China: Does Cleaner Air Mean More Global Warming? | Newsweek Coverage of the Olympic Games

Right Brain
Melinda Liu 9/8/2009 12:00:00 AM
In the beginning there were firebrand revolutionaries like Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Then came the engineers. China's post-Mao leadership has been dominated by engineers of varying stripes. Party chief (and President) Hu Jintao trained in hydraulic engineering, and Premier Wen Jiabao studied geomechanics, for example. Apparatchiks like them account for eight of the nine members of the Communist Party's all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, a trend replicated throughout the lower ranks, too. But times are changing. An analysis of younger rising stars in the party's leadership firmament reveals that cadres trained in the "soft sciences"—especially law—are quickly catching up as leaders realize they need a broad range of skills to govern. Is it the kind of change that could finally render the kinder, gentler face the government has been seeking for so many years?
PLANET EARTH
Is Healthy Air Bad?
Jamie Reno 8/23/2008 12:00:00 AM
Dissidents aren't the only ones being forced off Beijing's streets during the Olympics. The Chinese government has also pushed drivers off the roads—about 3.5 million of them—and shuttered hundreds of factories, steel mills and coal plants in an effort to reduce the city's notorious smog. But while better air in Beijing may be good news for athletes, it could for worse for the earth's environment. "When you clean up very polluted air, as China is doing during these Olympics, it has a direct impact on global warming," says Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a leading climate researcher from the University of California, San Diego, who is studying Beijing's atmosphere for the Games' duration.
SPECIAL REPORT: THE EDUCATION RACE
The West Need Not Panic
8/9/2008 12:00:00 AM
Rapid growth in Asia and the Middle East has led many to conclude that U.S. economic hegemony is ending. Now one might ask if the same is happening to U.S. academic hegemony, as these regions make impressive investments in higher education.
Mail Call: An Article of Faith?

Readers of our Aug. 13 report on global warming were evenly split. One said, "It's a masterpiece—to be read by all presidential wanna-bes and voters." Another wrote, "Global warming has become a religion." A third claimed, "The U.S. energy lobby is accountable for the damage done."
Beyond Stones & Bones
Sharon Begley
The Coal Trap