25% growth in Autos in China

Interesting what impact this will have on the environment and how quickly as China's auto industry domestically will continue to grow.

As Detroit Crumbles, China Emerges - Washington Post

Yellow Is the New Green

Yellow Is the New Green - NY Times. Great article talking about the issue of what to do with human waste, and a possible solution. The challenge of using it widespread in the US is infrastructure. It's just not there, unfortunately.

U.N. Reports Pollution Threat in Asia

U.N. Reports Pollution Threat in Asia from the NY Times. The impact on health which is a hidden cost could be 3.5% of GDP in China I read (the next article uses 3%). And if their growth is 10%, then -3% is 7%. Huge opportunity if they can clean up the environment to increase the growth rate, that would be win win.

Longer article that has more details - As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes

In Beijing, Blue Skies Prove Hard to Achieve

In Beijing, Blue Skies Prove Hard to Achieve from the NY Times and Beijing Considers New Curbs As Pollution Threatens Games from the Wall Street Journal.

And yet today, a miracle of you believe the official reporting... The Beijing Sky Is Blue

It's amazing how much has been done to reduce pollution in Beijing. Of course there is a question if bribes are allowing some factories to keep on operating.

China's Environment

From the Economist, Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air - And don't expect the government's environmental watchdog to do much about it.

Key Points:

1. Environmental agency in China is underfunded and it's competitors for agriculture and industry are much more powerful. So wonderful sounding regulations are enacted (sounds great!), but actual implementation is poor.
2. Local environmental agencies are usually focusing on the same goals of local governments (grow the economy at any cost).
3. Environmental damage in 2004 may have lowered GDP by 3.05%.
   

So why does this matter outside of China? Because many goods in China are exported to the US, and poorly implemented regulations can lead to issues such as food safety/contamination. Pollution also has a habit of ignoring national borders, not to mention Global Warming. Japan's Prime Minister has China to reduce pollution due to fear in Japan that Acid Rain is being caused by Chinese pollution.