"China - inside the Dragon"

ecostory 23/2008

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Growth quotes from the May 2008 issue of
"National Geographic" on "China - inside the Dragon"

Quotes - titles and photo captions only - [short questions]

"Yunnan Blooming rapeseed plant weave around hills near Luoping, China grows more of the crop - some 14 million tons in 2006 - than any other country; officials hope a biodiesel boom will increase demand even more" [question: at which spare space?]
"Yunnan The Songzanlin Monastery overlooks the town known until 2001 as Zhongdian, but renamed - to attract more visitors - Shangri-La. Tourists, largely from within China, bring billions of dollars to Yunnan every year." [question: at which environmental cost?]
"Crocodiles with their jaws taped shut roam the cavernous lobby of Guangzhou's Yumin seafood restaurant before ending up on customers' plates. The pricey, exotic meat - steamed, braised, or stewed - is believed to cure coughs and prevent cancer. "People don't care about the cost," says manager Wang Jianfei. "They just care about health.""
"KING COAL - It's cheap, it's dirty, and it's fueling the burgeoning number f electric plants that provide power to China. Coal consumptionhas more than doubled since 1990, and even the world's largest coal producer can barely keep up. China is constructing the equivalent of two midsize coal-fired power plants each week - adding a capacity comparable to the entire U.K. power grid each year. What does it mean for the planet? China recently surpassed the U.S. in carbon dioxide emissions."
"BITTER WATERS - A crisis is brewing in China's northern heartland as its lifeline, the Yellow River, succumbs to pollution and uveruse. Image caption: water fouled by a fertiliser factory in Inner Mongolia steams as it seeps toward the upper reaches of the Yellow River."
"PARCHED AND POLLUTED - Roughly half of China's population lives in the north, where demand for water far exceeds the natural supply. Much of the water that remains is badly tainted: The Yellow's drainage basin feeds a 3,400-mile-long river, 50 percent of whose water is deemed undrinkable."
"The proliferation of factories, farms, and cities - all products of China's spectacular economic boom - is sucking the Yellow River dry."
"No longer willing to drink putrid river water, residents of of Nagao use long plastic tubes to tap a single well. China's groundwater usage has almost doubled since 1970. Today two-thirds of the nation's total water consumption comes from aquifers, and the water table keeps falling."