China Environmental Law

Here are three recent stories I found interesting if you care to check them out.

1. Imagethief  reports that Beijing’s air quality has apparently returned to the status quo ante.  Well, you knew that was coming.  I guess that once most of the international media left there was no longer any need for pretence.  I hope that the populace, having seen the sun for several days straight, will start to demand faster action toward achieving some permanent improvements in air quality.

2. China Dialogue has superb article by Jiang Gaoming, a professor and Ph.D. tutor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Botany, about China’s evaporating wetlands.

3. Cleaner Greener China looks at the Electric Bike and its environmental implications for China.  It includes a link to an NPR audio report on “Electric Bikes Trendy in China”.  I have to admit, I have been baffled by the reports about how fashionable electric bikes are in China, and about how expats are snapping them up.  I will try to avoid stereotypes here, so let’s just say the electric bike riders of Shanghai (and there are lots of them) are not exactly what I’d call style leaders.

I also cringe a little when people cite use the rise of electric bikes in China as an example of China’s environmental progressiveness.  These people have not looked very carefully at this issue.  I think they make the assumption (with their Western blinders on) that people are giving up cars for electric bikes.  Oh no, they are giving up busses or subways for electric bikes, so the environmental trade off becomes a little trickier.  As the studies cited in the Cleaner Greener China post make clear, there may be some environmental benefit from the use of an electric bike, but there is still the problem of what to do with that lead battery when the bike’s number is called.  Going green is rarely as simple as it may look at first .