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In the lite ra tu re were found to be "polluted" or "seri China's New Urban Cohort ously polluted." And who can forget the 16,000 dead pugs found in tribu A Journey U p and Down the Kuznets Curve taries of Shanghai's river, the Hangpu, the source of its tapwater? By G. Tracy Mehan III Pollution is widespread throughout China's farmland. Forty-four percent of Ghina, like the former Soviet Union, is plagued by envi ronmental challenges experi ment, and the quality of life notwith standing growing affluence for what these authors call the "new' urban co rice samples contained poisonous levels of cadmium in Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong Province. Accord ing to Kahn and Zheng, "It is estimated enced only by a country or society hort." Upon these people Kahn and that the country loses US$3 billion pier where the government technically Zheng will depend for a happy ending year to soil pollution, and that between and practically owns everything, fails to their story, as will be seen below'. 40 percent and 70 percent of Chinas to respect rights of private property, O f course the book's title must be soil is already contaminated with heavy subsidizes industrial production, taken as aspirationai rather than de metals and toxic fertilizers.'' obliterates the distinction between scriptive. In January 2013 particu But Kahn and Zheng are optimists regulated and regulator, and sup late matter concentration in Beijing as well as realists and bring economists' presses free and open elections and "reached levels of two, three, and even eyes and sensibilities to the quest for anything like a consistent rule of law, four times the public health emer environmental progress in China. while harboring a brutalist view of gency threshold of 250 micrograins Fundamentally' they are trying to natural resources and the environ per cubic meter -- and up to 40 times provide empirical, granular evidence ment. In such places government what the World Health Organiza- for the application of an economic failure rivals market failure as the tion considers a healthy level, ' report theory heralding positive environmen- cause of many, if not most, tal change by' and for 1.357 environmental problems. billion Chinese. However, since its move Blue Skies Over Beijing: Many' economists, seeing toward economic, not po Economic Growth and the the environmental degrada litical, liberalization of the Environment In China. By tion and ultimate renewal economy in the 1980s, Matthew E. Kahn and Siqi of Western Europe, North China has succeeded at least Zheng. Princeton University .America, japan, and other in producing wealth for its Press; 271 pages; $32.95. countries, detect a link be population. As described tween economic growth and in Matthew E, Kahn and a demand for or a willingness Siqi Zheng's impressive new to pay for environmental im book Blue Skies over Beijing: provements, over the medi Economic Growth and the um or long term, at least for Environment in China, over some parameters. The policy' the last 30 years, the nations ______ scholar Steven E Hayward economy grew' "at an amaz offered a succinct descrip ing rate of 10 percent per year, and Kahn and Zheng. Also, 12 of the 20 tion of the theory in a provocative essay' the share of people living below' the most polluted cities in the world are entitled "The China Syndrome and the poverty line fell from 84 percent to 13 in China, Environmental Kuznets Curve." percent, China is also the world's largest According to Hayward, the Kuznets ``There are still hundreds of millions emitter of greenhouse gases, with per Curve "holds that the relationship be of poor households in rural China, but capita G H G emissions growing by' tween economic growth and environ- hundreds of millions have also escaped 186 percent between 1990 and 2010 mental quality'is an inverted U -shape, poverty'," write Kahn and Zheng, versus the worlds 16 percent. This rep according to which environmental "Over the last 30 years, the average life resents 25 percent of the worldwide conditions deteriorate during early expectancy' at birth has increased from carbon dioxide pollution from fossil stages of economic growth hut begin 66 to 73 y'ears." fuels. to improve after a certain threshold Even with a draconian one-child 57 percent of the groundwater in of wealth is achieved. Hie original policy, China's cities continue to grow' 198 cities was officially' rated as "had" Kuznets Curve was named for Nobel massively and generate horrendous or "extremely'bad" in 2012 while more laureate Simon Kuznets, who postulat threats to human health, the environ chan 30 percent of Chinas major rivers ed in the 1950s that income inequality' 8 !T H E ENVI RONMENTAL FORUM Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 5 ED 002061 00108020-00001 In the lite ra tu re first increases and then declines with in coastal areas, continuing to "dein economic growth. In 1991 econo dustrialize as improvements in trans mists Gene M. Grossman and Alan B. portation networks, high land prices, Krueger suggested the Kuznets Curve high wages, and increasing environ applied to the environment." mental regulation encourage dirty fac Kahn and Zheng build on this tories to relocate to secondary cities. hypothesis (they cite Grossman and This industrial migration could cause Krueger in their notes) that suggests, increased pollution levels in the cities again, an inverse-U association exists where heavy manufacturing grows, between per capita income and pollu but this pessimistic view implicitly as tion: "Intuitively, this hypothesis posits sumes that the new factories opening that as poor cities grow wealthier, such up will be just as dirty as the old facto economic growth causes environmental ries that are closing." degradation, but that as middle-income cities grow wealthier, such economic growth contributes to environmental improvements." They look carefully at the relationship between particulate Assuming the Kuznets Curve is a valid concept, how does . a country or society translate matter air pollution and per capita in economic growth into environmental come. estimating that Chinese cities improvements without democratic whose per capita gross domestic prod elections and the rule of law, as has uct is greater than $13,000 are past the been the case in most of the countries turning point, so that economic growth tripping along the curve over the last is positively associated with improve forty years? In some of the more in ments to the environment. teresting parts of the book, Kahn and "Our city-level results suggest that Zheng describe the role of social me 33 out of 85 cities in China (where 140 dia, microblogs, blogs, documentary million people live) are films posted on line already experiencing a lowering" of particu late matter. As incomes Will the urban elites provide the needed and, from time to time, riots and civil insurrection. They' rise the authors expect pressure to reduce present case after case, that the number of ur banites enjoying better killing air pollution? along with the obser vation that the central air quality will increase Chinese government to 368 million after 2020. This is signif seems to be tolerating more environ icant because of the estimated 300,000 mental activism as a means of pressur to 500,000 premature deaths in China ing local governments, mayors, and caused by particulate matter each year even state-owned enterprises to clean in 2003-13. up their act. Regarding the Kuznets Curve, Without using; the term, the au- "This is not esoteric academic debate," thors seem to argue that the current write Kahn and Zheng. The hypoth regime in China is as much concerned esis assumes that economic growth is with its legitimacy as is any govern both a foe and a friend to the environ ment. And no longer do they have an ment in that order. "The evidence we absolute monopoly on information as have reported in this book suggests it relates to environmental spills, acci that young Chinese peoples concep dents, dead pigs, and clean air. lhe air tion of the good life' is very similar to monitoring station at the U.S, embas that of their U.S. and western Euro sy in Beijing makes several star turns pean peers. Rising educational attain throughout the book. Evidently, the ment and per capita income in China daily smog alerts are fed into the ether will stimulate an increased demand for and picked up by cell phones, web- a cleaner urban environment. ' sites, and conversationalists through They foresee major cities, especially out the city almost instantaneously. There is also the question as to whether or not the Kuznets magic works for other environmental mat ters such as water quality, Panda habi tat, massive dam building, fisheries, biodiversity, forestry, solid waste, and greenhouse gases (Hayward noted progress in some of these areas of re source management.). Nevertheless, the hypothesis seems to be plausible directionally. Nothing is predestined in govern mental policy, and the authors outline seven different kinds of evidence that, over time, might contradict their "core claim that many major cities will ex perience environmental improvement in the medium term," such as the Chi nese central governments returning to a monomaniacal focus on local GDP growth or the Communist Party's in sisting on low energy prices or sup pressing media coverage of environ mental matters. It is disturbing to note that when citing their marry interviews with Chinese citizens or local elected officials, the authors only' use aliases or pseudonyms. Matthew' Kahn and Siqi Zheng provide a wealth of data, informa tion, and analysis of the many' aspects of the Chinese urban environment. They also provide a menu of marketbased approaches which might help the Chinese on their journey' up and down the Kuznets Curve. They offer a rich, nuanced, and sophisticated view' of the current state of envi ronmental play in China and a rea sonable case for cautious optimism. American readers may recall our own history of environmental degrada tion when assessing the chances of success in China. See, for instance, Chapter 9 of Upton Sinclairs The Jungle on the horrible state of Bub bly' Creek, a tributary' of the Chicago River circa 1906. G. Tracy Mehan III is executive director for government affairs at the American Water Works Association and an adjunct professor at the Antonin Scalia School of Law, George Mason University. He may be contacted at tmehan@awwa.org. Sierra Club v. 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