“Al Gore likes to Come to China, Give us Inconvenient Truth”

These were the words of a young Chinese woman who has been traveling with us. She went on to explain her meaning. Al Gore does indeed like to come to China; he does so at least once a year. And to anyone concerned with climate change, China is a central concern. Will development here proceed in an ecologically sound manner? Based on some of the projects we’ve seen recently, there’s hope – hope because the government seems to be doing all it can based on all it knows and within all of its limitations. But the challenges are still profound.

The Chinese government is clearly investing effort, energy, and resources into addressing environmental problems. We’ve been on the edge of the Gobi Desert, in Inner Mongolia, where we’ve witnessed drip irrigation projects in peasants’ fields that yield more crop for less water. In an astounding example of the power of the central government, we’ve also seen the towns and villages being built or already completed for the 100,000+ nomadic peoples that until recently lived in the nearby mountains. The government was not happy with the way that these nomadic groups were contributing to erosion and desertification, so they’ve moved them into towns and provided them with jobs – for now, in any case. At least a few of them are working at a dairy farm we visited, where we saw healthy cows producing milk through a business owned by individual community shareholders. No, we weren’t able to talk with any of the relocated folks to get a sense of their side of the story.

That is one thing that for me continues to lurk in the background here – the question of what we in the states would call basic freedoms, basic rights, fundamental opportunity to organize and have a voice for yourself or in your community. Or perhaps we would simply call it the community having any voice in any development project. I say it is lurking in the background because we on this program know it’s an issue, but it’s hard to get into any dialogue about such things. On the surface the whole place runs impressively well, and there are increasing numbers of environmental NGOs. But we know that more than one million people were moved to make way for the Three Gorges Dam, and we don’t hear those stories. We know that the nomadic peoples I just referenced were moved, and yet of course we don’t know their stories either. I did read one of the state newspapers the other day (English Version), where I learned about the three evils of separatism, terrorism, and extremism – which of course are actually things all governments in power worry about (but the Chinese Government was worrying about it specifically in reference to Western Separatists).

After viewing the drip irrigation project and visiting the dairy farm, we enjoyed a lunch at a home in the village. It so happened that the Secretary of the Local Communist Party was the son in the family – and he served us tea. On a person-to-person level, we’ve had only fabulous hosts. Following that lunch of noodles cooked over a village kitchen fire, we ventured on to the sand dunes that are threatening the city as the desert advances at a rate of twenty meters a year. Shaun and I flipped off of the top of the dune. Lee leaped. Pictures pending – of this and many other feats of strength and engaging evenings with the Water Here and There: International Fellows program. That night we played pool at one of the scores of tables set up in the city square.

On the way to Zhongwei, the next town on our itinerary, we saw the straw square anti-erosion design used in the region’s dunes to fight the desert encroachment, we witnessed “Green Walls” – rows of trees planted in an effort to slow the march of sand, and we cruised through some deep sand nearly blocking the road after we passed a few wild camels. That night we gathered around a Zhongwei Desert Campfire. Today, after visiting the Chinese Academy of Sciences to learn more about their ongoing environmental efforts, we viewed a national park and a new set of regional tourist attractions before jumping back in the bus to move overland yet again – this time to the city of Yinchuan, where we’ll be for the next two nights.

As my roommate here says, we’re only seeing contradictions. We see great environmental efforts – and sprawling factory towns. We hear government officials saying public education is important – but we don’t get any examples. We see a few examples of innovative projects – but we don’t yet see the full and clear community-wide support necessary for them to take hold. Al Gore’s right about the importance of China when it comes to environmental issues. We’re sharing ideas and looking for leads as we work with China’s Young Professionals and government / community representatives to learn more about what the next steps must be.

More pending from Shanghai, and hopefully with a bit more time to dive in deeply.