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This is a book about the improbable: seeking legal relief for pollution in contemporary China. In a country known for tight political control and ineffectual courts, Environmental Litigation in China unravels how everyday justice works: how judges make decisions, why lawyers take cases, and how international influence matters. It is a readable account of how the leadership's mixed signals and political ambivalence play out on the ground - propelling some, such as the village doctor who fought a chemical plant for more than a decade, even as others back away from risk. Yet this remarkable book shows that even in a country where expectations would be that law wouldn't much matter, environmental litigation provides a sliver of space for legal professionals to explore new roles and, in so doing, probe the boundary of what is politically possible.

This article analyses how Chinese media make sense of smog and air pollution in China through the lens of London's past. Images of London, the fog city, have figured in the Chinese press since the 1870s, and this collective memory has made London a powerful yet malleable tool for discursive contestation on how to frame China's current air pollution problem, which constitutes part of news media's hegemonic and counter-hegemonic practices. Although the classic images of London as a fog city persist to the present day, the new narrative centres on the 1952 Great Smog, which was rediscovered and mobilized by Chinese news media to build an historical analogy. In invoking this foreign past, official media use London to naturalize the smog problem in China and justify the official stance, while commercialized media emphasize the bitter lessons to be learned and call for government action. 本文分析中国新闻媒体如何透过昔日伦敦来审视当下中国的雾霾和空气污染问题。自 1870 年代, 伦敦作为 “雾都” 的形象就开始在中国报刊上出现, 由此形塑的集体记忆让伦敦成为一个强有力的、富有韧性的符号。在当代语境下, 伦敦被纳入围绕空气污染议题的话语争夺过程之中, 成为中国媒体霸权与反霸权实践的一部分。尽管伦敦雾都的经典形象仍然不时见诸报端, 但新闻媒体重新发现了 1952 年的伦敦烟雾事件, 并在过去和现在之间建立起历史类比。通过调用这一桩发生在大洋彼岸的历史事件, 新闻媒体建构出不同的框架: 官方媒体借助伦敦将中国的雾霾问题自然化, 并正当化官方立场; 市场化媒体则更多强调烟雾事件的惨痛教训, 呼吁政府积极展开污染治理行动。

The United States and China are the top two energy consumers in the world. As a consequence, they are also the top two emitters of numerous air pollutants which have local, regional, and global impacts. Urbanization has led to serious air pollution problems in U.S. and Chinese cities; although U.S. cities continues to face challenges, the lessons they have learned in managing energy use and air quality are relevant to the Chinese experience. This book summarizes current trends, profiles two U.S. and two Chinese cities, and recommends key actions to enable each country to continue to improve urban air quality.

China's plans to expand exponentially its exploitation of Tibet's natural resources will have terrifying consequences for land and people. This book is an entirely unique, authoritative guide through the torrent of online posts, official propaganda and exile speculation.

China's carbon dioxide emissions now outstrip those of other countries and its domestic air quality is severely degraded, especially in urban areas. Its sheer size and its growing, fossil-fuel-powered economy mean that China's economic and environmental policy choices will have an outsized effect on the global environmental future. Over the last decade, China has pursued policies that target both fossil fuel use and atmospheric emissions, but these efforts have been substantially overwhelmed by the country's increasing energy demands. With a billion citizens still living on less than $4,000 per year, China's energy and environmental policies must be reconciled with the goals of maintaining economic growth and raising living standards. This book, a U.S.--Chinese collaboration of experts from Harvard and Tsinghua University, offers a groundbreaking integrated analysis of China's economy, emissions, air quality, public health, and agriculture. It first offers essential scientific context and accessible summaries of the book's policy findings; it then provides the underlying scientific and economic research. These studies suggest that China's recent sulfur controls achieved enormous environmental health benefits at unexpectedly low costs. They also indicate that judicious implementation of carbon taxes could reduce not only China's carbon emissions but also its air pollution more comprehensively than current single-pollutant policies, all at little cost to economic growth.

\"Suffocating smog regularly envelops Chinese metropolises from Beijing to Shanghai, clouding the future prospect of China's growth sustainability. Air pollutants do not discriminate between the rich and the poor, the politician and the 'average Joe.' They put everyone's health and economic prosperity at risk, creating future costs that are difficult to calculate. Yet many people, including some in China, are concerned that addressing environmental challenges will jeopardize economic growth. In 'The Economics of Air Pollution in China, ' leading Chinese economist Ma Jun makes the case that the trade-off between growth and environment is not inevitable. In his ambitious proposal to tackle severe air pollution and drastically reduce the level of so-called PM 2.5 particles--microscopic pollutants that lodge deeply in lungs--Ma Jun argues that in targeting pollution, China has a real opportunity to undertake significant structural economic reforms that would support long-term growth. Rooted in rigorous analyses and evidence-based projections, Ma Jun's 'big bang' proposal aims to mitigate pollution and facilitate a transition to a greener and more sustainable growth model.\"--JSTOR website (viewed March 7, 2017).

The heavy smog suffocating China's cities is increasingly being perceived as a threat by both the population and the authorities. Consequently, political action aiming at regulating ambient air pollution has become increasingly comprehensive and rigid in recent years. Even measures limiting consumption and production seem to become acceptable as China is facing an airpocalypse. Does this suggest a genesis of real “authoritarian environmentalism” (AE) in China? Taking this as a heuristic point of departure, we present findings from research on the implementation of air pollution control measures in Hangzhou city. We offer a critical examination of the concept of AE and, in particular, of local policy implementation strategies vis-à-vis the general public. Two measures in Hangzhou's air policy portfolio are analysed that reveal considerable variation: restrictions on the use of private cars and the (re)location of industrial facilities. Describing the conditions that have helped to produce different implementation strategies, we argue for different emphases in a potential Chinese model of AE. In a context where outcomes are sought at any cost, we observe more complexity and nuances than are usually captured by the AE concept. 近年来,中国政府采取了有史以来力度最大、措施最综合、考核最严格的大气污染治理行动来应对严重的城市雾霾。这种自上而下限制产能、关停污染企业等政策措施是否印证了威权式环境主义在中国的兴盛？通过考察杭州市大气污染治理的两种政策措施：机动车限牌限行与工业污染企业关停搬迁,我们探讨了中国地方政府在环境治理中所采取的不同执行策略及遵循的执行逻辑。与既有“威权式环境主义”理论强调政策执行的“产出”有所不同,我们发现,中国“威权式环境主义”更注重政策执行的“结果”。这在一定程度上解释了为何中国地方政府在环境政策执行时表现出如此大的差异性与灵活度。

China's historic economic expansion is driven by fossil fuels, which increase its emissions of both local air pollutants and greenhouse gases dramatically. Clearing the Air is an innovative, quantitative examination of the national damage caused by China's degraded air quality, conducted in a pathbreaking, interdisciplinary U.S.-China collaboration. Its damage estimates are allocated by sector, making it possible for the first time to judge whether, for instance, power generation, transportation, or an unexpected source such as cement production causes the greatest environmental harm. Such objective analyses can help China reset policy priorities. Clearing the Air uses this information to show how appropriate \"green\" taxes might not only reduce emissions and health damages but even enhance China's economic growth. It also shows to what extent these same policies could limit greenhouse gases, suggesting that wealthier nations have a responsibility to help China build environmental protection into its growth. Clearing the Air is written for a diverse audience, providing a bridge from underlying research to policy implications, with easily accessible overviews of issues and summaries of the findings for nonspecialists and policymakers followed by more specialized, interlinked studies of primary interest to scholars. Taken together, these analyses offer a uniquely integrated assessment that supports the book's economic and policy recommendations.

This study assessed subjective symptoms related to indoor concentrations of chemicals among residents in a housing estate in Dalian, China, where indoor air pollution by interior decoration materials has recently become a major health problem. Fifty-nine males and 50 females were surveyed for their symptoms related to sick building syndrome. Formaldehyde (HCHO), NO2, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in their dwellings were collected using a diffusion sampler and measured by GC/MS. For residents with one or more symptoms in the past, HCHO, butanol or 1,2-dichloroethane concentrations were significantly greater in their bedrooms or kitchens compared with those of subjects without previous symptoms. For residents with one or more symptoms at the time of the study, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, xylene, butanol, methyl isobutyl ketone, and styrene concentrations in their bedrooms or kitchens were significantly greater compared with those of residents without symptoms. HCHO, NO2, and VOCs were detected in all rooms, but their levels were lower than the guideline values except for HCHO in two rooms. Chemical substances from interior decoration materials at indoor air levels lower than their guideline values might have affected the health status of residents.