...criticize them for wanting to emulate ours.
If it is tragic for them to want our lifestyle, it follows that it is equally tragic for us to have this lifestyle.
I absolutely agree that the bicycle is the most efficient and sustainable form of transportation there is, and as the second older (2012) paper to which I referred in the OP indicated, the most popular form of modern transportation in China is an electric scooter/bike.
We can suggest that the Chinese return to biking when we adapt it ourselves.
In presenting this paper, we may contrast their statements of reality with our willingness to lie to ourselves.
Here at DU it is taken for granted that it is an unabashed evil to criticize EV dogma, and unquestioned that EV's are "green!"
It is not true that if a Republican says leaves are green that they are therefore blue.
They are no such thing. The electric vehicle is simply switching one environmental disaster for another, just as the gasoline vehicle solved the urban problem of horse manure in the streets by substituting air that kills people.
The batteries for these devices, as I recently pointed out in this space (A dead battery dilemma) are not sustainable - there are not enough ores of cobalt and nickel to displace the world's gasoline cars) and as this honest analysis - far more honest than the rote electric car worship that flies around here and in the general public space - shows, the benefits in terms of climate are either marginal or non-existent.
The United States built its now fading industrial might on coal. Now we want to wag our fingers at China for doing the same thing.
I wish coal were really dead; I wish China didn't run on it. But we not on any kind of moral footing to lecture them; I fully understand why they would resent us for doing so.
They have at least a rational approach to phasing out dangerous fossil fuels. They are currently building more nuclear reactors than any other nation on Earth. They have built and run high temperature test reactors, and they are coupling them to thermochemical reactors.
We seem to think that our dangerous natural gas driven power system - particularly with our wind and solar lipstick on the gas pig - makes on morally superior. Every damned generation that lives on this continent will pay for our short term self gratification.
Our energy mix is abysmal. At one point, we lead the world in nuclear energy production. Now our reactors are being shut, and complete morons are cheering for this outcome.
Looking at the current state of affairs, I would argue that the Chinese are well within their rights to find us to be appalling hypocrites.
Now, I at least confess I'm a hypocrite. I live in a suburb, and I drive a car. However I'm not going to pretend that if I drive a plug in Prius that I'm a good guy. I'd still be a bad guy who is annoyingly advertising that I am otherwise.
= new reply since forum marked as read