Readings for Unit 5: CURRENT PROBLEMS

Thursday, February 28: Deserts and Forests

We are going to concern ourselves primarily with forests, since that's what I know more about. But there is a good discussion of desertification, among just about everything else, in a recent article from Mother Jones by Jacques Leslie, and Dee Williams has a nicely deconstructive chapter on Land Degradation and the Chinese Discourse.

With regard to forests, please begin with a general account in William F. Hyde, Jiantao Xu, and Brian Belcher's China's Forests. Then read an optimistic account of the overall situation, based on national statistics, in Zhang Yuxing and others' article on Deforestation and Reforestation and two more skeptical accounts, based on local research, one by Horst Weyerhaeuser et al. on Local Impacts and Responses and one by Chrstine Trac and some other authors you might recognize, on Reforestation Programs in Southwest China.

Tuesday, March 4: Pollution and Health

Almost all of the attention in the foreign press to environmental problems in China deals with pollution. Well, fair enough; pollution isn't at the root of anything, but it is obvious and it is bad. As Tom Lehrer once sang,

Like lambs to the slaughter
They're drinking the water
And breathing the air

So let's start out with an assessment of the health effects of water pollution, by Changhua Wu, et al., Water Pollution and Human Health in China, then go to a case study on Effects of Air Pollution on Children's Respiratory Health by Zhengmin Qian and others. You can also look back at several of the New York Times articles from The first day of class. You begin to get the idea.

So why is there such trouble with pollution? Bryan Tilt, in his Political Ecology of Pollution Control provides a start toward an answer; Dan Milleson, in his article on Reviving the Scorched Earth? suggests some steps toward a solution.

Come to class prepared to discuss the possibilities for and the obstacles to environmental cleanup. In class, we will discuss the problems of institutions and policy implementation as they apply to forests, and as these connect to our earlier discussion on pollution. We will also discuss the implications for renewable energy and for world trade in forest products.

Thursday, March 6: Energy

China's energy use has become a concern not only in China, but to the world, because of its implications for climate change, energy prices, even the prospect of international conflict. The first half of today we will deal mostly with the internal perspective, both macro and micro. For background on this, read Chapter 2, "Energy" from China's Past, China's Future, as well as Frank Wang and Hongfei Li's chapter on Environmental Implications of China's Energy Demands from Kristen Day's China's Environment and the Challenge of Sustainable Development. You might also want to go back and read the on Energy and local bureaucracies.

Tuesday, March 11: Biodiversity and Conservation

The problem is set forth nicely in a general sense by Liu Jianguo's article in Science on Protecting China's Biodiversity. Here we are less interested in the facts than in the way biodiversity and conservation provide a window into Chinese culture and Chinese views of the environment. So you should read chapter 4 at least, and if you want, chapters 5-7, of Weller's Discovering Nature.

In order to put these Chinese views into a comparative context, also please read Alejandro Flores and Tim Clark's article on Finding Common Ground in Biological Conservation, and come to class prepared to think about whether China, for all its problems, might not have a cultural advantage in getting beyond certain controversies that have hamstrung environmental science and politics in other countries.

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