Citation
(2013), "The Devouring Dragon: How China's Rise Threatens Our Natural World", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 24 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/meq.2013.08324faa.009
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
The Devouring Dragon: How China's Rise Threatens Our Natural World
The Devouring Dragon: How China's Rise Threatens Our Natural World
Article Type: Books and resources From: Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, Volume 24, Issue 6.
By Craig SimonsAmazon Digital Services304 pagesISBN: 0312581769US$20.16
China's rise puts pressures on the natural world at an alarming rate. In a few short years, China has become the planet's largest market for endangered wildlife, its top importer of tropical trees, and its biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. Its rapid economic growth has driven up the world's very metabolism: in Brazil, farmers clear large swaths of the Amazon to plant soybeans; Indian poachers hunt tigers and elephants to feed Chinese demand; in the USA, clouds of mercury and ozone drift earthward after trans-Pacific jet-stream journeys.
This book looks at how an ascending China has rapidly surpassed the USA and Europe as the planet's worst-polluting superpower. It argues that China's most important twenty-first-century legacy will be determined not by jobs, corporate profits, or political alliances, but by how quickly its growth degrades the global environment and whether it can stem the damage.