China is changing. The past several decades have seen immense booms in the country’s demand for energy, steel, water and other natural resources that were already in scarce supply, in a country that is almost the size of the United States but has more than four times the population. Worries over the giant nation’s need for oil peaked with the U.S. and Chinese governments’ strange dance over Unocal last summer (see Geotimes, August 2005), and with China’s consumption of steel, which sent the American government into a defensive stance several years ago…
As China continues its economic metamorphosis into the gorilla in the global sandbox, it has rapidly changed its physical environment. Home to some of the world’s largest cities, the country contains several of the most polluted cities in the world, partly because of its reliance on coal for energy. Wood and water needs have led to increased erosion and desertification, and the country sends dust from its quickly growing western desert across the Pacific, carrying sulfate and other polluting particulate matter.
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