Word: globality
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...hanging on as the chief of a government center on renewable energy, where climate change takes up less space in his mind than adultery. "Beard was not wholly skeptical about climate change," McEwan writes. "But he himself had other things to think about." (See pictures of the effects of global warming...
That doesn't change even when Beard is invited on a trip to the Norwegian Arctic with a boat full of self-important artists and scientists going north to see global warming in action. The journey is hilarious: Beard suffers frostbite in a rather uncomfortable place and is very nearly eaten by a polar bear. But even better is the way McEwan deftly contrasts the high ideals of the travelers - who call for a new, greener way of life - with their unacknowledged selfishness. The ship's boot room, where people load and unload their polar gear, and which steadily descends...
...Beard's dismissal of global warming changes when his unhappy home - his current wife is cheating on him in response to his half-dozen extramarital affairs - and his stalled work collide on the full-length polar-bear rug in his living room. (Updating Chekhov: If the author of a climate-change novel shows you a polar-bear rug in the first act, you can be sure it will bare its teeth in the next one.) Quite suddenly, Beard discovers what he believes is the solution to the problem of climate change: artificial photosynthesis, harnessing sunlight to split water and yield...
...reason for their angst is clear: A property meltdown in China would imperil the whole world's fledgling economic recovery. Throughout the most severe global downturn in decades, China's economic growth has remained remarkably buoyant. This year, for example, China's GDP will likely rise 9% or more, in contrast to a merely subpar rebound in the U.S. and Europe...
...nothing has driven China's growth more than real estate investment. Last year, fixed-asset investment accounted for more than 90% of China's overall growth, and residential and commercial real estate investment made up nearly a quarter of that. (See pictures of the global financial crisis...