Check out the fancy new Flash-animated site (designed by Eggplant Studios) for China’s Green Beat (which I’ve written about here and here.)

They also have a new episode, posted on their blog, too, about wind power in China.

China’s Green Beat released a hilarious new episode about public transportation in Beijing. It is quite a departure from its previous three documentary-style episodes, which I reviewed in my previous post here. Apparently, the Green Brothers are preparing to launch a new design soon, complete with more info and episodes, so stay tuned!

Have a happy Monday!

“Sun Zhe’s Public Transport Adventures”

I highly recommend China’s Green Beat, a new video podcast about the “greening” of China. I’m trying to recruit these guys (affectionately known as the “Green Brothers“) to contribute to ResponsibleChina because I think they’re AWESOME. Plus, co-founder John Romankiewicz is a fellow Northwestern University graduate, so I gotta give him extra props. Their first three videos deal with biomass power, solar water heaters and Beijing’s recycling problem.

Watch and learn:

(Thanks to my friend Oki for alerting me to this video!)

Back in July, I wrote about photographer Ed Burtynsky’s journey through China in the documentary, “Manufactured Landscapes,” directed by Jennifer Baichwal. See my original post here. And check out Burtysnky’s personal Web site here.

In a follow-up to that original post, here’s a video from February 2005, which I saw on Glumbert, that shows Burtynsky giving a talk about sustainability and industrial landscapes for his acceptance of the 2005 TEDPrize. He flips through a slideshow of some amazing large-scale photographs, including the Three Gorges Dam, a 90,000-employee shoe factory near Shenzhen, urban renewal in Shanghai and a recycling yard. I’ll let the photos do the talking, because a picture is worth a thousand words…

(There’s also an incredible clip of a factory worker in an assembly line producing a circuit board by hand with lightning-speed–I’ve never seen anything like it!)

[tags]Ed Burtynsky, Manufactured Landscapes, industrialization, urbanization, China, TED[/tags]

The inflation rate in China this year rose higher than expected to 4.2 percent, the highest its been since 1996, mainly because of rising food prices, according to the Asian Development Bank.

One reason for the spike was the outbreak of blue ear pig disease that caused pork shortages, thus driving up the prices of pork. The virus wiped out pig communities in China and spread to swine in Vietnam and Burma, according to the Washington Post.

Though there’s no evidence that the virus poses a threat to humans, there are signs that diseased pigs already have entered the food supply either directly because farmers may be trying to pass off diseased pigs as healthy ones, or indirectly because they have been thrown into water used for fishing or for drinking.

The Chinese government says that it has brought the problem under control, but some experts are skeptical, remembering the secrecy and censorship surrounding the bird flu and SARS epidemics a few years ago.

While China’s central government has made numerous improvements since then in how it deals with infectious disease control and informs the public, it has once again been slow to share scientific data and tissue samples with other countries.

As a result, there is worry that while China is lagging, the virus is quickly turning into a global problem.

While China’s previous reluctance to share information may have been the legacy of years of secrecy, its reasons for withholding information this time may be about something else: business interests.

But neglecting your environment–i.e. not taking care of your sick pigs–comes with a cost that outweighs profits or other “business interests.” Inflation, which affects everyone in a consumer society, is one of the main effects.

Now China will have to work extra hard to get everything back to target.

The aim is to rein back the growing trade surplus and at the same time ease strains on the environment by reducing goods production that requires high inputs of energy and natural resources, and that causes high levels of pollution, said Zhuang Jian, senior economist of ADB’s China Resident Mission.

In addition, the key challenge for China is to reduce the country’s reliance on exports and investment for growth in favor of private consumption.

“Such a switch could lessen vulnerability to external shocks and ease environmental strains caused by the emphasis on export and investment-led heavy industry,” said Zhuang. (For full story from China View, click here.)

In other news, China’s leading meat and food processing company, Zhongpin, was honored with the 2007 “China Top Brand” award for its pork products, according to the PR Newswire on CNN Money. Let’s hope the company doesn’t get hit with a food scandal any time soon.

The “China Top Brand” award represents the “blue ribbon” approval granted by General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People’s Republic of China (AQSIQ) on behalf of Chinese Central Government. The selection criteria for the award include categories such as quality, market share, development capability and social responsibility.

ResponsibleChina is taking a break from regularly scheduled programming to bring you this hilarious video clip of two Scots in a hot air balloon flying over somewhere in Yangshuo. And then crashing.

Some creative folks over at Ogilvy PR came up with this funny viral video to promote the South China Morning Post.

It’s a simple question:

Mr. President, what must China do and what is China currently doing to improve U.S.-Sino relations?”

Watch Bush bumble as he tries to come up with the answer.

Take a cinematic tour of China via the trailer for the new documentary, “Manufactured Landscapes,” from Zeitgest Films.

Photo via Zeitgeist Films

“It looks like a bombed out landscape, but it isn’t; it is an intentional one,” photographer Edward Burtynsky says.

Burtynsky, famous for his large-scale photographs, takes viewers into the world of China’s industrial wastelands, or “manufactured landscapes,” including rock quarries, recycling yards and factories, revealing how we impact our natural environmnent.

Striking in its simplicity, the film’s trailer shows a montage of industrial scenes, including hoards of factory workers and mountains of discarded e-waste.

“If I said, ‘this is a terrible thing we’re doing to the planet,’ then people will either agree or disagree. By not saying what you should see, that may allow them to see their world a little differently,” Burtynsky says.

Drawing comparisons to other documentaries such as “An Inconvenient Truth,” Burtynsky’s film aims to challenge us to confront and question our relationship with nature.

AWARDS
Best Documentary Feature - Toronto Film Critics Association
Best Canadian Feature - Toronto Film Critics Association
Best Canadian Feature - Toronto Film Festival
Best Documentary - Genie Awards

Watch Burtynsky speak about “The Industrial World”:

asap ’s reporter Nick Tatro speaks to Scott McDonald, news editor in Beijing, to talk about the status of the Beijing Olympics:

China’s Olympics: a status check
July 9, 2007

Here are some of the interesting topics they discuss:

• McDonald talks about how the construction of buildings and new transportation routes is pushing people out of their homes and neighborhoods, referring to a similar situation in Chongqing last March, now known as “nail house” (dingzihu) incident, when a woman named Wu Ping refused to move to make way for a new apartment and shopping mall complex proposed by the Chongqing Zhengsheng Real Estate Company. See a video of her story on Danwei.

• Beijing is working hard to change its “image” to the outside world. The government regulates a series of public announcements, such as “Don’t Spit in Public” or “Don’t smoke in your taxi.” Charm school for China!

• But even more significant than practicing good etiquette is handling the PR for China’s involvement with Sudan. Newsflash! There’s a genocide going on in Darfur, and China is contributing to it by giving money to Khartoum in the form of foreign investment and military equipment. (See an article about the “Genocide Olympics” by Businessweek.)

There’s also that whole Mount Everest fiasco…

• The Chinese government is constructing a paved road (highway?) on the China side of Everest, planned to be the last leg of an elaborate relay across five continents to bring the Olympic torch to the top of the world, broadcast live for everyone to see. Chinese climbers are already doing practice routes on it. The goal is to make that part of the route easier, for tourists and future mountaineers, McDonald reports. But Free Tibet activists aren’t happy about it.

Check out this YouTube video showing footage of Tibetan independence activists who protested on the eve of the International Olympic Committee’s announcement last April of the final Beijing 2008 Olympic torch relay route. The five activists were detained for three days by the Chinese government.

Chinese activists on Tibet
“We’re here to tell the rest of the world that it is our responsibility, your responsibility, to stand up and take a stand for the Tibetan people.”

For more multimedia coverage of the protests and the aftermath, click here.

WAIT, BUT I THOUGHT…

Energy-saving lightbulbs (or CFLs, “compact fluorescent lamps“) are supposed to be good for the environment, right? Better than those traditional, incandescent fixtures, right?

They last longer, they save money, they use less electricity, they reduce greenhouse gas emissions…and they’re also becoming hip and trendy among Generation Y and Hollywood stars (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, a.k.a. Elaine from “Seinfeld,” distributed Phillips energy-saving bulbs to every graduating student at Northwestern University’s commencement ceremony. See? Even the kids are into it!)

But according to some skeptics, there’s a darker side to this supposedly eco-friendly invention.

WHAT A WASTE?

The merits of CFLs depends on what’s involved in the process of manufacturing, shipping and selling the product.

Scientists often point out the harmful effects of mercury.

And let’s not forget there was a recall of Chinese-manufactured Teng Fei Energy Saving Light Bulbs, back in 2004, because it posed a fire hazard.

There are also all those costs associated with the transportation of the bulbs (over THOUSANDS of miles) and then the inevitable (and potentially hazardous) disposal of them in overcrowded landfills.

BRIGHT IDEAS FOR CHINA

Here’s a list of Mainland China manufacturers and trading companies that sell energy-saving light bulbs.

In 2005, China produced a total of 1.76 billion energy-saving lights, accounting for 90% of the world’s total. Out of these, 70% were exported, according to figures from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

You can read all about China’s government plan for efficient lighting at the “Green Lights Project” home page.

BEING RESPONSIBLE

Some companies are trying to be responsible about the shift toward these “green” lights. MEGAMAN, a German brand, claims that it tries its best to keep environmental costs low.

MEGAMAN sells nine different brands of its energy-saving “lamps,” including the innovative DorS DIMMING series.

Here’s a snazzy 8-minute video on YouTube about a MEGAMAN factory in Xiamen, China.

What do you think: RESPONSIBLE OR NOT?

Megaman Factory in China

Megaman Factory, Xiamen, China.
Megaman energy-saving lightbulbs - or ‘lamps’ as they prefer to call them - are manufactured across several sites in Xiamen, China - from raw materials to finished product.
Gavin Hill was hired to make a video showcasing Megaman’s state-of-the-art processes for screening at trade lighting exhibitions worldwide.
The video was edited in Bangkok, Thailand.
Client: Megaman.
Produced, directed and filmed in Xiamen, China by Gavin Hill.
Creative Consultant: Gordon Tan.