China and the Environment

Reviews / Votes

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 *