How can the world’s two consumer “superpowers”- the U.S. and China – work together to reduce the impact that consumption has on us and our world? That was the topic a capacity crowd addressed on March 22 at the U.S. – China Greener Consumption Forum. The event, held at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. […]
In 1983, I stepped off a somewhat rickety Air China plane onto the tarmac of the Beijing International Airport — and practically needed a flashlight. Only one light burned in the airport terminal, and passengers were met not by taxi cabs and relatives driving cars but by friends and family ready to transport them home…on […]
Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican Member of Congress who’s running for President, vows she’ll cripple the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency if she’s elected. Maybe if she spent a week in China like I recently did, she’d change her mind. I’ve just returned from a seven-day trip to Beijing, China’s capital, and Xi’an, the country’s cultural […]
Is China a beacon of the environmental future – or a reminder of its past? What are we to think, when in the same conversation, we hear that the country is building one new coal plant a week – at the same time that it is churning out wind turbines faster than any other country […]
I think it’s fair to call the “kid’s toys” situation a crisis. As yesterday’s New York Times reports, “Despite a two-year effort to eliminate the threat of poisonous lead in inexpensive children’s jewelry, hundreds of thousands of tainted items are still being sold across the United States.” Because of this negligence, thousands of children are […]
This week’s revelations that toys and jewelry made in China contain high levels of lead is the last straw. It’s time to stop buying toys made in China. The story in USA Today about the crisis is particularly alarming. In the last four years, the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) has issued 27 recalls […]
If you ever needed a reason to eat fruits and vegetables that were grown by people you know and trust, read this week’s news reports about dead pets and contaminated chickens. At least 4,000 dogs and cats have died and thousands more have gotten sick from pet food manufactured in China that contains melamine. Melamine […]
