The Christian Science Monitor online has guest bloggers. I don’t know what their editorial policy is on content, but the piece written by UCLA econ professor Matthew Kahn, an expert on environmental issues, is a classic example of juvenile China bashing. I know that the University of California is having budget problems, but I had no idea that the quality of their faculty had dropped this far, this fast.

I am being snarky. Kahn is a well-known economist trained at the University of Chicago. Why he indulges in such abhorrent, idiotic behavior though, and why the CS Monitor would allow this crap on its site, is puzzling to say the least.

Kahn blogged on the Tom Friedman Op/Ed that I wrote about yesterday. The column was fine, although it was pretty much more of the same old, Friedmanesque cheerleading for green tech. Ho hum.

Friedman gave kudos to China in particular for having the foresight to invest in green tech, as opposed to the U.S., which is dragging its feet on funding. Not such a controversial statement by anyone, and certainly not by Friedman.

Enter professor Kahn:

Do China’s best and the brightest work for their powerful state or in the private sector? The New York Times’s Tom Friedman hints that the Chinese government is filled with 200 IQ people.

Well, during a week when several members of Congress stated that global warming had been disproved because D.C. had been hit by several snowstorms, Friedman’s contention is pretty easy to defend. (Of course, he was just using that as a hook for the rest of his column, and wasn’t necessarily literally comparing intelligence — Kahn seems to have missed that.)

He argues that China is pursuing a wiser long term energy policy than the United States. Why? Unlike our government, China’s government anticipates the coming scarcity of resources and thus are making investments now so that they will be ready to corner even more export markets when “natural resource collapse” is just about to take place.

Kahn never follows through with his argument here for some reason. I assume he is saying that China is not working on becoming more efficient, it is merely ensuring long-term supplies of energy.

That’s partially true, but Kahn is apparently unaware of all the money that China has poured into green tech, energy efficiency programs, etc. in the past few years. It’s not enough to keep up with growth, which is why China is ensuring offshore energy supplies, but they are pursuing both strategies. Kahn is supposed to be an expert in this area, shouldn’t he know this already? Or perhaps he has selective amnesia?

Now where could Kahn have gone to read about some of the exciting new developments in China’s green tech investments? Hmm. I wonder if there is, maybe, a columnist out there who actually writes about that stuff on a regular basis?

If Mr. Friedman would return my phone calls, I would like to ask him why the Chinese leaders are smarter than our leaders?

I know this guy is a professor at a top school, a published author and is well known in his field, but complaining that a celebrity journalist type like Friedman isn’t returning his phone calls makes him sound like a pathetic nutjob who writes complaint letters to the President of the United States and wonders why the president never gets back to him.

Does Tom believe that interest group politics in the US blocks smart policy? So, is he a fan of dictatorship? Is he envious of an “enlightened” despot’s ability to get things done? Has he soured on democracy? Should the U.S adopt China’s 1 party system? Or should we offer free passports to the Chinese government so that they can teach us how to have a well functioning government? Would Tom Friedman restrict voting rights and only allow people to vote who have been to college or have passed an “issues literacy” test?

Ooof. Someone get this guy a quaalude or something.

Look, if anyone actually believes that interest group politics in the U.S. is not blocking smart energy policy, they have no business being in any sort of classroom. That sounds a lot like ideology talking, and certainly not the product of logical thought.

As far as the rest of Kahn’s diatribe against China is concerned, all I can say is that he seems to be having a tantrum, something that most of us grow out of by the time we reach the age of six.

I mean really, about the only thing he didn’t say was “If you love China’s energy policy so much, why don’t you marry it?” Just because Friedman finds U.S. policy lacking (along with almost everyone else on the planet) and identifies some positive examples in China, it is utterly infantile to then suggest that Friedman wants the U.S. to copy China’s political system.

As to Kahn’s poke at Friedman about an issues literacy test as a prerequisite to voting, I think someone else beat him to the punch on that one.