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Article: The green leap forward: environmentalism is China's fastest-growing citizen movement. Beijing isn't cracking down on these new activists--it's empowering them.
- Article from:
- The Washington Monthly
- Article date:
- July 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Washington Monthly Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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China is on its way to becoming not only the world's largest economy, but also its largest polluter. Of the world's twenty most polluted cities, sixteen are in China. Ninety percent of the country's cities have contaminated groundwater. The World Bank predicts that in the next fifteen years, China's shortage of clean water will create 30 million "environmental refugees."
China's pollution problems, moreover, are no longer solely its own. Winds that whip up over the Gobi Desert sweep dark clouds of mercury, soot, and carbon monoxide to South Korea and Japan; as much as 40 percent of the air pollution in these countries can be traced to China. The toxic plumes ...