Leaving...on a jet plane!

Tuesday March 2/Wednesday March 3

Our focus on this trip to China is on sustainability, international business and environmental issues.  Our trip will entail flying north from Newark, NJ across the north ice cap.  The plane is a generator of carbon emissions that can cause the earth to warm quicker and more severely than it would under normal cycles.  I had an opportunity to look down at the ice cap and frozen tundra of Russia.  These areas are becoming affected sooner and to a greater degree than other areas.  The polar ice is breaking up earlier in the year giving polar bears less time to hunt to recover from hibernation.  The permafrost in the Siberian tundra is melting, releasing trapped methane further exacerbating the presence of greenhouse gasses.

We landed in Beijing (Peking on older maps).  Beijing is one of the largest cities in the world based upon physical area.  Our guide told us that the city covers approximately 16,000 square kilometers.  Much of the land was farmland at one time.  The farmers must go out further and further to grow produce.  The city often has a “floating” population (those living, working, or looking for work there) of almost 20 million (12 million of those are registered as living in the city).  Our guide explained to us that China is the largest user of cellphones in the world with approximately 840 million cellphone users.

Much of the management of Beijing has focused more on housing, spurring development and controlling traffic.  Now people in Beijing wishing to drive a car (previously unlicensed) must go through a lottery process as the government has limited new licensed vehicles to 20,000 per month. The number of automobiles has exploded.  Up until 1998 they only had approximately 1 million autos.

China will face many environmental issues in the near future.  The explosive growth of car use and cellphone use will create disposal and pollution problems.  Feeding the population and growing food in the right areas is another issue.  The government has adapted in that rice is not allowed to be grown around Beijing because it is too water intensive for the region, given limited precipitation.

Arrive in Beijing, city tour, sightseeing,