I don’t want to hear this crying about Chinese polluters from people in the United States. There are important issues to consider: “It is estimated that the average American still pollutes between five and six times more that the average Chinese person.” (BBC) There are tons of people in China who don’t pollute, and, living in the United States, it’s impossible not to pollute. I was having coffee today with Celia Hoffman, and we talked about keeping a daily journal of waste produced. This is an interesting idea, and I think this is a really important! It’s only a matter of being aware of how you’re affecting, and believing the Chinese kid in the environmental education program when he tells you one plastic bag matters when every person is thinking about their one plastic bag. This is the scale issue that Bill Moomaw tells us about in our film. It comes down to an issue of education, and China is doing work to solve this problem.

According to the BBC article “China building more power plants”, the policy of moving manufacturing out of the developed world into China and India has been a “climate disaster”. This article was published in the middle of June, take note. I think China’s environment has become a more contested issue since the Olympics in August. I think it’s important to note that, as Greenpeace director John Sauven, also quoted in this BBC article, said, “Responsibility for China’s soaring emissions lies note just in Beijing but also in Washington, Brussels and Tokyo.” It’s something important to think about, but it doesn’t get the same kind of attention, because, I guess, it’s not easy blame.