The start of the year of the rat was a rather miserable experience for some in China this year, especially for a few of the 210 million migrant workers who were deprived of their only holiday when the transportation system clogged up under heavy snowfall (I watched it all from sunny South Africa).

The real culprit for it all was hot air.  Like the U.S.-based Pew Center explained to China Dialogue this week (after first pointing out that science cannot in fact determine whether any single weather event is directly connected to global warming), when warmer conditions evaporate water from the ocean, moist air is formed and when this meets cold air over land the moisture freezes and falls. Asked why this process happened to such an extreme degree in China this year, Pew Center explained (after first pointing out that they are in fact not a meteorological society) that

the unusual severe snow storm in China certainly fits a broader trend of increasing severe weather events that is well documented and it could well be a consequence of global warming...The most important lesson China can take from this event is that climate change has real and potentially severe costs.

China's energy security, moreover, is intimately linked to climate security. China still relies on coal for about 80% of its electricity generation, and as most of the coal is mined in the northern and western provinces and then transported to China's booming coastal provinces, the recent storms have illustrated how easy road and rail networks can be disrupted.

Ministry of Railways spokesman Wang Yongping also had some hot air to deal with recently. Involved in a controversial exchange with the Guangzhou CPPCC deputy secretary on February 20th, Mr Wang has had his head called for and the Ministry of Railways exhorted to adopt an attitude of submission, earnestly studying the problems exposed by the recent disaster, as one columnist put it. As David Bandurski outlined at the China Media Project, exchanges like these have formed part of the Chinese media anticipating a green light on 'reflection,' or fansi 反思 (emanating from favourable whispers of Wen Jia Bao's report for the upcoming session of the National People's Congress), and hence their providing bolder coverage of the storms and what they reveal about government and society in China.

Thus for example the Economic Observer this week highlighted the plight of Chenzhou in Hunan, which was isolated for ten days during the Spring Festival after three successive snowstorms and freezing rain decimated its power grid, shut down public transportation and limited water supplies. And it was bad, as local resident Li Ronghua explained,

There are floods and droughts here every year, so we are used to natural disasters. But this time many of us panicked. The city was so close to coldness and death.

Relief work in Chenzhou has just begun, the city's secretary general said - 70% of the city still has no power - and would last until May. Chinese banks have kindly lent more than RMB102 billion to help rebuild areas damaged by the storms, aimed at restoring farms, transportation, power and other infrastructure. China's 'big four' top state-owned banks accounted for RMB59 billion of the disaster loans, and no doubt China Minsheng Banking Corp, China's first private bank that saw its net profits jump 68% in 2007, would also have been asked for a contribution.

Shanghai has luckily shown the way forward in dealing with global warming. While an explosion at a sewage plant in eastern Beijing this week caused the death of four people and poisoned 20 on-site workers, advertisements on Shanghai's new subway stations now have themes related to global warming, and the city's Waste Management Department recently announced they have found new ways of classifying waste, utilizing a four-category classification pattern referring to four different bins for glass, harmful waste, recycled waste and other waste. Clearly, what Beijing's new subway lines need are the right kind of message.