Monthly Archives: September 2013

Two cheers for a new pollution reduction plan

Posted on September 29, 2013 by

Earlier this month, China announced what is being called an ‘ambitious’ plan to reduce air pollution.  The plan was summarized in a recent New York Times article: Under the new plan, concentrations of fine particulate matter must be reduced by … Continue reading →

Posted in Environment | 1 Comment

Dying for land

Posted on September 25, 2013 by

The recent wave of Tibetan self-immolations garnered increasing media attention outside of China.  Yet self-immolation is a form of protest that has also been used, on rare occasion, to protest a whole range of injustices, not just the suppression of … Continue reading →

Posted in Rural China | Leave a comment

Climate change and resettlement on the Tibetan Plateau

Posted on September 10, 2013 by

Leslie Hook has written an extensive article in FT Magazine on how climate change is affecting environmental conditions on the Tibetan Plateau, and how China’s attempts to address these changes are often driven by misunderstandings of the human-environment relationship there, … Continue reading →

Posted in Development, Environment, Migration, Rural China | Leave a comment

‘Wild consumption’ on the decline?

Posted on September 10, 2013 by

A couple years ago, I posted a story about anti-shark fin soup campaigns going on across Asia and North America.  At that time, with bans on the sale and possession of shark fins in the Western US and Canada, along … Continue reading →

Posted in Environment | 1 Comment

Just fix the leaking taps

Posted on September 3, 2013 by

In my last post I suggested that we give two cheers for smog, since Beijing’s foul air may actually be compelling the government to implement more stringent emission controls than it had previously been willing to contemplate.  We could also … Continue reading →

Posted in Environment, Water | 1 Comment

Two cheers for smog

Posted on September 3, 2013 by

It is by now no longer surprising to hear that China is the world’s largest source of CO2 emissions.  Anyone spending a few days in Beijing, or just about any other medium-to-large Chinese city knows this intuitively.  China claimed this … Continue reading →

Posted in Environment | 1 Comment