The Devouring Dragon: How China's Rise Threatens Our Natural World - Couverture rigide

Simons, Craig

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0312581769 ISBN 13 : 9780312581763

Editeur : St Martin's Press, 2013

Synopsis

China is transforming our natural world at an alarming rate. It is the world's largest market for endangered wildlife, poached from India and Africa. It is the top importer of tropical timber, harvested illegally in Indonesia. In Brazil, farmers clear large swaths of the Amazon rainforest to meet Chinese demand for soybean oil and beef. In the U.S., toxic levels of mercury originating from Chinese power plants have polluted a third of American lakes and nearly a quarter of its rivers. Craig Simons' new book, "The Devouring Dragon", looks at how China, in its ascendance, has become the world's worst polluting superpower, creating a devastating environmental impact worldwide. Simons argues that China's most significant impacts over the twenty-first century will be not only on jobs, corporate profits and political alliances, but also on our natural world. "The Devouring Dragon" combines in-depth reporting with wide-ranging interviews, scientific research, and travel to some of the most beautiful places on earth. It amply demonstrates the urgency of the issue and also hope for the future. With the Obama administration placing China among its top three foreign policy priorities, Craig Simons argues eloquently for ways in which the United States and China can forge a new era of cooperation, support emerging environmental groups within China, and begin to ensure a sustainable future for the planet.

A propos du livre

Revue de presse

From the coal mines of Colorado to the forests of Papua New Guinea, and all over China in between, Craig Simons illustrates from the ground up how the Middle Kingdom's economic takeoff is upending the planet at the very moment it is reaching an environmental tipping point. The book is both a gripping grassroots narrative of economic development as well as a heartfelt plea for the future.--Richard McGregor, author of The Party and Washington Bureau chief for the Financial Times. China's insatiable appetite for resources has raised the world's metabolism in ways that you could never imagine. Craig Simons' Devouring Dragon takes you clear across the globe--from the ghost town of Trinidad, Colo., to a jungle in Papua New Guinea to the world's largest dam on the Yangtze River -- as he tells the fascinating story of the world's interconnectedness. This is the most important book about the environment in years, scary, riveting and packed with insight into how the world's resources are exploited for economic growth.--Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea and Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood. In The Devouring Dragon, Craig Simons gives a lucid portrayal of the ways in which the world is being changed by China's rise. The science and the statistics are sobering, but so are the human faces behind the numbers as Simons writes with deep sympathy for people struggling to overcome poverty and isolation: the New Guinean who longs to travel, the Chinese farm family who, despite being careful consumers, are part of a massive transformation that threatens to throw the world out of balance. Peter Hessler, author of River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip and Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China. --Various

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: St Martin's Press
• Date d'édition: 2013
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0312581769
• ISBN 13: 9780312581763
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 304
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible