Full video here and check the air quality daily at www.ChinaAirDaily.com

“In instances where the public interest is threatened, such as environmental pollution or violation of consumers’ rights, relevant organs or social organizations may file suit at the People’s Courts.”
Now, the NGO has teamed up with pro bono lawyers to represent the environment and the town in a public interest law suit. It will be the first time in Chinese history a Chinese court will hear an NGO in a class action case.
While they aim to hold the factory responsible, they also hope to show other grassroots organizations in China — that they too, have power in rule of law to help their communities.

A production by Jonah Kessel with Friends of Nature.

Originally published here on Thursday, August 29, 2013

By Michael Zhao

When, in January, the gray, soupy, acidic air enshrouding China’s capital demanded the creation of the neologism “Airpocalypse,” it looked as though Beijing might finally reach a tipping point—that enough political will might bubble up through the haze to catalyze a real change for clean air.

For almost the whole month, much of urban China all but disappeared behind the heaviest toxic smog on record. Beijing registered air pollution readings off the charts. On some days, for hours at a time, the air quality index (AQI) in the capital flirted with 1,000—twice the highest, most dangerous level of fine particulate matter measured in the air by the Chinese government’s own instruments. And Beijing’s air was relatively clean when compared with places such as nearby Shijiazhuang in Hebei Province.

For more than six years, I recorded the daily air quality by taking pictures from fixed points in several major Chinese cities. I thought I’d seen the full range of smog a huge developing country with a booming economy had to offer before something would have to be done about it.

But January’s dirty air defied any previous standards and begged me to connect China’s air pollution crisis to the overall global climate change challenge.

As of May, the Earth’s atmosphere was 400 parts per million carbon dioxide, much higher than the upper safety limit of 350 agreed by most scientists. Yet we aren’t even talking about it that much, let alone consciously acting each and every day to make the necessary changes.

Most people seem either to ignore climate change altogether or hang on to some, often vague, faith that it won’t happen to them and, if by some chance it should, it wouldn’t be any time soon. Indeed, nobody can predict with much accuracy the presumed climate change-driven catastrophes that lie in store for us on the horizon. But we needn’t wait to understand what’s to come as we’ve already seen it in events such as Hurricane Sandy.

Climate change and the resultant severe weather is one thing, but air pollution is a different matter. We’ve seen the worst air imaginable and know it’s the most visible form of mankind’s pollution. There are days when I think that if sane people can’t get their act together enough to address the sort of unbreathable air China experienced in January, we all should consider calling it quits in the fight against global climate change.

Other days, thankfully, I’m reminded of the month of near perfect blue sky days Beijing achieved in August 2008 to accommodate the Summer Olympics. The city took steps and the pollution all but stopped. Since then, the capital’s only gotten bigger, but if China bites the bullet, its cities can clean up their air, bit by bit over the coming generation. If car-crazy Los Angeles once did it, and Beijing has proven it’s possible, even in China, then Chinese cities everywhere simply have to follow suit.

Nowadays, with social media tools such as weibo and weixin so prevalent in everybody’s life, air pollution is a constant trending topic of discussion. It’s not just when smog hits Beijing that people share all sorts of smoggy pictures and AQI infographics. When, occasionally, Beijing basks in sunny, crisp blue sky days, pollution-wary residents are seen to walk outside and share their joy at the rare sight. Blue skies are making tourists of long-time residents in big Chinese cities. When the skies are clear, the city-dwellers emerge to see their home anew. The question is, when will they demand that the air remain clean, not just appear, as if by luck, once or twice a month.

Whether or not Beijing really can clean its air by 2030 is important in many ways. Such an accomplishment would erase tons of heavy metals—some carcinogenic—from the environment surrounding some 20 million capital residents. Cleaning up the air over China’s capital would make the city attractive again to people arriving from all over the world, and it might stem the flow of expatriates who lately have been leaving in droves to escape the persistent hacking “Beijing cough.”

Cleaning up China’s air would prove that Beijing can be trusted as an indispensable stakeholder in the fight against global climate change. We’ve seen the air over China’s cities as bad as it can get and we’ve heard people talk plenty about it. Now is the time for the government to listen and act, to get serious about cleaning up the filth that there’s no denying exists and no denying is harmful to everyone who breathes it in.

Check the air quality daily at www.ChinaAirDaily.com

Greenpeace China’s air pollution campaign page

The above interactive presentation will also be part of this exhibit, where viewers could actually interact with the page hands-on.

Originally published on August 27, 2012

Produced by Gloria Chan, Jian Yi and Xiao Qiping

Originally published on August 21, 2012.

China draws heavily on groundwater. However, in North China Plain, this limited resource is widely polluted and getting depleted fast.

Through the stories of three farmers in Hebei province, this documentary takes an intimate look into one of the world’s worst environmental crisis that are shaping the lives of millions.

Originally published on Friday May 11, 2012

Shirley Han Ying is a videographer, documentary producer, and video editor based in Hong Kong. With more than 7 years in media, Shirley has produced daily news, special features and documentaries for major news networks, including CNN and The Guardian. Shirley has lived and worked in China, South Korea, Iran and Hong Kong. Her work has also taken her to many countries around the world.

China draws heavily on groundwater. However, in North China Plain, this limited resource is widely polluted and getting depleted fast.

Through the stories of three farmers in Hebei province, this documentary takes an intimate look into one of the world’s worst environmental crisis that are shaping the lives of millions.

Originally published on Friday May 11, 2012

Shirley Han Ying is a videographer, documentary producer, and video editor based in Hong Kong. With more than 7 years in media, Shirley has produced daily news, special features and documentaries for major news networks, including CNN and The Guardian. Shirley has lived and worked in China, South Korea, Iran and Hong Kong. Her work has also taken her to many countries around the world.

Natural forests cover about 10 percent of China’s surface area, but few of the forests remain in a primary or pristine condition. These forests are threatened primarily by timber collection, mining, unregulated harvesting of flora for traditional Chinese medicine and excessive development related to increased tourism.

In China’s southern provinces, the mountainous forests that previously covered much of the region have been reduced by about 92 percent.

It is these forests which are home to last of the Giant Pandas, which number only approximately 1600 in the the wild. Progressive habitat destruction has pushed China’s most famous species to the brink of extinction.

In 2011, the UN’s official “International Year of Forests,” the forests of the southwest of China were classified by Conservation International as one of the world’s top ten most threatened forest regions.

Originally published on Thursday April 12, 2012

This photographic arc moves from deep within the coal mines to the glaciers of the greater Himalaya where greenhouse gasses are warming the high altitude climate.  As these mighty glaciers melt at an accelerated pace, the great rivers of Asia that flow from the Tibetan Plateau into the oceans are disturbed, and the lives of billions of people downstream are disrupted.

Video produced by Leah Thompson

Originally published on Friday February 3, 2012

《冰 + 煤》是一次纪实摄影展,展出包括来自中国、美国、加拿大、马来西亚、俄罗斯、匈牙利、波兰、挪威、意大利、德国和英国的三十位摄影师的作品, 以视觉的形式揭示了人类对煤炭的开采利用所触发的隐秘的连锁反应。

从煤矿深处出发，这些影像的抛物线落脚在喜马拉雅冰川群。温室效应气体正使高海拔的气候变暖，嵬巍磅礴的冰山加速融化，从青藏高原流入大海的亚洲各大河流遭受繁剧纷扰，下游地区数十亿人的生活正面临危机。