China

This study is an overview of the state-led development projects and local efforts to ‘improve’ local conditions on the Zoige grass and wetlands on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau since 1949 and their impact on the regional ecological and social environment. It focuses on historical state-led development projects, as well as more recent efforts to raise environmental awareness of the importance of Chinese wetlands.

Vaclav Smil shows why energy transitions are inherently complex and prolonged affairs, and how ignoring this raises unrealistic expectations that the United States and other global economies can be weaned quickly from a primary dependency on fossil fuels.

This film follows a seventeen-year-old Chinese girl who leaves home in order to work in a Chinese jeans factory.

State of the World 2009: Into a Warming World examines the policy changes needed to combat climate change and explores the economic benefits that could flow from the transition.

State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future examines changes in the ways cities are managed, built, and lived in that could tip the balance towards a healthier and more peaceful urban future.

State of the World 2006 provides a special focus on China and India and their impact on the world as major consumers of resources and polluters of local and global ecosystems.

In The River Runs Black, Elizabeth C. Economy examines China’s growing environmental crisis and its implications for the country’s future development.