chongqing standoff had been resolved without violence showed how far China has come since what one blogger quoted by Hong Kong University's China Media Project called "a replay of the situation back in those years," a distinct if discreet reference to the bloody events of Tiananmen Square in 1989. At the same time, the fact that expressions of this kind of relief were so common, though, suggested how much further China has to go before fear is eliminated from public life….

But questions arise faster than answers. One of the best was posed in response to the law [recognizing private property] by Bao Tong, a former adviser to the late, disgraced reformist leader, Zhao Zhiyang. Speaking of still-honored Maoist maxims, he said notions like "All political change around the whole world must come from the barrel of a gun" have been superseded.

"They will no longer stand," Bao continued. "What to do? Do we carry on writing these things down in books and feeding them to our children from an early age? Or is it time they were consigned to a museum?"

10. "Chairman Gates," September 25 Here's another update on "what went right" in the world. This article describes a phenomenon I have noted before: the near-deification of Bill Gates in developing countries like India, China, and Vietnam, where he represents the unlimited success possible under capitalism.

This article puts the issue in rather startling terms, arguing that Gates has taken the place of Chairman Mao as contemporary China's most revered icon. But don't just take this reporter's word for it: he got the idea from an official in China's Ministry of Propaganda—a twist that no fiction writer would have dared to invent.

"China's Tech Generation Finds a New Chairman to Venerate," Kevin Holden, Wired, May 24 Since the passing of Chairman Mao Zedong, a new chairman has come to represent the aims and aspirations of millions of Chinese youth—the chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gates.

"Chairman Mao was the great symbol of revolutionary China, but Bill Gates has become the new idol of youths across China," said a researcher with China's ministry of propaganda. "Gates has become more popular in China than any government leader."

Books by or about Microsoft's chairman are massive best sellers across China, even in the IT-impoverished countryside, and Gates has been cited as the ultimate role model by everyone, from the founders of internet startups to Chinese cyberdissidents.

"I read about Bill Gates before I had ever even seen a computer," said Dong Ruidong, who abandoned his rural village for the bright lights and cybercafes of the Chinese capital. "Even in the remotest villages of China, Gates is one of the most popular figures alive."…

Chairman Gates is everything Chairman Mao was not. Mao crushed capitalists, closed newspapers and universities, and isolated China from the world. But Chairman Gates celebrates free enterprise and is busy forging partnerships with Chinese entrepreneurs, creating cybercolleges and integrating China's best and brightest into the web-linked world….

Microsoft's chairman is extending lots of incentives to new Windows users here, and has become a symbol of global fame and fortune, and of American-style freedoms. While hosting Chinese President Hu Jintao at an aristocratic feast at the Gates' private residence in Seattle last spring,… In remarks repeated across Chinese chat rooms, Gates told Hu: "Industry and government around the world should work even more closely to protect the privacy and security of internet users, and promote the exchange of ideas."…

"Bill Gates deserves to win the Nobel Peace Prize," said the Chinese propaganda officer. "He gives people across the globe not only material help, but also inspiration that if they work very, very hard, they might one day become more important than a president."

11. India's Choice, January 19 One Billion People Choose Between the Sky and the Abyss

It is not often in history that an entire nation makes a fundamental choice about its future—and never in history has this been done by a nation of one billion people. Yet that is what India is doing right now.

I have written extensively about the recent trend toward liberty in China, India, and a few other places. But I regard India as a far more interesting case with much greater potential, for one reason: as a nation that enjoys political freedom, India is choosing its path. No one ever asked the Chinese whether they wanted to become (or remain) a Marxist dictatorship, nor did the Chinese choose to reject Marxism. That choice, beneficial though it undoubtedly has been, was made for the Chinese by a small cadre of leaders, in secret debates expressed in esoteric terminology.

In India, by contrast, the direction of the nation is a matter of constant debate in a free press, implemented by freely elected politicians. India's one billion people are all asked to participate in making the choices that the nation faces.

At this moment in their history, they are choosing between freedom and controls, between progress and stagnation, between optimism and fatalism, between the sky and the abyss.

If you don't believe me—if you think I wrote that last line in a fit of delirious over-optimism—then think again. What I just wrote is somewhat less poetic than the "Anthem" being promoted by the Times of India as the centerpiece of its new "India Poised" campaign. When you go to the campaign web-page, be sure to turn up your speakers so that you can hear this Anthem movingly recited by Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan.

To put it in perspective, this is roughly the equivalent, in America, of a newspaper campaign sponsored by the New York Times with its manifesto narrated by, say, Richard Gere. With that in mind, consider the words of the "Anthem" being offered to India.

India vs. India
There are two Indias in this country.
One India is straining at the leash, eager to spring forth and live up to all the adjectives that the world has been showering recently upon us.
The other India is the leash.
One India says, give me a chance and I'll prove myself. The other India says, prove yourself first, and maybe then you'll have a chance.
One India lives in the optimism of our hearts. The other India lurks in the skepticism of our minds.
One India wants. The other India hopes.
One India leads. The other India follows.
But conversions are on the rise. With each passing day, more and more people from the other India have been coming over to this side. And quietly, while the world is not looking, a pulsating, dynamic new India is emerging.
An India whose faith in success is greater than its fear of failure. An India that no longer boycotts foreign-made goods but buys out the companies that make them instead.
History, they say, is a bad motorist. It rarely ever signals its intentions when it is taking a turn.
This is that rarely-ever moment. History is turning a page.
For more than half a century, our nation has sprung, stumbled, run, fallen, rolled over, got up, dusted herself and cantered, sometimes lurched on. But today, as we begin our 60th year as a free nation, the ride has brought us to the edge of time's great precipice.
And one India—a tiny little voice at the back of the head—is looking down at the bottom of the ravine and hesitating.
The other India is looking up at the sky and saying, it's time to fly.
This is the voice of a nation that is choosing—openly and self-consciously—the direction of its future. And more: it is choosing the nature of its soul.

You can also view a video of this Anthem, shot against the backdrop of the construction site of the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, a giant new bridge in Bombay that has been described as the equivalent of America's Golden Gate Bridge.

It's an appropriate comparison. In spirit, this campaign reminds me of nothing so much as America in its first century and a half: the sense of optimism, of unlimited potential, of a nation choosing greatness and setting an example that it expects will stun the world.

Nor is this an isolated campaign. It is representative of the attitude and "feel" of the rising new India. I could cite many more examples, and I will do so in future articles. But this one example conveys the sense-of-life significance of what is happening better than anything else I have seen.

It is a magnificent example of what is going right in the world, and it should give you some idea of the pent-up human potential that is just beginning to be unleashed. It is also a powerful reminder that these trends are not the product of some impersonal historical force or the blind momentum of a previous, better era. They are the product of the active choices being made today, one by one, in the minds of a billion people.

But this Anthem is representative of today's trend in one other crucial respect. The people of India grasp their choice and are making it largely on a sense-of-life level. They choose, not between individualism and collectivism or between reason and mysticism, but between "springing forth" and being held back by a metaphorical "leash." And while this Anthem is a testament to what can be achieved on the strength of such a vision of human potential—it is also a reminder of the even greater potential that can be liberated in India if it finds the ideas to express its magnificent new vision.