Chinese walker

Jared Green: In your new book, Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability, you argue that New York City is one of the most sustainable cities in the United States because of its high population density. The environmental lessons are: live smaller, live closer and drive less. Why is this agenda central to achieving a more sustainable future?

David Owen: New York City has the smallest per-capita carbon footprint of any American community %26ndash; just 7.1 metric tonnes of greenhouse gases per resident per year, compared with a national average of 24.5. The reason is population density. Shrinking the distance between people %26ndash; and, especially, between people and their destinations %26ndash; reduces energy use, carbon emission and waste in all categories.

The most important factor is automobile use. Cars are bad for the environment not only because they directly consume fuel and emit pollutants but because they facilitate the creation of far greater sources of energy profligacy and environmental damage in form of sprawling communities, oversized dwellings, inefficient commerce and huge networks of redundant civic infrastructure. New York City has the lowest automobile-to-resident ratio of any place in the United States. Fifty-four percent of the city%26rsquo;s households and 77% of Manhattan Island%26rsquo;s households don%26rsquo;t own even one car %26ndash; an unimaginable deprivation almost anywhere else in the country.

New York City looks so different from so much of the rest of the country that its environmental examples aren%26rsquo;t easy to apply. But dense urban centres offer one of the few plausible templates for addressing some of the world%26rsquo;s most discouraging environmental ills, including climate change. We need to find ways to reduce the size of our living spaces, decrease the distance between ourselves and our destinations and begin to wean ourselves away from our near total dependence on automobiles.

JG: You argue that the best environmental investment a city can make should focus on how to make a city more attractive and tolerable for people to live closer together. How can cities fighting sprawl best invest in density?

DO: We must find ways to shift new residential and commercial development away from places where population growth and economic growth exacerbate critical environmental problems. For American cities, that will mean first understanding and then extending the benefits of population density and the thoughtful mixing of uses as well as acknowledging that, in a dense city, the truly important environmental issues are less likely to be things like solar panels on building roofs than they are to be old-fashioned quality-of-life concerns like education, culture, crime, street noise, bad smells, resources for the elderly and the availability of recreational facilities, all of which affect the willingness of people to live in efficient urban cores rather than packing up their children and fleeing to the suburbs.

Issues like these can be tough for traditional environmentalists to come to terms with because they don%26rsquo;t feel green: Where are the organic gardens and the backyard compost heaps? Planting trees along city streets, always a popular initiative, has high environmental utility but not for the reasons that people usually assume: trees are ecologically important in dense urban areas not because they provide temporary repositories for atmospheric carbon %26ndash; the usual argument for planting more of them %26ndash; but because their presence along sidewalks makes city dwellers more cheerful about dwelling in cities. Unfortunately, much conventional environmental activism has the opposite effect since it reinforces the view that urban life is artificial and depraved and makes city residents feel guilty about living where and how they do.

JG: Some argue that city living can add years to your life. What do you see as the most effective design tactic for creating healthy communities?

DO: City dwellers who fantasize about living in the country usually picture themselves hiking, kayaking, gathering eggs from their own chickens and engaging in other robust outdoor activities. But what you actually do when you move out of the city is move into a car because public transit is non-existent and most daily destinations are too widely separated to make walking or bicycling plausible as forms of transportation. Just about the first thing my wife and I did when we moved out of the city 25 years ago was gain 10 pounds apiece because we had gone from a place where we got around mainly by walking to a place where nearly everything we do away from our house requires a car trip.

To get people out of their cars, you have to do two things. First, you have to create enough density to make transit, walking and bicycling conceivable and, second, you have to make driving sufficiently expensive, inconvenient and unpleasant to force people to consider alternatives. You don%26rsquo;t get people out of their cars just by building attractive transit systems. Washington DC has a beautiful subway system, but no one with a car feels compelled to take the train because there%26rsquo;s always a place to park.

Anyone who has spent any time in Manhattan has had the experience of being stuck in traffic in a taxicab and watching a little old lady on the sidewalk overtake them and disappear into the distance. That%26rsquo;s a very green experience.

JG: At street level, you point to design professionals who are implementing %26ldquo;traffic calming%26rdquo; measures that make communities more pedestrian-friendly. In Europe, you point to the idea of %26ldquo;shared spaces%26rdquo;, which increase the ambiguity of urban road spaces and, instead of creating more accidents, actually force drivers to slow down. Please describe this concept.

DO: Shared space is a technique for controlling traffic by blurring, rather than sharply delineating, the boundaries between driving areas and walking areas; by making strategic use of traffic-impeding %26ldquo;street furniture,%26rdquo; such as plantings, benches and bicycle racks; and by eliminating traffic lights, stop signs, lane markings and other traditional controls. This sounds to many people like a formula for disaster, but the clear experience in the (mainly) European cities that have tried it has been that increasing the ambiguity of urban road spaces actually lowers car speeds, reduces accident rates and improves the lives of pedestrians: drivers proceed more warily when they aren%26rsquo;t completely certain what%26rsquo;s going on.

JG: Author and naturalist Henry David Thoreau in his cabin %26ndash; an iconic image of man at one with nature and living self-sufficiently off the land %26ndash; you argue, set the %26ldquo;American pattern%26rdquo; for a kind of %26ldquo;creeping residential development.%26rdquo; Do you think many environmentalists are anti-urban?

DO: Americans tend to think of dense cities as despoilers of the natural landscape, but urban density actually helps to preserve it. Preaching the sanctity of open spaces helps to propel development into those very spaces and the process is self-reinforcing.

Thoreau wasn%26rsquo;t actually much of an outdoorsman, and his cabin was closer to the centre of Concord, [Massachusetts, north-eastern United States], than to any true wilderness, but for many Americans he remains the archetype %26ndash; the natural philosopher guiltlessly living off the grid, a mile from his nearest neighbour. Yet he actually set a very bad example, because anyone seeking to replicate his experience needed to move another mile farther along. Wild landscapes are less often destroyed by people who despise wild landscapes than by people who love them, or think they do. From an environmental point of view, dense cities are scalable; Thoreau%26rsquo;s cabin is not.

JG: In the suburbs, homeowners are spending more than US$40 billion (273 billion yuan) per year on 129,000 square kilometres of lawns. However, despite all this investment in residential outdoor spaces, they aren%26rsquo;t being used. How do you think residential landscapes should be re-developed so people re-engage with nature?

DO: The problem with almost any initiative aimed at %26ldquo;re-engaging people with nature%26rdquo; is that it tends to encourage the very kind of sprawling, wasteful residential development that threatens unspoiled areas in the first place. The way to protect natural landscapes is to concentrate human development, not to spread it out so that each of us can claim a small piece of it as our very own.

Environmentalists and urban planners sometimes say that, in order to get people out of their cars and onto their feet, developed areas need become more like the country by incorporating extended %26ldquo;greenways%26rdquo; and other attractive, vegetated pedestrian corridors. It%26rsquo;s true that such features, along with parks and natural areas, can encourage some people to take walks. But, if the goal is to get people to embrace walking as a form of practical transportation, oversized greenways can actually be counterproductive. Walking-as-transportation requires closely paced, accessible destinations, not broad expanses of leafy scenery. If you want to see people moving around under their own power under the sky, don%26rsquo;t go to the country or the suburbs; go downtown.

Jared Green is web content and strategy manager at the American Society of Landscape Architects.

David Owen is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of a dozen books.

This interview was first published by the American Society of Landscape Architects. It is reproduced here with permission.

Homepage image by Al_HikesAZ

Residents in Shanghai%26rsquo;s Baoshan district have, for years, endured the ghastly smells produced by Shanghai Richina Leather and other tanneries owned by its multinational parent company, Richina Group. Yet there is almost nothing in the Chinese media about this corporation and few would recognise the name of its boss, financier Yan Ciliang

Yan Ciliang, or Richard Yan as he is known in English, is the founder of the Richina Group and legal representative of all its subsidiaries. Born in China, educated at Harvard, and now a citizen of New Zealand, Yan is vice-chair of the board of directors of the China Leather Association.

At first glance, Yan%26rsquo;s life looks like a classic success story. In 1981, he became the first Chinese secondary-school student to win a Rotary Scholarship to study English at Auckland Grammar School in the New Zealand capital, and he went on to attend Auckland University. In 1985, he worked at Westpac Bank in Sydney, Australia, which later funded his MBA at the US%26rsquo;s prestigious Harvard Business School. Then, in 1992, the American Ziff family became the principal investors in a US$52.5 million (358 million yuan) investment fund and, the following year, Yan and Harvard classmate Susanna Foels founded Richina Capital Partners to manage that fund. Thus was born the Richina Group.

To date, the group%26rsquo;s subsidiaries occupy four main fields. One is Yan%26rsquo;s original line of work: finance. Richina%26rsquo;s financial business is concentrated in its wholly-owned Chinese holding company, Richina Pacific (China) Investments. This company provides a wide range of financial and business services for multinationals headquartered in Shanghai. Its own parent company, Richina Pacific, de-listed from the New Zealand stock exchange in a 2008 restructuring that left many former shareholders unhappy. The firm%26rsquo;s registered office is now in Bermuda with its operational headquarters in Malaysia.

Richina is also invested in tourism, including in the Blue Zoo Beijing and the Jinjiang Inn, a hotel in central Shanghai. The company also runs restaurants, shops and hotel-style apartments and owns car parks and a taxi fleet in Shanghai. Richina%26rsquo;s construction portfolio includes the wholly-owned subsidiary Mainzeal, a major New Zealand property and construction firm.

The group%26rsquo;s interest in leather and associated products is run by Richina Industries, which oversees Shanghai Richina Leather and the Shanghai Leather Company, processing leather, manufacturing leather footwear, clothing, sporting goods, luggage, furnishings and car upholstery and leather chemical products.

On February 27, 2003, New Zealand%26rsquo;s second largest daily newspaper, The Dominion Post, reported that the Richina Group owed its profits that year largely to the Chinese market. According to the report, Richina Pacific had turned a loss of NZ$15.3 million (73.9 million yuan) to a profit of NZ$8 million (38.6 million yuan) in a single year. A significant return from Shanghai Richina Leather, a focal point for the group, was credited with the turnaround.

One name on the list of Richina Group executives is symptomatic of Yan%26rsquo;s highly placed connections. Jenny Shipley, the independent chair of the Mainzeal board, formerly independent director of Richina Pacific and chair of Richina Leather, was once prime minister of New Zealand. In July of 1999, Shipley paid a working visit to China at the invitation of Jiang Zemin.

In May 2007, Yan Ciliang generously funded the Peking University New Zealand Centre, co-founded by Auckland Peking universities. The opening ceremony was attended by New Zealand%26rsquo;s foreign minister, Winston Peters, with a distinguished list of ambassadors and officials.

According to a reliable source, the Richina group is about to reorganise its Chinese operations, relocating its leather production to a new facility in Liaoning and capitalising on the property value of its Shanghai Leather portfolio for residential and commercial development. The relocation will finally end the long nightmare of Richina%26rsquo;s Shanghai neighbours, according to Richina Industries president and chief executive Bob Moore. %26ldquo;By October 2010, we will have built a dedicated leather-tanning plant to take on the production halted in Shanghai due to odours,%26rdquo; he said.

Yan has never responded in person to questions on Richina%26rsquo;s constant environmental violations. Asked what Yan thinks of the company%26rsquo;s environmental record, Bob Moore replies carefully: %26ldquo;Yan Ciliang is the investor and we are his managers. All the responsibility is ours. Yan certainly wants Richina Leather to reach world-class environmental standards and we will work hard to achieve that goal.%26rdquo;

Xu Shuda is a reporter based in Shanghai.

Homepage image from Qinghemen Archives shows Yan Ciliang (middle), founder of the Richina Group.

Fifty-six-year-old Feng Min had never smelt anything like it. %26ldquo;It%26rsquo;s like pitch mixed with cat%26rsquo;s urine,%26rdquo; she says, standing at the gate to the Jufengyuan neighbourhood on Shanghai%26rsquo;s Shangda Road. Looking to the south-east, she wrinkles her brow. Two kilometres away is the Richina Leather factory.

The company was founded in 1995, with total investment of US$29.9 million (204.2 million yuan). The Richina Group originally held a 55% stake but has since increased its ownership interest to 95%. The facility, which supplies tanned leather to some of the world’s largest shoe, clothing, furnishing and automobile brands, is the largest in east and south-east Asia and Richina’s leathers are the raw material for everything from Clark’s shoes to Toyota’s luxury leather seats. The company’s website boasts a client list including Giorgio Armani, Calvin Klein, Ugg, Nike and Rockport.

Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) and chinadialogue author, says that, of the tens of thousands of companies his institute monitors, Richina is the only one to have been investigated and sanctioned by environmental authorities every year since 2004.

The Jufengyuan neighbourhood lies in the north-east of Shanghai, where Shangda Road and Qilian Road meet, and is the largest residential complex near Shanghai University. In Shanghai, properties in this type of area normally cost at least 15,000 yuan (US$2,197) per square metre. But in Jufengyuan, a 170-square-metre apartment can be had for as little as 1.8 million yuan (US$264,000). Local estate agents always make a point of mentioning the %26ldquo;super-low%26rdquo; prices.

Right next door to Richina Leather is the village of Beizhang. The acrid odour from the numerous local tanneries, several of which are owned by the Richina Group, is apparent even at some distance from the village, on Nanda Road. As you get closer, your eyes become dry, your nose itches and breathing becomes a little difficult.

%26ldquo;It%26rsquo;s been so long we can%26rsquo;t smell it any more,%26rdquo; says 38-year-old villager Zhang Zhidong helplessly. Since the 1970s, the village has been surrounded by leather workshops, which have polluted the ground. Zhang explains that a powerful reek of rotten eggs has hung over the village since 1996, when the Richina plant started operating: %26ldquo;As soon as one of the workers from the plant rides his bike into the courtyard, the whole house stinks of rotten eggs.%26rdquo;

Richina was sanctioned annually from 2004 to 2008, the last year for which data is published, according to information on environmental-law enforcement from Shanghai municipal authorities and the Baoshan Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB). In 2008 alone, the firm was prosecuted for turning off air-treatment equipment and fined 100,000 yuan (US$14,635) for violating standards on the release of atmospheric pollutants. When I phone the Baoshan EPB to ask for monitoring results for 2009, the official at the other end of the phone checks with a colleague at the monitoring station before calling back to say %26ldquo;They were definitely still breaching standards.%26rdquo;

Zhou Qichao, a resident of Jufengyuan and former engineer at Shanghai%26rsquo;s 4th Pharmaceutical Factory, explains that Richina first soaks the leather and scrapes off remaining flesh and fat, then removes oil and hair before two tanning stages. During this process, the fat and proteins produce fetid odours as they are dissolved in water, just like organic matter rotting in a stream. Richina claims to use a spraying technique to absorb the odour but this is inadequate as the process must be repeated many times to be effective. %26ldquo;They won%26rsquo;t use that much water %26ndash; it%26rsquo;s too expensive and would increase their costs,%26rdquo; says Zhou.

Baoshan Environmental Protection Bureau%26rsquo;s punishment of Richina in October 2008 backs up Zhou Qichao%26rsquo;s claim as the plant wasn%26rsquo;t using water at all. The bureau%26rsquo;s record of the event refers to: %26ldquo;Air pollution treatment equipment lying idle while waste gases are expelled untreated.%26rdquo;

Opposition from local residents dates back as far as the offensive odours. Feng Min says many letters have been written to the Shanghai authorities requesting relocation of the plant and residents have established a monitoring group to collect evidence of the pollution at their own expense. Local farmers from the village of Beizhang have also complained to Richina on a number of occasions. In the last two years the problem has abated significantly. Xu Jun, a Richina worker living locally, confirms that the production line responsible for much of the pollution was shut down in 2008. Xu%26rsquo;s job is to dye or decorate semi-finished product, which will later be used to make leather car seats. %26ldquo;Those techniques don%26rsquo;t create any pollution,%26rdquo; he says.

%26ldquo;It%26rsquo;s the small plants around here that are the worst polluters now,%26rdquo; says Zhang Zhidong. He takes me for a walk around the Richina plant and there is no particularly strong smell. But there is an offensive reek that makes my chest tighten by the nearby Hongguang Leather and Leather Chemical Factory. There are many other leather firms in the area and the villagers accuse them of polluting on the sly.

But checking up on the ownership of these companies, I found that the firms the villagers accuse of making uncontrolled emissions %26ndash; Shanghai Torch Shoes, Shangahi Leather Case %26amp; Bag Factory, Shanghai Leather Chemical Factory, Shanghai United Ball Enterprises, Shanghai Weixing Leather Products, Shanghai Yimin Tannery and Hongguang Leather %26ndash; all became subsidiaries of the Richina Group back in 2004. And the three companies named in almost every letter from the environmental authorities to local residents %26ndash; Shanghai Richina Leather, Shanghai Hongguang Leather and Shanghai Leather Chemical Factory %26ndash; are also Richina Group subsidiaries.

On the afternoon of November 17, 2009, Richina Leather chief executive Bob Moore tells me that %26ldquo;Since arriving in Shanghai in March, I%26rsquo;ve never smelt this %26lsquo;stench%26rsquo; you are talking about.%26rdquo; However, local residents recorded when they smelt that odour on an online forum. In August alone, the smell was present on eight days: August 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 27 and 30.

Moore produces a record of odours near Jufengyuan in the two weeks from October 16. %26ldquo;It%26rsquo;s not even the smell of hydrogen sulphide %26ndash; it%26rsquo;s mostly ammonia from chemical plants,%26rdquo; he says. %26ldquo;It%26rsquo;s nothing to do with Richina.%26rdquo; Moore says he has been working hard on environmental protection since arriving at Richina Leather. %26ldquo;From 2004 to 2008 we were punished every year because at the same time as we were making improvements, environmental standards were increasing. I%26rsquo;m sure 2009 will be different.%26rdquo; When I tell him that the Baoshan environmental authorities said Richina was still breaching standards in 2009, Moore gets a little angry: %26ldquo;Impossible! None of the authorities have spoken to us. If Baoshan Environmental Protection Bureau wants to put the figures on the table, we can discuss them.%26rdquo;

He believes that many small, local factories are causing pollution and people should not assume that every smell they encounter is coming from the Richina Leather facility. When reminded that many of those factories are actually owned by Richina Group, he does not deny it but says: %26ldquo;I am only the boss of Richina Leather Industries, responsible for Richina Leather. I can control pollution from Richina Leather but not those factories nearby.%26rdquo;

But Moore%26rsquo;s business card shows he is also president and chief executive of one of the Richina Group%26rsquo;s four major divisions, Richina Industries. On the Richina Group website, Richina Industries includes Shanghai Richina Leather and Shanghai Leather Company. And those nearby factories that he %26ldquo;can%26rsquo;t control%26rdquo; are all subsidiaries of the latter.

Xu Shuda is a reporter based in Shanghai.

NEXT: Ramping up the pressure on Richina

Homepage image from coco+kelley

The climate deniers come with a few built-in advantages. Thanks to Exxon Mobil and others with a vested interest in debunking climate-change research, their %26ldquo;think tanks%26rdquo; have plenty of money, none of which gets wasted doing actual research to disprove climate change. It%26rsquo;s also useful for a movement to have its own television network, in this case US media giant Fox, though even more crucial to the denial movement are a few right-wing British tabloids that validate each new %26ldquo;scandal%26rdquo; and put it into media play.

That these guys are geniuses at working the media was proved this February when even the New York Times, normally sensible on the issue of global warming, ran a front page story, %26ldquo;Skeptics Find Fault With UN Climate Panel%26rdquo;, which recycled most of the accusations of the past few months.

Access to money and the media is not the only, or even the main reason for the success of the climate deniers, however. Their success in the United States can be credited significantly to the way they tap into the main currents of our politics of the moment with far more savvy and power than most environmentalists can muster. They%26rsquo;ve understood the popular rage at elites. They%26rsquo;ve grasped the widespread feelings of powerlessness %26ndash; and the widespread suspicion that we%26rsquo;re being ripped off by mysterious forces beyond our control.

The passion with which people attack former US vice-president and environmental campaigner Al Gore, for instance, often seems focused on the charge that he%26rsquo;s making large sums of money from green investments and that the whole idea is little more than a scam designed to enrich everyone involved. This may be wrong %26ndash; Gore has testified under oath that he donates his green profits to the cause and scientists are not getting rich researching climate change %26ndash; but it resonates with lots of people. I get many emails a day on the same theme: %26ldquo;The game is up. We%26rsquo;re on to you.%26rdquo;

When I say it resonates with lots of people, I mean lots of people. When it comes to global warming, we%26rsquo;re pretty much all easy sells because we live the life that produces the carbon dioxide that%26rsquo;s at the heart of the crisis and because we like that life. Very few people really want to change in any meaningful way, and given half a chance to think they don%26rsquo;t need to, they%26rsquo;ll take it. Especially when it sounds expensive and especially when the economy stinks. As David Harsanyi, a columnist for the Denver Post, says: %26ldquo;If they%26rsquo;re going to ask a nation %26ndash; a world %26ndash; to fundamentally alter its economy and ask citizens to alter their lifestyles, the believers%26rsquo; credibility and evidence had better be unassailable.%26rdquo;

%26ldquo;Unassailable%26rdquo; sets the bar impossibly high when there is a dedicated corps of assailants out there hard at work. It is true that those of us who want to see some national and international effort to fight global warming need to keep making the case that the science is strong. That%26rsquo;s starting to happen. There are new websites and iPhone apps to provide clear and powerful answers to the sceptic trash-talking and, strangely enough, the denier effort may, in some ways, be making the case itself: if you go over the multi-volume report from the IPCC with a fine-tooth comb and come up with three or four lousy citations, that%26rsquo;s pretty strong testimony to its essential accuracy.

Clearly, however, the antiseptic attempt to hide behind the magisterium of science in an effort to avoid the rough-and-tumble of politics is a mistake. It%26rsquo;s a mistake because science can be %26ndash; and should be %26ndash; argued about infinitely. Science is, in fact, nothing but an ongoing argument, which is one reason why it sounds so disingenuous to most people when someone insists that the science is %26ldquo;settled%26rdquo;. That%26rsquo;s especially true of people who have been told at various times in their lives that some food is good for you only to be told later that it might increase your likelihood of dying.

Anyone who works seriously on the science soon realises that we know more than enough to start taking action but less than we someday will. There will always be controversy over exactly what we can now say with any certainty. That%26rsquo;s life on the cutting edge. I certainly don%26rsquo;t turn my back on the research %26ndash; we%26rsquo;ve spent the last two years at my website, 350.org, building what Foreign Policy magazine called %26ldquo;the largest ever coordinated global rally%26rdquo; around a previously obscure data point, the amount of atmospheric carbon that scientists say is safe, measured in parts per million.

But it%26rsquo;s a mistake to concentrate solely on the science for another reason. Science may be what we know about the world, but politics is how we feel about it. And feelings count at least as much as knowledge, especially when those feelings are valid. People are getting ripped off. They are powerless against large forces that are, at the moment, beyond their control. Anger is justified.

So let%26rsquo;s figure out how to talk about it. Let%26rsquo;s look at Exxon Mobil, which, in each of the last three years, has made more money than any company in the history of money. Its business model involves using the atmosphere as an open sewer for the carbon dioxide that is the inevitable by-product of the fossil fuel it sells. And yet we let it do this for free. It doesn%26rsquo;t pay a red cent for potentially wrecking our world.

Right now, there%26rsquo;s a bill in the Congress %26ndash; cap-and-dividend, it%26rsquo;s called %26ndash; that would charge Exxon for that right and use the proceeds to send a cheque to everyone in the country every month. Yes, the company would pass on the charge at the pump, but 80% of Americans (all except the top-income energy hogs) would still make money out of the deal. That represents good science because it starts to send a signal that we should park that SUV. But it%26rsquo;s also good politics.

Keep in mind that fear and rage aren%26rsquo;t the only feelings around. They%26rsquo;re powerful feelings, to be sure, but they%26rsquo;re not all that we feel. And they are not us at our best. There%26rsquo;s also love, a force that has often helped motivate large-scale change and one that cynics in particular have little power to rouse. Love for poor people around the world, for instance. If you think it%26rsquo;s not real, you haven%26rsquo;t been to church recently. People who take the Gospel seriously also take seriously indeed the injunction to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless. It%26rsquo;s becoming patently obvious that nothing challenges that goal quite like the rising seas and spreading deserts of climate change.

There%26rsquo;s also the deep love for creation, for the natural world. We were born to be in contact with the world around us and, though much of modernity is designed to insulate us from nature, it doesn%26rsquo;t really work. Any time the natural world breaks through %26ndash; a sunset, an hour in the garden %26ndash; we%26rsquo;re suddenly vulnerable to the realisation that we care about things beyond ourselves. That%26rsquo;s why art and music need to be part of the story, right alongside bar graphs and pie charts. When we campaign about climate change at 350.org, we make sure to do it in the most beautiful places we know, the iconic spots that conjure up people%26rsquo;s connection to their history, their identity, their hope.

The great irony is that the climate sceptics have prospered by insisting that their opponents are radicals. In fact, those who work to prevent global warming are deeply conservative, insistent that we should leave the world in something like the shape we found it. We want our kids to know the world we knew. Here%26rsquo;s the definition of radical: doubling the carbon content of the atmosphere because you%26rsquo;re not completely convinced it will be a disaster. We want to remove every possible doubt before we convict in the courtroom because an innocent man in a jail cell is a scandal. But outside of it we should act more conservatively.

In the long run, the climate deniers will lose; they%26rsquo;ll be a footnote to history. (Hey, even OJ Simpson is finally in jail). But they%26rsquo;ll lose because we%26rsquo;ll all lose. Because, by delaying action, they will have helped prevent us from taking the steps we need to take while there%26rsquo;s still time. If we%26rsquo;re going to make real change while it matters, it%26rsquo;s important to remember that their scepticism isn%26rsquo;t the root of the problem. It simply plays on our deep-seated resistance to change. That%26rsquo;s what gives the climate cynics ground to operate. That%26rsquo;s what we need to overcome and, at bottom, that%26rsquo;s a battle as much about courage and hope as about data.

Bill McKibben is the author of a dozen books, including the forthcoming Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont.

An earlier version of this article was published by TomDispatch.com. It is used here with permission.

Homepage image from 350.org

Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, Administration Of The Use Of Technological Achievements As Capital Contributions For Equity Shares Procedures

Article 1　These Procedures are formulated in accordance with the provisions of State laws and regulations in order to promote the optimal combination of technological achievements with other key elements of production, to adjust the relationship between the rights and obligations of the investor of technology and the other shareholders, and to protect the interests of companies’ creditors and of the public.

Article 2　These Procedures apply to the use of technological achievements as capital contribution for equity shares when setting up limited liability companies and share limited companies (hereafter referred to as “companies”).
Read more…

Measures for the Banning of Illegal Financial Institutions and Illegal Financial Business Operations

Article 1 These Measures are formulated for the purposes of banning illegal financial institutions and illegal financial business operations, maintaining financial order and protecting public interest of society.

Article 2 All illegal financial institutions and illegal financial business operations must be banned.

Article 3 The illegal financial institutions referred to in these Measures mean those institutions established on their own without the approval of the People’s Bank of China for engaging in or mainly engaging in such financial business operations as attraction of deposits, granting of loans, handling of settlements, note discount, call loans, trust investment, financial leasing, financing guaranty and foreign exchange buying and selling.

The preparatory organization of an illegal financial institution shall be construed as an illegal financial institution.

Article 4 The illegal financial business operations referred to in these Measures mean the engagement on their own without the approval of the People’s Bank of China in the following operations:

(1)illegal attraction of public deposits or attraction in disguised forms of public deposits;

(2)illegal fund-raising from non-specified objects of society in any name without approval in accordance with law;

(3)illegal granting of loans, handling of settlements, note discount, fund calling, trust investment, financial leasing, fund accomodation guaranty and foreign exchange buying and selling; and

(4)other illegal financial business operations determined by the People’s Bank of China.

Illegal attraction of public deposits referred to in the preceding paragraph means operations without the approval of the People’s Bank of China of attraction of funds from non-specified objects of society, issuance of vouchers and commitment to pay the principal and interest within a specified time period; attraction of public deposits in disguised forms referred to means operations without the approval of the People’s Bank of China of attraction of funds from non-specified objects of society not in the name of attraction of public deposits however with the commitment to the fulfilment of obligations identical in nature to those of attraction of public deposits.

Article 5 No unit or individual shall, without the approval of the People’s Bank of China in accordance with law, establish on its/his/her own a financial institution or engage on its/his/her own in financial business operations.

Organs of industry and commerce administration shall not process the registration of illegal financial institutions and illegal financial business operations.

Financial institutions shall not open accounts, handle settlements and provide loans for illegal financial institutions and illegal financial business operations.

Article 6 Illegal financial institutions and illegal financial business operations shall be banned by the People’s Bank of China.

Local people’s governments of the localities wherein the illegal financial institutions have been established or wherein illegal financial business operations have taken place shall be responsible for the work related to organization, coordination, supervision and banning.

Article 7 No unit or individual shall interfere with, reject and obstruct the banning by the People’s Bank of China in accordance with law of illegal financial institutions and illegal financial business operations.

Article 8 Functionaries of the People’s Bank of China should, in the fulfilment of duties and responsibilities in banning illegal financial institutions and illegal financial business operations, keep secrets in accordance with law.

Chapter II Procedures for the Imposition of Ban

Article 9 The People’s Bank of China should, upon uncovering, investigate and verify forthwith an illegal financial institution, illegal attraction of public deposits or attraction of public deposits in disguised forms as well as illegal fund-raising; and should, upon preliminary determination, ask the public security organ in time to establish a case for detection and investigation in accordance with law.

Article 10 The People’s Bank of China and public security organ should cooperate with each other in the process of investigation and detection of illegal financial institutions and illegal financial business operations.

Article 11 The public security organ shall take compulsory measures against the criminal suspect(s), funds and assets involved in the case of the illegal financial institution and illegal financial business operations to guard against the escape of criminal suspect(s) and transfer of funds and assets.

Article 12 The People’s Bank of China shall, upon determination through investigation, take a decision on the banning of the illegal financial institution and illegal financial business operations and declare the said financial institution and financial business operations illegal, order it to stop all business operations, and make a public announcement.

Article 13 The People’s Bank of China should, upon uncovering of a financial institution opening an account, handling settlements and providing loans for an illegal financial institution or illegal financial business operations, order the said financial institution to stop forthwith the business operations concerned. No unit or individual shall take down the funds concerned on its/his/her own.

The organ of industry and commerce administration should, upon uncovering, nullify the registration or effect a change in the registration forthwith of the registration of the organ of industry and commerce administration for the establishment of the illegal financial institution or engagement in illegal financial business operations obtained through deceit.

Article 14 During the investigation conducted by the People’s Bank of China on an illegal financial institution and illegal financial business operations, the unit or individual under investigation must accept the investigation conducted by the People’s Bank of China in accordance with law, report on the situation truthfully and provide relevant materials, and must not refuse or conceal.

Article 15 The People’s Bank of China may, during investigation on an illegal financial institution and illegal financial business operations, employ such means as taking notes, copying and tape recording of the information and materials related to the case to obtain evidences.

The People’s Bank of China may, under circumstances that the evidences may be destroyed or lost or difficult to obtain later, enter into registration and put it(them) in safekeeping beforehand, the interested party and persons concerned shall not destroy or transfer the evidence(s).

Chapter III Consolidation and Settlement of Financial Claims and Debts

Article 16 The institution engaging in illegal financial business operations shall be responsible for the consolidation and settlement of the financial clam is and debts formed as a result of illegal financial business operations.

Article 17 For an illegal financial institution that has the approval department, competent unit or founding unit, once declared banned by the People’s Bank of China, the approval department, competent unit or founding unit shall be responsible for the organization of consolidation and settlement of financial claims and debts; for an institution that has no approval department, competent unit or founding unit, the local people’s government of the locality wherein it is located shall be responsible for the organization of consolidation and settlement of financial claims and debts.

Article 18 The participant(s) shall bear by himself/herself(themselves)the loss suffered as a result of participating in illegal financial business operations.

Article 19 The debts and risks formed by illegal financial business operations shall not be passed onto state-owned banks and other financial institutions as well as any other units that have not participated in illegal financial business operations.

Article 20 Any remaining illegal property(properties) after the consolidation and settlement of financial claims and debts shall be confiscated and delivered to the central treasury on the spot.

Article 21 Dispute(s) arising from consolidation and settlement shall be resolved by the parties interested through consultation; in the event of failure of consultation, resolution shall be sought through judicial procedures.

Chapter IV Penalty Provisions

Article 22 Criminal liability shall be investigated in accordance with law for the establishment of an illegal financial institution or engagement in illegal financial business operations constituting a crime; where a crime has not been constituted, the People’s Bank of China shall confisticate its illegal gains and concurrently impose a fine of more than 100% less than five times of the amount of illegal gains; where there are no illegal gains, a fine of more than RMB 100000 Yuan less than RMB 500000 Yuan shall be imposed.

Article 23 For the approval without authorization of the establishment of an illegal financial institution or the approval without authorization of engagement in illegal financial business operations, the person-in-charge held directly responsible and other personnel directly responsible shall be imposed administrative sanctions in accordance with law; where a crime has been constituted, criminal liability shall be investigated.

Article 24 Any financial institution that opens an account, handles settlements and provides loans for illegal financial institutions or illegal financial business operations in contravention of provisions, shall be ordered by the People’s Bank of China to make a rectification, confisticated of the illegal gains, and concurrently imposed a fine of more than 100% less than five times of the amount of the illegal gains; where there are no illegal gains, a fine of more than RMB 100000 Yuan less than RMB 500000 Yuan shall be imposed; disciplinary sanctions shall be imposed on the person-in-charge held directly responsible and other personnel directly responsible; where a crime has been constituted, criminal liability shall be investigated in accordance with law.

Article 25 Whoever refuses or obstructs the People’s Bank of China in the implementation of its functions constituting a crime shall be investigated of criminal liability in accordance with law; where a crime has not been constituted, penalty for public security administration shall be imposed by the public security organ in accordance with law.

Article 26 Any functionary of the People’s Bank of China who divulges secrets in fulfilling responsibilities of banning the illegal financial institution and illegal financial business operations shall be imposed administrative sanctions in accordance with law; where a crime has been constituted, criminal liability shall be investigated in accordance with law.

Article 27 Functionaries of the People’s Bank of China, public security organs and organs of industry and commerce administration whose neglect of duty, abuse of power and malpractises for selfish gains constitute a crime shall be investigated of criminal liability in accordance with law; where a crime has not been constituted, administrative sanctions shall be imposed in accordance with law.

Any functionary of the People’s Bank of China who should have transferred the case of the illegal financial institution and illegal financial business operations to the public security organ but has failed to do so constituting a crime shall be investigated of criminal liability in accordance with law; where a crime has not been constituted, administrative sanctions shall be imposed in accordance with law.

Chapter V Supplementary Provisions

Article 28 Reference shall be made to these Measures in banning illegal securities agencies and illegal securities business operations. China Securities Supervision and Control Commission shall be responsible for the implementation thereof and may formulate specific measures for implementation in accordance with the principles of these Measures.

Reference shall be made to these Measures in banning illegal commercial insurance agencies and illegal commercial insurance business operations. The department of commercial insurance supervision and control under the State Council shall be responsible for the implementation thereof and may formulate specific measures for implementation in accordance with the principles of these Measures.

Article 29 All kinds of foundations, mutual aid societies, savings societies, capital service departments, share service departments, settlement centers and investment corporations that engage in illegal financial business operations exceeding the scope of the state policy prior to the coming into effect of these Measures should be sorted out and consolidated within the specified time period pursuant to the provisions of the State Council. Any institution that continues to engage in illegal financial business operations beyond the specified time period shall be banned pursuant to these Measures; where the circumstances are serious and a crime has been constituted, criminal liability shall be investigated in accordance with law.

Article 30 These Measures shall come into force as of the date of promulgation.

What is the difference between a Company and an enterprise?

Legally there are several differences between the two. An enterprise means foreign investment enterprises (FIE) in China. There are state owned enterprises in China but we do not include them into the comparison here.
A PRC company is incorporated under the PRC company law, or the “Tentative Provision for the Establishment of the Foreign Investment Joint Stock Limited Liability Company”. There are two types of companies: one is limited liability company;the other is joint stock limited liability company; An enterprise is incorporated under one of the following laws:-
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Speech at China West Forum 2001
SUN Zhenyu,
Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation

(Xi’an, September 5th， 2001)

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The stock market is a place where stocks, bonds, or other securities are bought and sold. When you buy stocks or shares in a company you gain part ownership in that company.

Assorts of stocks in stock market:
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Recently I suggested that someday it might be illegal for untrained citizens to invest in stocks of individual companies because it is too risky. As regular readers know, I sometimes throw out provocative ideas just for the fun of it. I didn’t think much about that idea until after I wrote it. But the more I mulled it over, the more it started to make sense. So I’m going to develop that argument here.
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