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Comment by Rusty Gunn. on October 25, 2009 at 4:52pm

When I travelled up the Yangtze River I was appalled at the amount of silt that was flowing downstream. During the Great Leap Forward the mountains around the headwaters of the Yangtze were stripped of their trees to provide fuel for the backyard steel furnaces. Pollution could very well the the Achilles heal for the future development of China.

Comment by Sentient Biped on October 25, 2009 at 8:28am

The photos were very moving and revealing. There have been times, probably even now, that we can find similar photos in situations in the US. One of the photos, a woman with deformed hands, looked like the effects of rheumatoid arthritis. You will find that in the US as well.

For the visiter in China, you won't see any of this. What you will see is traffic traffic traffic traffic traffic. Lots of construction. I read an article (I forget what magazine - Newsweek? Time? The Economist? Showing that China is potentially the world's biggest investor in green energy. Of course, that won't change the lives in these photos, but it will have impact globally and in China itself.

I think that the biggest issue in the world is overpopulation. China is a case of that, although there has been enough time of the "one child" law that it isn't as bad as it could be. Try other countries, and other continents, too, for examples of unrestrained reproduction, lack of environmental protections, and pollution.

Not disagreeing with anything in the article, but adding some context. Overpopulation, pollution, global warming - all humanitarian issues, and China is an example, but probably not the worst.

It's all very depressing, nonetheless.