Sixteen of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in China. A serious water pollution incident occurs once every two-to-three days. China's breakneck growth causes great concern about its global environmental impacts, as others look to China as a source for possible future solutions to climate change. But how are Chinese people really coming to grips with environmental problems? This book provides access to otherwise unknown stories of environmental activism and forms the first real-life account of China and its environmental tensions. 'China and the Environment' provides a unique report on the experiences of participatory politics that have emerged in response to environmental problems, rather than focusing only on macro-level ecological issues and their elite responses. Featuring previously untranslated short interviews, extracts from reports and other translated primary documents, the authors argue that going green in China isn't just about carbon targets and energy policy; China's grassroots green defenders are helping to change the country for the better.
Sixteen of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in China. A serious water pollution incident occurs once every two-to-three days. China's breakneck growth causes great concern about its global environmental impacts, as others look to China as a source for possible future solutions to climate change. But how are Chinese people really coming to grips with environmental problems? This book provides access to otherwise unknown stories of environmental activism and forms the first real-life account of China and its environmental tensions. 'China and the Environment' provides a unique report on the experiences of participatory politics that have emerged in response to environmental problems, rather than focusing only on macro-level ecological issues and their elite responses. Featuring previously untranslated short interviews, extracts from reports and other translated primary documents, the authors argue that going green in China isn't just about carbon targets and energy policy; China's grassroots green defenders are helping to change the country for the better.
Introduction: The return of Chinese civil society - Isabel Hilton 1. China's environmental journalists: a rainbow confusion - Sam Geall 2. The birth of Chinese environmentalism: key campaigns - Olivia Boyd 3. The Yangzonghai case: struggling for environmental justice - Adam Moser 4. Alchemy of a protest: the case of Xiamen PX - Jonathan Ansfield 5. Defending Tiger Leaping Gorge - Liu Jianqiang
'China and Environment' provides a unique report on the experiences of participatory politics that have emerged in response to environmental problems, rather than focusing only on macro-level ecological issues and their elite responses.
SAM GEALL an anthropologist, writer and editor with a deep knowledge of Chinese affairs. He is deputy editor of CinaDialogue and has published in Index on Censorship, Foreign Policy, New Internationalist, Far Eastern Economic Review, New Humanist, Ecologist, China Rights Forum, Green Futures, openDemocracy & more.
This is a superb and engaging book that explains how China is
grappling with one of the most pressing issues facing our world
today. In compelling fashion, the authors introduce us to the
activists, journalists and lawyers who are fighting for cleaner air
and water, and to the institutional obstacles that remain in their
path. This is a must-read for anyone who has heard about an
environmental protest in China and wondered not only what the real
story behind it was, but also which way the story of China's "green
revolution" is heading.
*Gady Epstein, China correspondent, The Economist.*
People around the world have begun to understand the extent of
China's environmental crisis. But the essays in this book convey
what most readers will consider genuine news: the struggle within
China, by Chinese journalists, officials, and ordinary citizens to
reverse the trend toward destructive development in their country.
'China and the Environment' will be useful and very enlightening to
reader in China and around the world.
*James Fallows, 'The Atlantic,' author of 'China Airborne.'*
There have been very few stories of China over the past decade more
important than the decline of the environment and the rise of civil
society. The authors of this excellent collection of essays have
intimate knowledge of both and they bring their expertise to the
fore with lucid prose, lively description and a wealth of
horrendous detail.
*Jonathan Watts, author of When A Billion Chinese Jump.*
For anyone interested in China, or in the environment, let alone
interested in the environment movement in China, this is an
invaluable book. The broad analysis is insightful, and the case
studies highly instructive. And the stakes could hardly be higher:
without China on board, prospects for a genuinely sustainable world
disappear in a miasma of industrial pollution.
*Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director, Forum for the Future*
This is a lively, detailed, and eminently readable account of the
struggles of Chinese environmental citizens' groups to carve out
space for information transparency, public participation, and
intellectual freedom. Beautifully written by a team of activist
researchers who have themselves been intimately involved in the
challenges and promise of China's emerging environmental civil
society, China and the Environment provides a grassroots view of
the courageous efforts of China's ENGOs to ameliorate the current
crisis and shape China's prospects for a sustainable future.
*Judith Shapiro, American University, author of China's
Environmental Challenges and Mao's War against Nature*
This superb collection of vivid case studies gives plenty of
evidence that Chinese citizens across the country are not going to
sit down and do nothing while pollution slowly kills them. With
detailed accounts of resistance against polluting corporations and
colluding officials, this is an authentic and credible report from
the great battleground of modern Chinese environmentalism - a
battle over not just China's air, but the air of the rest of the
planet.
*Kerry Brown, Professor and Director, China Studies Centre,
University of Sydney*
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