China’s 34-year-old Environmental Protection Law was created when it made sense for legislators in a developing country to trade environmental well-being for a boost to the gross domestic product.
Today, China wrestles with pollution that is leaving its citizens gasping for clean air, worried about water quality and concerned for the safety of the food grown there. In the current issue of Science, a team of researchers, including a Michigan State University sustainability expert, offers guidelines for revising the EPL to protect both humans and nature. (more…)
When eight cities and five provinces in China were asked by the central government to develop a plan to become “low carbon,” many had no idea what to do. Some planted trees. Others decided to build up a solar panel industry. One city even thought about building a lake to be more “green.” Local government leaders were at a loss as to how to reduce their carbon emissions.
In 2008, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) initiated a joint effort to address energy and environmental challenges facing urban centers in both countries. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s China Energy Group was tasked by DOE to identify and recommend best practices, tools and technologies. With nearly 25 years experience analyzing energy use in China, the China Energy Group has tailored a variety of resources to help local Chinese officials turn government mandates into practical how-to guides for understanding their energy usage and reducing their carbon dioxide emissions. (more…)
Some 140 participants and 30 visiting faculty from more than 45 countries arrived at Brown to take part in the Brown International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARI). The two-week program began June 11, 2012.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Some 140 participants and 30 visiting faculty from more than 45 countries arrived at Brown to take part in the Brown International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARI). Participants, who were chosen from a pool of more than 850 applicants, come from several countries, including Brazil, China, Nigeria, India, and Ethiopia.
The two-week program began Monday, June 11, 2012. Now in its fourth year, BIARI is centered around four two-week intensive institutes, convened concurrently by Brown faculty, in which participants and leading scholars in their fields share their research and develop new collaborative projects through sustained, high-level dialogue spanning disciplines and continents. This year’s institutes touched on global health and HIV/AIDS; theater and civil society; population and development; and climate change. (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — China should protect land rights of all farm families and restrict corporate farming, argues a Michigan State University researcher whose team found that secure farm land rights will be key to closing the income gap between Chinese cities and countryside.
The study was recently published in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ 2011 blue book, an annual report of China’s rule of law. It found only 44 percent of China’s 200 million farming families has been issued land-rights documents as required by law, said Jeff Riedinger, dean of MSU’s International Studies and Programs, and a co-author of the study.(more…)
To tally the energy consumption of a city, the usual method is to add up all the energy used by residents—when they drive their car or turn on the air-conditioning—plus all the energy consumed by commercial buildings and industries in their day-to-day operations. But how should one account for the energy that went into building the office park where people work or paving the roads that people drive? And what about the energy required to make the clothes they are wearing? (more…)
