(Image via National Geographic)

The May issue of National Geographic is devoted entirely to China.

“Inside the Dragon,” as it’s called, covers a variety of topics, from the Olympic Games architecture boom to the dismal state of the Yellow River.

The Yellow River story, titled “Bitter Waters” by Brook Larmer, shines light on the urgency of the pollution crisis in China’s legendary waterway.

Few waterways capture the soul of a nation more deeply than the Yellow, or the Huang, as it’s known in China. It is to China what the Nile is to Egypt: the cradle of civilization, a symbol of enduring glory, a force of nature both feared and revered. From its mystical source in the 14,000-foot Tibetan highlands, the river sweeps across the northern plains where China’s original inhabitants first learned to till and irrigate, to make porcelain and gunpowder, to build and bury imperial dynasties. But today, what the Chinese call the Mother River is dying. Stained with pollution, tainted with sewage, crowded with ill-conceived dams, it dwindles at its mouth to a lifeless trickle. There were many days during the 1990s that the river failed to reach the sea at all.

The demise of the legendary river is a tragedy whose consequences extend far beyond the more than 150 million people it sustains. The Yellow’s plight also illuminates the dark side of China’s economic miracle, an environmental crisis that has led to a shortage of the one resource no nation can live without: water.

There are other contributions by famous writers, including a piece on China’s emerging middle class by Leslie Chang, a story about the vanishing Dong minority in Guizhou Village by Amy Tan, and ruminations about China’s future by Peter Hessler. And, of course, stunning photography.

And I got a good tip from Marilyn Terrell, chief researcher from National Geographic Traveler:

The online edition has two stories from the archives of NatGeo that don’t appear in the print edition: a 1955 story by Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian soldier who escaped a British POW camp in India during WWII and hiked over the Himalayas to Tibet, and became tutor to the young Dalai Lama.

and a 1971 story by Canadian Audrey Topping who attended college in China before Mao’s revolution, then returned years later to find the country transformed in many ways.

The stories are rich, engaging and informative. If you can’t get your hands on the print edition, no worries — the online version is rich in multimedia and interactive tools. And there’s even a “How to Help” section, in line with the publication’s mission to “inspire people to care about the planet.”

(Editor’s note: Please welcome our first post by contributing blogger Sophia Mendelsohn about some of the benefits of luxury consumption and “lifestyle” publications in China!)

China’s public is receiving a mixed message from mainstream media. On the one hand, they are told development is destroying the environment. On the other hand, the messages equate luxury and consumption in China with the ever sought after higher living standard.

This means that an effective media campaign promoting environmental protection is going to have to embrace the inevitable consumption by offering the consumer a green option that is sexy and fashionable. This also serves to counter the idea that environmental problems are too large for the average person to minimize.

Despite the common conception that state-controlled media doesn’t report bad news, a large part of the environmental news in China covers major disasters in country. Much of the rest goes to playing the blame game with the U.S. and other developed nations.

In December 2005, chemical pollution in the Song Hua River near Harbin, endangered the water supply for millions, making for some very telling pictures. In 2007, Taihu Lake near Shanghai turned blue and green from human and industrial pollution. That same year, over 15,000 kilograms of dead fish floated en masse to the surface of Wuhan’s East Lake. The bad news was that this was not the first time.

(Photo of Taihu Lake via PacificEnvironment)

These events, and others, were covered heavily by state-run media, discussed on personal blogs and in chat rooms. With this kind of coverage, it is easy to understand the belief that environmental problems in China are beyond the control of the average person.

The other environmental news that filters down to mainstream press in China is often focused on blaming the U.S. and other Western nations for climate change and global warming. Part of that argument is that the West has an excessively lavish a lifestyle and consumes too much, thereby emitting greenhouse gases.

Of course, you don’t have to look farther than Shanghai’s Nanjing Xi Road or Beijing’s Wangfujing to see the”luxurious” Western nations are in good company. And it seems the more the merrier. Gucci plans to open another five stores in China within the next year.

As luxury brands barge their way into the market, they are accompanied by their close cousin, the lifestyle magazine. Though in a twist away from the stereotype, many of these magazines are talking about more than just clothing and movie stars. Recently a number of lifestyle magazines have featured “green stories,” covering everything from eco-trends to socialite environmental heroes.

Although it would be fair to grumble about a certain amount of “greenwashing,” lifestyle publications serve an important role in educating the Chinese public about environmental issues. “Green glam” brings an element of sexiness to the change and effort that is involved in improving a new consumer’s lifestyle.

They also offer a softer, more approachable angle than newspapers running stories about whole eco-systems being taken down by heavy industry. Without these publications, the public’s main access to eco-issues would be all doom and gloom.

Trends Magazine’s Chinese-language publications let loose a frenzy of green stories in ‘07 and look to be keeping it up in ‘08. Trends publishes about every glossy magazine you see on the corner kiosk—think Cosmo, Bazaar, Esquire, National Geographic Traveler, and Men’s Health, to name a few.

Trends established a website focused on their eco-travel for their readers. The site opens to words like “trendy environmental protection” and panoramic views of snow-topped mountains in Tibet and other western provinces in China.

You could fairly argue that the very snow photo-shopped onto the site will melt away with the carbon emissions produced by traveling to them. However, with the Chinese domestic tourist industry moving around one billion people a year, we can safely argue that those emissions are going to be emitted regardless.

But sites like this still serve an important purpose. They reach out to tourists with plane ticket already in hand and alert them to the drastic increase in tourism, and how it is affecting the local eco-system. While promoting travel, these sites declare environmental protection must be taken into account. In addition, Trends directs readers to non-profit environmental organizations like Greenpeace and WWF China. It’s true that they are not promoting tents over five-star hotels, but awareness like this on an attractive platform is a step in the right direction.

Just like China’s consumption, “green glam” coverage does not stop at travel. The upscale fashion magazine, Bazaar (November 2007) suggests easy steps you can take in your own home to reduce your environmental impact, like shutting off lights and successfully making LEDs seem as precious as Chanel. It also promotes the “I am not a plastic bag” bag as more than an extra purse but to actually cut down on use of plastic.

Like travel and fashion, glamorous eco-friendly weddings are not to be left behind as China revs up.

Cosmo (July 2007) covered green weddings particularly well, making a direct connection between the extravagance of a wedding and the extra greenhouse gases produced as a result. Similar to the American way of measuring everything in football fields, the Chinese-language site notes “the carbon emissions from your wedding could not even fit in six swimming pools.”

This month Esquire magazine has green billboard advertisements up with banners declaring the publication to be a fighter for the environment. You can find them in Shanghai’s main shopping street, right next to the permanent Tiffany & Co. billboard.

While organizations that promote the restraint and reduction of consumption deserve great credit, we need to look at alternative strategies as both shopping and pollution spread out from Beijing and Shanghai to every corner of China.

Lifestyle media’s trendy promotion of small environmental changes in an answer to two problems.

• One, it empowers a public easily left feeling helpless by the scale of the problem, or vindicated by heavy industry’s role in causing it.
• Two, it acknowledges the inevitable path of progress and works with consumer’s cravings, rather than against them.

While they can be easily dismissed as “greenwashing,” glossy covers do more good than we give them credit for. They contribute to popular awareness of the issues and suggest realistic small solutions that your average Zhou have a chance at. These possibilities are well worth the trees they are printed on.

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For more information about luxury consumption in China, browse these links:

• China Luxury Summit: “An annual gathering of luxury executives for the hottest issues concerning China’s luxury market.”
• WorldWatch: “Luxury Spending: China’s Affluent Entering ‘Enjoy Now’ Phase of Consumption”
• Amazon.com: “Elite China: Luxury Consumer Behaviour in China,” by Pierre Xiao Lu
• TNS Consumer Survey: “Luxury Brands in China” video
• McKinsey Quarterly: “The new Chinese consumer” and “The value of China’s emerging middle class”

Anyone see this week’s issue of The Economist?

Read the introduction for a good overview of what the 14-page special report entails:

China is bound to consume enormous amounts of raw materials as it develops. But given how polluted the country already is, and how much unrest that pollution is causing, it should curb its hunger for resources. A less wasteful development strategy would be a healthier one.

Here are some major points taken from different sections of the report, titled, “The New Colonialists,” referring to China’s influential global reach.

1. “The new colonialists“
   Problems: “China’s hunger for natural resources is causing more problems at home than abroad,” among them, a “supercycle” in the commodities industry, foreign entanglements, pollution, disease, premature deaths,  low agricultural yield, and social unrest.
   Recommendation: “China could—and should—use its influence to curb the nastiest of its friends” and “It should curb its hunger for resources.”
2. “A ravenous dragon“
   Main point: “China’s hunger for natural resources has set off a global commodity boom. Developed countries worry about being left high and dry, but the biggest effects will be felt in China itself.”
   Details: Chinese authorities are investing in countries such as Congo, Indonesia and Canada to obtain materials to sustain its economic growth; the country’s super-consumption has pushed up the price of metals, fuels and grains all over the world; China’s sudden global prominence is creating a lot of anxiety about the prospect of corruption, economic mismanagement, repression and instability, and it is also contributing to a heightened sense of competition, especially among Western democratic countries; however, the Economist maintains that “concerns about the dire consequences of China’s quest for natural resources are overblown.” Finally, the most important issue to deal with is China’s own struggle to sustain its own “gluttonous” consumption habits, as it copes with an increase in foreign entanglements and imports, as well as a depletion of natural resources.
3. “Iron rations“
   Summary: The story of Shougang Group, a steel company, and Daqing, one of the world’s largest oil reserves, exemplifies the country’s voracious demand for commodities…and the implicit danger in depleting limited resources.
4. “The lucky country“
   Main idea: China’s demand for natural resources is playing a big role in Australia, the world’s biggest exporter of iron ore. Some pundits worry that Australia will become over-dependent on China, but most Australians are enthusiastic about this economic relationship.
5. “Mutual convenience”
   Dilemma: “IN POORER countries such as Congo, China’s hunt for resources has more complex effects. On the one hand, Congo’s long-deprived citizens are in much more desperate need of trade, investment, economic growth and the rising living standards they might bring with them. On the other hand, its corrupt and underfunded government is much less able or inclined to manage China’s engagement for the benefit of its people.”
   The Economist’s perspective: While some view China’s interest in Congo (for things like copper, diamonds and gold) as being a new form of colonialism, many Congolese politicians welcome the business partnership, and some even think it will signal to Western foreigners to “drop their ‘patronising attitude, that we know what’s best for you.’” It’s also important to remember that China is not the only country interested in Congo’s resources, and it is still unclear whether or not some business negotiations will move ahead.
6. “No strings“
   Main point: Developing countries enjoy doing business with China because they receive diplomatic support, investment and increased revenue, and they are also able to assume more leverage in their business dealings.
7. “Intrepid explorers“
   Question: “DO CHINA’S state-owned mining and oil firms have an unfair advantage over their Western rivals?”
   Answer: “Chinese firms do have access to countries that many Western ones do not, such as Sudan and Iran—but if they are exploiting oil that would otherwise go undeveloped, they are increasing the global supply and so reducing the price.”
   Bottom line: “Chinese firms are not as invincible as they are made out to be.”
8. “A large black cloud“
   Main point: China’s government wants to slow economic growth for the sake of self-sufficiency, protecting the environment and ensuring social equality. But many schemes are only temporary fixes, and the economic incentives to continue environmentally harmful practices overpower the government directives. Basically, poor enforcement and a lack of local support or authority, coupled with unending growth and consumption, means the “government is fighting a losing battle.”
9. “The perils of abundance”
   Purpose: To explain China’s surge in energy consumption.
   Explanation #1: “Some believe that China has reached a stage in its development when labour becomes relatively scarce and growth begins to rely more heavily on investment. At this turning point, the theory runs, shortages of labour lead to rising wages and so to higher incomes. Consumers with more spending power, in turn, start to buy homes, cars and televisions, gobbling up huge volumes of natural resources in the process.”
   Explanation #2: “…the boom in heavy industry is a product mainly of poor regulation rather than of inexorable demographic forces. …China’s development is becoming more capital-intensive not so much because labour is getting scarce but because capital is too abundant.”

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Please share your thoughts/ideas/reactions in “Comments” below.
Here are some other Responsible Bloggers who are covering this story:

•  China Digital Times
• China Economics Blog
• The China Vortex

Forgive me, dear readers, for the lack of posts lately. I have been busy moving out of my Chicago apartment, preparing for a trip to Taiwan in January, when I begin my three month study at the Chinese Culture University’s Mandarin Learning Center. In the meantime, please get acquainted with our new contributing blogger Mark Hiew.  Read his first post here.

Also, for your reading pleasure, please take a look at this interesting and well-designed online magazine: www.eRenlai.com.

This month, e-Renlai presents a series of editorial features about “the struggle of a green Asia, be it in China, Cambodia or Taiwan.” You can read about Anlong, an ecological village in Sichuan province; Taiwan’s first organic farmers market; and sustainable tourism in Luodai.

 Enjoy! 

(Photo courtesy of Caroline Campbell)

Caroline Campbell first fell in love with nature while growing up on a pig farm in rural England. Since then, she has traveled the world, telling stories about the importance of the environment, climate change and sustainability. Originally trained as a zoologist at the University of Edinburgh, Campbell became fascinated by the power of media. As a self-taught journalist and producer, she began her career by working for the BBC, for which she still produces radio features. Her first film for the BBC, “Global Dimming,” won the prestigious Wildscreen Planet Earth award and was requested to be viewed privately by the British Parliament “to expose a misunderstood aspect of the climate change debate,” she says. Campbell also worked as associate producer with the Sea Studios Foundation, in cooperation with National Geographic, on the production of “Strange Days on Planet Earth,” hosted by Edward Norton.

Today, Campbell is the creative director and co-producer of the Green Dragon Media Project, a multimedia report about the green construction industry in China. (Read her full bio/resume here.)

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Listen to my podcast interview with her:

03-responsiblechina_-caroline-campbell-from-the-green-dragon-media-project.mp3

(Music credit: “Fresh,” byMadMaxXB from GarageBand.

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“The Green Dragon Media Project expands internationally-supported research initiated by the Monterey Institute of International Studies in the U.S. and sponsored by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. The Media Project was born out of recognition of the need to facilitate expansion of sustainable construction efforts in China through an effective multimedia communication strategy. The immediate goal is therefore to create a multimedia online report highlighting the potential opportunities for acceleration of China’s movements towards sustainability. The audience for this report includes key international players who are in a position to respond to these opportunities.”

You can read more about the project here, where you will find a list of interviewees, an image gallery, and information about how to become a sponsor. Campbell recently edited a 20-minute film containing interviews with key players in China’s green building industry. “It will just open the ‘Pandora’s Box,’ if you like, to see what’s there,” she says of Green Dragon Media’s introduction to an international audience. (The film recently debuted at Chicago’s Green Build Expo on November 8th.)

Campbell says she believes in the potential for China to be a leader in the green building industry, but she acknowledges that there are a couple of barriers to the country’s success. The first is a general lack of understanding among Chinese developers about the green building industry, mainly because the country does not have trade associations to help disseminate information about sourcing new products and technology. “It gets left to the business people, who are very busy, so there’s very little understanding on how to get hold of products and how much they cost and who’s making them,” Campbell says.

The second barrier is a lack of education among local government officials about the central government’s energy efficiency policies. “If you’re putting these fairly ambitious energy saving codes on every building in China through the central government, and you’re not enforcing them, and your local government officials don’t really understand the reasoning, they see a much cheaper way of doing it,” Campbell says. “It’s not going to happen that easily unless the people are educated about the actual cost benefits and social benefits.”

The goal of the Green Dragon Media Project, then, is to educate people around the world about China’s unprecedented opportunity for green construction and to create a community of green building professionals and advocates who can share information with each other. Eventually, Campbell and her team hope to launch a new media production company that focuses specifically on the green building industry. People who might want to get involved in the initiative include people with technical media skills or English-Chinese translation experience, as well as business professionals, such as venture capitalists, who want to support the project’s goals.

Contact the Green Dragon Media Project team:

• Max Perelman
• Research Director / Producer
• +1.831.917.7641
• max@greendragonfilm.org

• Caroline Campbell
• Creative Director / Producer
• +1.831.224.6083
• caroline@greendragonfilm.org

• River Lu
• Localization Director / Interpreter
• +1.831.917.5187
• rivergreendragon@gmail.com

[tags]China, green construction, sustainable development, Green Dragon Media Project[/tags]

A fellow Medill alum, Graham Webster, writes a blog, Transpacifica.net, focused on Sino-Japanese relations.

Recently, Webster critiqued some of James Fallows’ recent blog commentary about the idea of whether or not foreigners are “dissing” China by noticing the country’s pollution. Fallows’ post was written in direct response to a note he received from Shelly Kraicer, a Canadian writer and film-festival programmer, based in China, who runs a web site on Chinese film, ChineseCinema.org.

In his note to Fallows, Kracier talks about the “all too predictable undercurrent of looking down from lofty developed Western heights to squalid undeveloped Third World depths (”tut tut, of course they just can’t get it right, the way we know we could”). He says that “the positioning of the discourse on pollution is suspect, and reinforces a set of ugly structures that keep “us” thinking about “them” in very unhelpful ways.”

As Webster points out on Transpacifica, Fallows doesn’t really provide an in-depth analysis of the hypothesis that the “Western focus on environmental catastrophe in China is, in some way, part of a long process of belittling the Chinese.” He merely acknowledges an intriguing question.

Webster, however, presents a more lengthy response:

• Are Pollution Stories Anti-Chinese? Sometimes, yes.
  By Graham Webster
  Transpacifica
  November 17, 2007

Let me start by pointing out what Fallows didn’t bring up: It’s simply not an accurate representation of “Western” news coverage to say they only focus on the environment. Thousands of stories come up in Google News searches on China and human rights, or China and Darfur. The U.S. press is preoccupied much of the time with a possible economic and military threat from China. The way I see it, at least the English-language news world focuses on several major story-lines with China, and the environment is one. It may be more prominent because the environment (thankfully) is a major story overall, and China plays an important role in the global environment.

That said, it is not unreasonable to criticize a large number of North American and European press reports for a failure to put China’s present environmental problems in perspective, especially when it comes to air quality in the cities.

Read his full post here.

In my own opinion, I do not believe that Western media is purposefully trying to paint an ugly picture of China’s environment. However, I think it’s easy to fixate on stories about catastrophe, and the environmental crisis in China is definitely a easy-to-sell story with significant political, social and economic implications, especially as the last few months have brought on a slew of scandalous reports about tainted toys, beheaded government officials and poisonous drugs.

I wrote briefly about the media’s hyper-critical stance toward China in my post, “What I’ve learned so far about China, blogging and self-promotion…” and I repeat it here:

5. China is really messed up.

And we’re really messed up for giving it such a hard time. I’m no China-phile. I’m not even a particularly passionate activist. So I’m not advocating that we forgive the former Community country for all its trespasses. But the news in recent months has painted a really dirty, chaotic picture of China, and I gotta say, I feel bad for the Big C. Even the positive news that I’ve read seems to come with a caveat or a hint of skepticism. What really irks me is that China’s many scandals create the opportunity for countries like the United States to step in and play The Responsible Regulator, brandishing the international police stick, thus creating a hero-victim scenario. Yes, China is really messed up, but in order for it to rise from any of its ashes, to borrow from the stereotypical myth of the phoenix, it needs to have the right infrastructure, the authority, the political will, and the support of the international community.

Whatever the case may be, bad news is sometimes better than no news, because at least once people become aware of a problem, they can’t ignore it.

[tags]China, environment, media[/tags]

“ASIAN FAB 50″

Forbes released its third annual Asian Fab 50 list. India led the pack with a total of 12 companies, ranging in sectors from banking to construction. Taiwan followed with 10 companies, most of them in the tech industry. China made the list with seven entries, more than in any previous year. (To see the full alphabetical list, click here.)

China’s “Fab” Seven:

1. China Minsheng Banking (Banking)
2. China Mobile (Telecommunications Services)
3. China Shenhua Energy (Materials)
4. CNOOC (Oil & Gas Operations)
5. Lenovo Group (Technology Hardware & Equipment)
6. Minmetals Development (Trading Companies)
7. Wuhan Iron & Steel (Materials)

China may be the workshop of the world, but all its companies featured here rely on domestic customers. With a population of 1.3 billion, China has the biggest domestic market in the world in terms of the raw number of consumers.

Of course, having a huge market doesn’t guarantee success. China Minsheng and Lenovo Group still have to convince customers that their products are the better choice.

Although all but one of these companies count the government as an owner, they have shareholders and boards to please as well. Transparency also remains an issue, even at the biggest of the old state-owned outfits.

To compile the list, Forbes looked at long-term profitability, sales and earnings growth, stock price appreciation and projected earnings for Asian companies with revenues or market capitalization of at least $5 billion.

Now I wonder how many Chinese companies are considered “socially responsible”…

Forbes doesn’t say, but FORTUNE does. For the past two years, the magazine has published findings about the world’s most socially responsible businesses, as ranked by AccountAbility, a London-based think tank dedicated to corporate social responsibility, and csrnetwork, a U.K.-based business consultancy. According to the report, which examines the world’s highest revenue-earning companies, Chinese companies are among those that show the least dedication to corporate social responsibility.

“ACCOUNTABILITY RATING 2006″

In 2006, three out of the 64 companies listed in the Accountability Rating were from China: Sinopec, China National Petroleum and State Grid. They were given the following accountability “scores”:

• Sinopec - 10%
• China National Petroleum - 3%
• State Grid - 0%

These numbers are pretty paltry compared to the highest ranked companies–Vodafone (72%), BP (71%) and Royal Dutch/Shell Group (69%).

According to the analysts, the rating is a tool to measure “the extent to which companies have built responsible practices into the way they do business and how well they account for the impact of their actions on their stakeholders.”

For 2006, we examined the accountability of the Fortune Global 50 – the world’s 50 largest companies by revenue – plus 14 other companies so that we were evaluating at least 10 companies in each of the following sectors: automotive; computer, electronics and telecommunications; energy and utilities; financial services; petroleum refining.

• Stakeholder engagement: Does the company engage in dialogue with people who have an interest in, may be affected by, or may affect its business?
• Strategy: Does the core business strategy integrate social and environmental targets with financial ones?
• Governance: Do senior executives and the advisory board properly consider stakeholder issues when setting strategy and formulating corporate policy?
• Performance management: Do the company’s management processes, business standards, incentives and targets seek to achieve social and environmental goals?
• Public disclosure: Does the company provide a detailed report of social and environmental performance?
• Assurance: Does the company secure appropriate independent assurance of its social and environmental management processes and reporting?

  The stakeholder engagement and strategy domains each have a maximum score of 20. The other four domains each have a maximum score of 15. A company’s overall score is out of 100.

  For more on methodology, click here.

“WORLD’S MOST ADMIRED COMPANIES 2007″

This year in March, FORTUNE also compiled a list of the World’s Most Admired Companies, as judged by financial analysts, executives and directors at 347 companies with revenue in excess of $8 billion. Only eight Chinese companies made the cut, as opposed to 135 companies in the United States and 61 in Japan. And even China’s most “most admired” company, China Mobile Communications, received a score of 5.86 on a 10-point scale (compared to General Electric, which ranked #1 with a score of 8.24 out of 10.)

Last year, the same list was broken down even further, ranking companies by different attributes. In the “Social Responsibility” category, China had three companies deemed the “least admired.” They were China Life Insurance, with an overall score of 3.83, and China National Petroleum, with a score of 5.10. The country had no companies considered “most admired.”

RANKINGS SCHMANKINGS

Of course, it’s always important to remember that rankings don’t always paint a full and complete picture. And they are often riddled with bias. But even so, it’s clear that China has a long way to go before it dominates any of these lists. Hopefully, the contenders in the Asian Fab 50 will rise to the occasion.

[tags]Asian Fab 50, accountability, social responsibility, Accountability Rating, World’s Most Admired Companies, Forbes, Fortune, China[/tags]

Here’s a good overview of China’s speedy takeover of the world economy. Nothing really new to add to what’s already been said, but a very succinct analysis, along with interesting anecdotes and observations about how “the transition to a larger presence on the global stage comes with growing pains, for China and the rest of the world.”

China’s influence spreads around world
Associated Press
By William Foreman

For years, China’s booming economy touched daily life in the West most visibly through the “made-in-China” label on everything from clothes to computers. But now, economic growth is giving rise to something more that can’t be measured just by widgets and gadgets — a shift in China’s balance of power with the rest of the world.

[tags]China, globalization, news, Associated Press, Made in China[/tags]

The New York Times presents “a series of articles and multimedia examining the human toll, global impact and political challenge of China’s epic pollution crisis.”

• As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes
  By Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley
  August 26, 2007

Summary: China is either unwilling or unable to make changes to improve the environment. As a result, public health is suffering, the economy is burning up, and citizens are getting anxious. While the government tries to impose some regulations, no one is really taking full responsibility for the country’s unprecedented pollution problem.

No country in history has emerged as a major industrial power without creating a legacy of environmental damage that can take decades and big dollops of public wealth to undo.

But just as the speed and scale of China’s rise as an economic power have no clear parallel in history, so its pollution problem has shattered all precedents. Environmental degradation is now so severe, with such stark domestic and international repercussions, that pollution poses not only a major long-term burden on the Chinese public but also an acute political challenge to the ruling Communist Party. And it is not clear that China can rein in its own economic juggernaut.

Other multimedia features:

• Expert Roundtable
  

  Throughout the week, a panel of scholars and environmentalists will take turns answering your questions on the political, social, scientific and economic challenges posed by the country’s rapid industrialization and equally sudden pollution crisis.

• Audio slide show: The World’s Smokestack
  

  Chang W. Lee, a Times photographer, traveled around China to document the impact of industrialization on the country’s rural and urban landscapes.

• Video: The Real Cost
  

  What is China’s real gross domestic product when the cost of pollution is subtracted? Recently the Chinese government tried to calculate a national “Green G.D.P.” and the new formula showed the soaring economy in a more sober light.

• Interactive graphic: Mapping the Impact
  

  See where pollution has most affected China’s landscape and how the country’s environment and economy compare with the rest of the world.

[tags]New York Times, China, pollution, news[/tags]

…heard from Danwei.org….

Evan Osnos, Beijing bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune, talks to Stephen Colbert about cashmere farms and their detrimental effects on the environment and the global economy.

According to Osnos, the demand for cheap cashmere from China is speeding up the desertification of grasslands in northern China, where cashmere goats trample around the land, as if wearing stiletto heels, destroying the area. (Read more about desertification on one of my previous posts, “Schizo Enviro.”)

“Ok, so it’s entirely our fault that they’re destroying their landscape?” an offended, America-loving Colbert asks.

“No, in fact, it’s both of us together,” Osnos says. “America and China are basically addicted to each other.”

The effect of our consumer preferences is an increased amount of pollution. Osnos says that up to 40 percent of dust in Los Angeles comes from China. This also exacts a cost on health care for people who have to be treated for dust pollution-related symptoms.

To read more about cheap sweaters and Chinese goats, register for access to the Trib to read Osnos’ story, “Your cheap sweater’s real cost.“

[tags]Stephen Colbert,Evan Osnos, cashmere, China, goats, globalization, desertification[/tags]