Devouring Dragon: How China's Rise Threatens The Natural World, The

Description

The horrifying pollution within China is well-known. What's not so well-known is China's devastating impact on the entire world's forests, wildlife, oceans, rivers and climates. In New Guinea, many of the world's last great forests are being felled and exotic rare birds threatened to meet China's demand for timber; in Brazil, large swaths of the Amazon are being cleared to plant soybeans for China; in India, poachers are hunting and killing tigers and other endangered animals to extinction to feed Chinese demand; in New Zealand, land is being turned over to dairying at an alarming rate to provide food for China; in Australia, countryside is being eaten up and polluted for mines supplying coal to China. In this brilliant book, Craig Simons visits many of the places, people and communities affected and produces a devastating report. The Devouring Dragon looks at how an ascending China has rapidly surpassed the U.S. and Europe as the worst-polluting superpower. This book asks questions that need urgent answers if life on Earth is to survive.

Craig Simons has reported on the environment from twelve Asian nations for Newsweek and Cox Newspapers. He has also written for Outside, Backpacker, The New York Times, and Wall Street Journal. In 2012 he won a prestigious Knight Fellowship from MIT. He lives in China.

"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""""Simons paints a devastating picture of the global consequences of China's relentless and rapacious growth, from the clear-cutting of the e