A roundup of this week’s interesting and important stories, brought to you by ResponsibleChina.com.

YAO MING IS A CHAMPION IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE.
Sure, he’s China’s most famous superstar athlete. But did you know he’s also the UN Environment Programme’s first-ever Environmental Champion? Found this scoop via China Crossroads. Maybe that cute little kid Yao walked with during the opening ceremonies will follow in his reduced-carbon footsteps one day, too.

BEIJING’S CLEAN AIR IS ANOTHER CITY’S NIGHTMARE.
Found via China Digital Times: “the massive cleanup effort for the Olympic Games has come at a cost to the local economy of some nearby industrial cities, whose factories have been forced to close down temporarily,” NPR reports. And Shanghaiist tells how the mega-event sucks for local businesses, too. Spectators, however, party on.

THE LIBRARY PROJECT IS GROWING.
Tom Stader, the nonprofit’s founder, wrote me a message on Facebook alerting me to the new library at Hou Wan Elementary School. This is just one example of a string of successes the educational organization has experienced over the past few months.

SUSTAINABILITY IS A MAJOR FORCE IN THE OLYMPIC MOVEMENT.
China’s been calling for a “green Olympics” since it won the bid in 2001. But this ain’t a flash in the pan. Sustainability is here to stay. This week, All Roads Lead to China points you in the direction (via Earth2Tech) of some clean tech firms that are benefiting from this year’s Games.

“GREEN FUTURES” WROTE TO ME WITH A BLAST FROM THE PAST.
Lindsay Travis, business director for U.K.-based Green Futures, a “sustainable solutions magazine,” wants you to read a special publication about “Greening the Dragon,” published in September 2006. I encourage you to read it and see what’s changed since then.

OSPOP STEPS INTO THE NEW YORK TIMES.
Rob Walker, “Consumed” columnist for the New York Times, writs about Ospop, a China-based shoe company with a purpose. Ben Walters, the founder, told me he’s been really excited about some short documentary videos he produced that describe the people, the process, and the perks of his Tianlang canvas sneakers. You can also read about his oldie-but-newbie kicks here and here.

Beijing’s still crackin’ the anti-pollution whip.
Found via China Bystander: If Beijing is still unacceptably hazy and humid 48 hours before the Olympics, more cars will be taken off the roads and factories in the capital will shut down. See my previous about this here. And if you want a more interactive experience, check out Asia Society’s new “Room With a View” photo diary, found via China Crossroads.

Info on environmental NGOs is now available in a comprehensive format.
Another resource found via China Crossroads: “Chatham House has put out what I have found to be the most comprehensive set of documents on environmental NGOs in China,” blogger Rich Brubaker says.

A glacier in western China is melting. Fast.
Jonathan Watts of the Guardian reports by video about the incredible shrinking Urumqi No. 1 Glacier. It’s getting warmer faster, which can make for a more tolerable winter season, but it also means there’s less snow and rain, so grass doesn’t grow as well, and it’s affecting the food supply for the sheep of nomadic herdsmen. Melting glaciers = strong trickle down affect.

China’s “new rich” are still stuck in the “old CSR.”
John Elkington and Jodie Thorpe from SustainAbility, an independent think tank and strategy consultancy, write a piece for China Dialogue about the need for China’s wealthy entrepreneurs to make a more concerted effort to integrate corporate social responsibility into their business, rather than merely relying on charity and philanthropy, in order to drive social change. Here’s the main point: “Increasingly, business leaders are beginning to acknowledge that rather than externalising their conscience and values to corporate foundations, there is a better way — which involves integrating twenty-first century values into the business model and strategy of their core business.” Elkington and Thorpe give shout-outs to Chinese egg producer Deqingyuan, “which has built a brand around providing healthy and high-quality eggs in Beijing,” as one good example of a business that “is responding to societal needs by building profitable and successful businesses, rather than “giving something back” once the damage has been done.”

The Beijing Olympics is a trap.
Watch this video on The Onion to see what I mean.

Every Friday, ResponsibleChina highlights major news about the environment, CSR and social entrepreneurship in China. For tips or suggestions, please send an email to erica [at] responsiblechina.com.

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT THIS WEEK…

CHINA IS CROWDED.
Did you know a billion people will live in China’s cities within one generation? The McKinsey Quarterly published an article about how urbanization will affect China and what policy makers must do to cope with these changes. The conclusion? “Encouraging more concentrated development, with growth channeled to the largest cities, offers the optimal trade-off between the benefits and potential problems of urbanization.” Rich Brubaker from All Roads Lead to China says, “Overall - their guidance is correct. China is going to continue to urbanize on a scale never seen before, but I am just not sure it is going to happen on the same level, at the same speed, and as McKinsey says it will.” Read Brubaker’s full analysis here.

BEIJING IS TRYING TO CLAMP DOWN ON AIR POLLUTION.
According to China Bystander, “Beijing’s pre-Olympic anti-pollution controls went into effect on Sunday and a couple of days on, this Bystander is told, they are having some beneficial effect in making the city less smoggy.” The China Economic Review says “the results are muddled.” Have any of you Beijingers out there noticed a difference, yet?

BEIJING IS RUNNING OUT OF WATER.
Probe International recently released a report about Beijing’s water crisis. Read RespChi’s post about Coca-Cola’s CSR efforts to help out with the water situation. And here’s something about the Yangtze River (also facing a major crisis), courtesy of National Geographic.

CHINA IS FIGURING OUT WAYS TO PRODUCE CLEAN ENERGY.
Thanks to the China Law Blog, I found out that the U.S. Department of Commerce published an online report, “Clean Energy, An Exporter’s Guide to China.” According to the Executive Summary, “This report is intended as a clean energy technology market overview for China, with two primary objectives: (1) to analyze the clean energy markets in China and (2) to identify opportunities for trade and investment through 2020.” You might also want to read a primer about China’s climate policy on China Dialogue. Or this recent article about Chinese entrepreneurs turning to wind power, in line with the government’s plan to produce “five gigawatts (GW) of wind generation capacity, meaning 28% growth annually” by 2010.

SHANGHAI BUSINESSES ARE GOING GREEN.
Shanghaiist informs us that there’s a bunch of players that are striving to become more environmentally friendly. Shout-outs to URBN Hotels, Emissions Zero, AOO, Arc8x, and LiveGreenEco. Also, we hear the Jane Goodall Institute in Shanghai is running the The Eco-Office Evaluation Program, which, according to our blogger Sophia, who is the program’s project manager, “links professionally trained local students and offices through an environmental audit to encourage green office practices. Students preform a unobtrusive audit and follow up with technical suggestions to create a “greener” office. The result is a more sustainable office culture and reduced waste and resources use. The program is entirely free of charge for offices and students from beginning to end and can be completed in less than two hours.”

AND…FINALLY…THE CLIMATE CRISIS CAN BE FUNNY?
Found via Globalisation and the Environment: “Cartoonists use humour to tackle climate change” at The Guardian. “Surely, the threat posed by climate change is no laughing matter? But cartoonists from over 50 countries have shown that barbed humour can be a powerful weapon in the fight to halt global warming,” David Adam reports.

Cartoon by Wang Rui Sheng

The aftermath of the earthquake will continue to cause suffering for millions of people, and the full scale of environmental damage remains to be seen, so I know this won’t be the last time I report about this terrible disaster.

But while help is on the way and China maintains the recovery process, I thought I’d highlight some coverage by fellow bloggers and journalists, who have done their duty to spread awareness about relief efforts and other news:

China: Environmental Fallout After Sichuan Earthquake
By Kelly Proctor
Global Voices Online
May 26, 2008

A week after China’s deadly earthquake killed nearly 56,000 people, environmental and other costs of the 8.0 magnitude earthquake are becoming clearer. On this post we examine posts related to the environmental fallout of the earthquake, and also the plight of animals in the earthquake area.

Where is the China Earthquake Donation Money Going?
By Robert Vance
The China Teaching Web
May 29, 2008

“I don’t think that the donations are getting to the earthquake victims,” a friend of mine somberly told me recently. “A few of my friends came back from Mianyang recently,” he explained, “and they told me that the earthquake survivors were not being given enough food and water.” It was feared, he said, that the much of the money was being pocketed by local officials or being used to fund activities that were unrelated to the tragedy in Sichuan.

Citizens’ Groups Step Up In China - Wary Rulers Allow Role in Quake Aid
By Maureen Fan
The Washington Post
May 29, 2008

Grass-roots organizations and informal networks of private citizens are playing a vital role in getting supplies to rescue workers and survivors of this month’s devastating earthquake in China. The government, in a notable shift, appears content to let them do so.

Rebuilding Wenchuan -an opportunity?
May 29, 2008
China Crossroads

Although the disaster in Sichuan has affected so many, the flip side of this is that the rebuilding efforts could also affect so many. What an opportunity exists to rebuild sustainable, community-centred, successful communities. However, will this be the case? Though it is not a direct trade off, to build such communities is likely to take longer and be more expensive than the alternative options. But how do you tell IDP (internally displaced persons) that they need to live in a tent for longer, in order to have a ‘better community’ -if that can even be defined?

New Earthquake Situation Map
China Bystander
May 28, 2008

ReliefWeb has posted an updated situation map (pdf), a snapshot of which is below. This one concentrates on the barrier lakes, which threaten a “slurry tsunami” if they burst, and on dams at risk….

An estimated 700,000 people are threatened by the possible bursting of earthquake/landslide-caused lakes, according to the authorities.

Three R’s for surviving environmental change
By C Paskal
China Dialogue
May 12, 2008

No country is ready for natural disasters. In fact, some of the world’s richest nations are the worst prepared. C Paskal presents a guide to mitigating the huge human and security cost of our changing climate.

A round-up of responsible blogging about China, the environment, and CSR:

• “East China Province Gives Ultimatum to Polluters Before Olympics”
  All Roads Lead to China
  April 7, 2008
  “Xinhua has just released an article that I think everyone should pay attention to: East China province gives ultimatum to polluters before Olympics…”

• “China Loses Control of the Games”
  Spiegel Online International, via China Digital Times
  April 8, 2008
  “China had been hoping to show itself as a worldly and tolerant host of the Olympic Games. But the sporting festival has already become a PR disaster for the country. Repression in Tibet and ongoing crackdowns have revealed the extent to which the country remains a police state….”

• “China sacrifices rain forests in Yunnan Province to produce more rubber”
  Reuters, via China Environmental News Digest
  April 8, 2008
  “Rain forests have been reduced to patches of protected zones in Xishuangbanna, one of the top rubber-producing regions in China, as double-digit economic growth has caused increasing encroachment on China’s last remnants of uncultivated land…”

• “China’s New Labor Law Means Tenure For Everybody”
  Danwei, via China Law Blog
  April 7, 2008
  “The [new China labor] law was a government response to increasing public concern that employers were mistreating employees, especially in failing to pay proper wages….The law has several components, but the main effects are the requirement that employees have formal term contracts, and that employees can only be terminated with cause….”

And from a newcomer on my blogroll (thanks to a tip from the guys at the China Law Blog!):

• “China’s Media Coverage of Environmental Issues“
  China Environmental Law
  April 9, 2008
  “While the Chinese media tend to act in a reflexively defensive fashion to any external criticisms of China’s environmental situation (particularly Beijing air quality), its internal coverage of environmental issues is fairly candid…”

Every Friday, ResponsibleChina highlights major news about the environment, CSR and social entrepreneurship in China. For tips or suggestions, please send an email to erica [at] responsiblechina [dot] com.

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From online news:

The waters of the Yangtze have fallen to their lowest levels since 1866, disrupting drinking supplies, stranding ships and posing a threat to some of the world’s most endangered species.Asia’s longest river is losing volume as a result of a prolonged dry spell, the state media warned yesterday, predicting hefty economic losses and a possible plague of rats on nearby farmland.

Next month, China’s State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) will begin the country’s first national survey of pollution sources. Through this census, SEPA plans to identify sources of industrial, agricultural, and residential pollution throughout China. The survey will also tally the number of waste-treatment plants that are operating in the country.Data collection will take two months, and the full report will be ready in about a year. SEPA expects to spend more than $100 million on the project. To encourage officials throughout China to provide accurate data, SEPA has promised that the survey will not be used as a performance assessment tool.

Nearly 7,000 hectares of biodiesel forest will take shape in the northern province of Hebei this year, part of a national campaign to fuel the fast growing economy in a green way.In no more than five years, the Pistacia chinensis Bunge, whose seeds have an oil content of up to 40 percent, will yield five tons of fruit and contribute about two tons of high-quality biological diesel oil, according to the provincial forestry administration.Hebei was among seven regions designated by the State Forestry Administration (SFA) in 2006 to develop biofuel demonstration forests.

• Lives of Grinding Poverty, Untouched by China’s Boom
• By Howard French
• January 13, 2008

China has moved more people out of poverty than any other country in recent decades, but the persistence of destitution in places like southern Henan Province fits with the findings of a recent World Bank study that suggests that there are still 300 million poor in China — three times as many as the bank previously estimated.Poverty is most severe in China’s geographic and social margins, whether the mountainous areas or deserts that ring the country, or areas dominated by ethnic minorities, who for cultural and historic reasons have benefited far less than others from the country’s long economic rise.But it also persists in places like Henan, where population densities are among the greatest in China, and the new wealth of the booming coast beckons, almost mockingly, a mere province away.  

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From the blogosphere: 

• Riverbed Surfaces in Yangtze Wuhan Section
• China Digital Times
• By Michael Zhao
• January 11, 2008

A stretch of sandy riverbed has surfaced in the middle of the Yangtze River in Wuhan, thanks to a lack of rainfall and a dropping feed from the upper reaches [obviously thanks to the Three Gorges Dam, but the article didn't mention the dam at all]. This is the year that Wuhan’s Yangtze water level hit its historical low, 14.05 meters. Nearly 20% of the river islands are new in the past five years.

• Employers Paradise
• China Bystander
• January 14, 2008

There are 200 million migrant workers in China’s cities, with a potential backup pool of 100 million more waiting in the countryside. They see themselves treated as second class citizens at best, according to a survey by Shanghai’s Fudan University, working long hours that make them accident-prone from tiredness and too weary to study for the qualifications to get a better job. Compounding their misery, inflation is more than chewing up rising earnings.

• The Relationship Between Pollution and Unrest
• China Crossroads
• January 16, 2008

Last year, there were a lot of reports about social unrest in China’s interior reaching 80,000 incidents. Much speculation came along with the reports, and to the credit of the central party and media, reports of various incidents are being made public on a regular basis.

• Beijing is Polluted
• China Law Blog
• January 12, 2008

Since I had promised myself I would never devote a post to Beijing’s pollution, please consider this to be on government manipulation of statistics and the perpetual need to examine Chinese government reporting. The International Herald Tribune just did an article, entitled, “Air Quality Improvements in Beijing Challenged,” on a study claiming the sole basis for Beijing’s claimed air pollution improvements rest on its no longer “including readings from two stations in polluted areas and [its now] … using readings in three other stations in less polluted locales (h/t to China Challenges)

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