The independent journalist Lingu said to Jeff and I on Reel 19 at 26:48, “If you’re part of it, you should learn how to be a good part.” Lingu goes on to talk about the Olympics as a great educational opportunity to introduce the idea of “green” into the Chinese mindset.

These are great thoughts. It’s such a nice thing to think about being a good part of something if you’re going to be part of it at all. This is making me weep. It is a thought that connects environmental education to the wholistic, systemic Eastern way of thinking about things. This connects the Taoist and Confucian history at the beginnings of environmentalism in China to the reemergence of environmentalism that is happening currently in China. It connects these elements through the era in the mid-1900s, when Mao took China for a bit, and the West formed an idea about what China is that, largely, continues today, although China has changed and will continue to change.

Jeff mentions to write about where we position people/places and things/ideas in the film we’re making. It’s important at this point to take a step back and sum up what we’ve found out so that we can present it to the video editor.

I think environmental education—both capacity building and education in classrooms—is driving Chinese environmentalism, and this is a pattern of environmentalism that will affect change in the long term. The Chinese government is allowing and encouraging this education, and this is important to highlight. At the same time, we’re not making propaganda, and so it’s important to be balanced. Lingu mentions this in Reel 19 at 13:30—environmentalism in China is not as bad as it is presented in the Western media, nor is it as great as Chinese media proclaims. Says Lingu, “The truth is in-between.”

Lingu also mentions in Reel 19 at 32:44 “Even if there’s nothing substantial to be done in actuality to make “green” Olympics, the concept has entered the mindset of many Chinese because of this publicity campaign,” and I think this Olympics-Greening connection should be expanded further.

I want to also tell the story about the government getting the ball rolling by allowing and encouraging public participation. Erika Helms talks about it in Reel 2 at 18:38. I want to also present the anti-thesis of this argument, which is the top-down system of organization that China is moving away from. The participation element goes hand-in-hand with the government allowance of NGOs working in China. The NGOs are doing activities that highlight participation and the ability of one small thing to make a difference, like recycling, choosing to ride the subway versus driving, and education programs. We have a contact, a student in school, talking about this power of one at 37:50 on Reel 15.

I think at this point our theme can become more clear: The ability of this movement to be effective is contingent on the ability of these individual actors to share information. Introduce Ma Jun and his China’s Water Pollution Map—Reel 20 at 11:35 is one example of this talk, but it’s all through this reel. Also, I think international involvement should be introduced. The ability for international actors to connect with local actors in China is beneficial, and this can wrap back around to events like the Olympics being good places to share ideas.

To recap the recap: the development of my elevator speech for this project:

We are interested in looking both at the way that environmentalism is developing in China, and also at the potential of the introduction of international actors into the Chinese environmental movement. I want to hint at what is to be gained from further liberalizations of the Chinese environmental protection movement.

This afternoon I was watching the interview we shot yesterday because Jeff had to take the tapes back to Amherst to make copies of them, and as I was transcribing the interviews something Hongyan said prompted me to make a really cool connection that kind of legitimizes this whole thing to me. It is an idea that connects my affinity for environmental education and my trust in economics as The Problem Solver.

The thing that Hongyan said to us yesterday was about the environmental movement in China: “We can say that it will get stronger and stronger.” She said this in the context of talking to us about Chinese demand for a cleaner environment. She also made the connection between the Olympic-inspired “blue sky days” and a greater demand in the public for cleaner air. Bingo!

The Environmental Kuznets Curve describes the relationship between pollution and economic development in an inverse U-shape, with the amount of pollution decreasing as income increases. It seems like there is a lot of controversy about whether this U-relationship is as clear as some say, but I think this idea generally makes sense to me.  The controversy has been about using this Kuznets curve to prescribe policy. It’s general idea makes sense to me: valuing the environment is a good that is only demanded once basic needs are met.

But, the connection that I made is that the tipping point on the Environmental Kuznets Curve is dependant on environmental education. People need to first realize that the environment is bad and could be better, then also need to know how to take steps to make this happen. This is only possible if there is a base line level of environmental knowledge, and connects to Ma Jun’s China’s Water Pollution Map, and the importance of the collection and the dissemination of environmental information is highlighted. Information needs to first be collected, and then also be accessible. Ma’s Water Pollution Map disseminates information that is collected by the Chinese government about the environmental issues in China and makes it accessible through the Internet. The Water Pollution Map is also used to submit reports about pollution, but I don’t know about it’s efficacy as a reporting mechanism when so many don’t have Internet access.

Jeff and I had a follow-up meeting with Hongyan Oliver, a Research Fellow in the Energy and Technology Innovation Policy at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Since I have started to build a story based on the things we’ve heard, I know where we have holes in our story, and this is why this interview was much longer than the ones we did in Beijing, or even the ones that I did for background information leading up to our time in Beijing.

Hongyan talked about Ma Jun’s China’s Water Pollution Map and how important access to information is in promoting a healthy environmental movement in China. This is a nice segue into Ma Jun’s comments on his Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs.

Hongyan also talked about the argument that China should be able to develop without Western environmental regulations VS the argument that, because of the circumstances now, it’s not possible for China to emit as much pollution as the West did as it was developing. Hongyan made the distinction between localized pollution sources and greenhouse gasses, and connected this to the free-rider problem. She made some great points that I think will connect the footage we have very effectively.

We are working on three things this weekend:

Jeff has set up meetings with potential video editors for us to figure out who I will take the next leg of this project with.

I connected with the original granter, John at Baker, and he is happy to continue funding me for this part of the project, which means that Tides funding is another project for another time.

Also, we have two other meetings. One is with a friend from college who is going to help me to translate the video clips that Roots and Shoots gave us in Beijing. This is film of kids doing environmental education projects. I looked quickly at it, and it will illustrate the stories we heard in Beijing perfectly. Also, I’m thinking of a point that Jeff brought up that had never occurred to me: it’ll be interesting to show Chinese kids being really vibrant because this is not the way China is thought about in the West. I don’t know about this idea.

We also have a meeting on Monday with Hongyan Oliver, who we met with on the 23 of July, but without the camera. Hongyan is an environmental economist at Harvard. I kind of want to be an environmental economist. Because she is one of the last meetings we have lined up, I’m going to see how many of the holes of the story she can help me to fill. It’s fun to start telling a story from the pieces we have!

Also, I have scheduled a meeting with Bill Moomaw of the IPCC at Tufts, but not until October 8 when I’m connected with a video editor.

Today I finished reviewing the footage that we have shot so far. It takes me four times the shooting time to transcribe these interviews. And I’m not even very good at it, Jeff tells me. I’m finished transcribing, so, I’m all done learning about China’s environment!

During the last tape that I was reviewing, something came together in a great way, and made me excited to start building a story from the pieces we have. I am continually starting to lose, and then regaining, my momentum on this project. Something always happens to make me remember that–oh yes, that’s right, I love this work. It’s difficult to remember that though, as Abe and I were just discussing, when the feedback loop is not complete. The Internet is heralded as an emergent system like your brain and the software system in your computer; they rely so much on feedback, but that feedback mechanism is only productive in propagating ideas if it gets used. Steven Johnson writes about this relationship in his book, Emergence, and this is where it was first highlighted for me.

The thing to prompt me to write another post is something that I was thinking about on the train today–the T is MUCH bumpier than the train in Beijing. You could paint your toenails on the train in Beijing. I was fumbling with my dollar bills to put them into the machine on the train–I kept hold of my Charlie Card from Boston to Chicago to Beijing to Chicago to Boston, then lost it in the four blocks from the T to my house–and the conductor just waved me along, so as to save time. This made me think about sustainability (Most things make me think about sustainability.). Is this conductor’s tendency to wave people along reflected at all in his gross product for the day? We learned in Beijing that every little bit counts–imagine Chinese students in environmental education programs telling you that they believe that every little bit counts. This is very cute. I hope we can reflect in our film, but then the conductor today made me think about when time is weighed against those few T passengers’ fares? Do the bits count to the same degree if they’re weighed against the value of little bits of time? I’m sure what this conductor loses in my T fare, he more than makes up for in being on time for the next stop. There is a temporal aspect of this idea that I like so much.

I’m applying for another grant from the Tides Foundation to continue to do this work. I am continuing to get really positive feedback, which lets me know that there is more here if I just keep looking closely enough. I think problems are solvable, depending on the vantage point from which you look at them. I had the thought recently that I should have the film translated into Chinese. I asked my adviser in China if he thought there is a Chinese audience for this film, and I will budget for a translator if Libo tells me there is potential there. I think this is a cool thing.

I have connected with the NBC affiliate in Maine about possibly working with NBC to air some of our work. These talks are in the very beginning phases of development, but it is a forum which has expressed interest, and has possibilities.

I scheduled a meeting with Bill Moomaw of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change–Bill Moomaw also teaches at Tufts–but Jeff is unavailable to film the meeting, so I will call Bill’s secretary on Monday to reschedule for when we have hired a video editor to work with me.