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March 20, 2012
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Climate Change Fellows
If China is to avoid the kind of environmental meltdown that so many thoughtful Chinese and international observers fear, it must pursue sustainability with the same passion it has devoted to getting rich over the past thirty years. There is no question that there are Chinese leaders who are conscious of the stakes, but like leaders everywhere, they must strike a balance between what should be done and what can be done. The outward image of an all-powerful state run by an all-powerful party dissolves when viewed up close. There is no question who is in charge –
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March 19, 2012
Blog:
Climate Change Fellows
We have arrived in the third city on our fellowship itinerary, the megalopolis of Chungqing. This Chinese giant boasts an urbanized center of seven million at the heart of a larger jurisdiction of 32 million. It has been much in the news for the dramatic rise and fall of the charismatic Bo Xilai, the unusually visible Communist party chief of Chongqing. His flair for a dramatic "war on crime" and outspoken views on China's emerging class divide led to the widespread expectation that he would vault from his membership on the powerful Communist Party Politburo to a seat on it's
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March 16, 2012
Blog:
Climate Change Fellows
Over dinner, a bright young environmental scientist shared her optimism for China's future. "When people have little, they are concerned with survival," she noted. "As people gain enough to live, they can pay attention to higher things like protecting the planet." Certainly there is growing awareness of the staggering consumption of current and future resources that China's rapid development is engendering. Today we visited a middle school in Xi'an organized around the theme of environmental stewardship. This "green school" takes fervent pride in the devotion by staff and students to environmental education, projects and advocacy. The 13 year-old student
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March 16, 2012
Blog:
Climate Change Fellows
It is one of those staggering numbers that bend the mind. Between 2010 and 2025, Chinese authorities project that the population of their cities will grow by another 300 million. That means that the Chinese are recreating an urban environment as large as all American cities and suburbs combined -- in just fifteen years. Unfortunately "recreating" is more true than not -- the Chinese are rolling out an auto-dependent landscape that will be traffic-choked and inefficient, despite their tall residential towers. Officials and observers in China are telling us that the very scope of their challenge dwarfs the
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December 27, 2011
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A year ago, 60 Minutes aired a controversial 11 minute feature on the “ Day of Reckoning ” coming for state — and especially local — governments. It featured two grim Cassandras: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Wall Street analyst Meredith Whitney. Host Steve Kroft reported that during the recession, states had collectively “nearly a half a trillion more” than they collected in revenue and faced a “trillion dollar hole in their pension funds.” New Jersy Governor Chris Christie Christie was one of several Republican Governors elected in 2010 on
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