Green China
November 16th, 2005“In China, conservation is not a “personal virtue,” as Dick Cheney would say. Today it is a necessity. It was so polluted in Beijing the other day you could not make out buildings six blocks away. That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news: China’s leaders and business community know it. They know that as China grows more prosperous, and more Chinese buy homes and cars, it must urgently adopt green technologies; otherwise, it will destroy its environment and its people. Green technology will decide whether China continues on its current growth path or chokes itself to death. So green innovation is starting to mushroom in China.”
This is Thomas Friedman of “The world is flat” and NYT fame.
Somewhat related: I know that a Chinese province also introduced a corrected GDP metric awhile ago. A metric in which all of the negatives such as money spent on cleaning up oil spills, curing cancer, jails, traffic jams etc. are subtracted from the GDP, and as such would be more closely reflecting welfare as people really experience it. Can’t seem to find anything on it for the moment.
Through Bruce Sterling
Green China
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