Archives

Sinica podcast: China's environmental collapse

Last week I had the pleasure of co-hosting Sinica with Kaiser as we discussed China’s environment with Guardian journalist and author Jonathan Watts and Alex Wang, director of the China Environmental Law project at the Natural Resources Defense Council. That means that, as usual, Kaiser produced the podcast and did all the hard work, and [...]

The mysterious undead tiger conspiracy of the Wanda Mountains

As an observer of PR, one of the things I like about China is that the threshold for launching a cover-up is rock bottom. Sure, they can go big, as with the Songhua river benzene spill or the great melamine scandals of ‘08, but they’ve also kind of democratized the coverup. Imagethief believes that no [...]

Is Wal-Mart's eco-consciousness in China more than PR?

Sunday is shopping day in the Imagethief household, so this morning Mrs. Imagethief, Zachary and I bundled ourselves up and headed out to Wal-Mart.

Before you gasp in a fit of effete surprise, let me explain. As a card-carrying Bay Area intellectual snob, my pedigree is more Whole Foods than Wal-Mart, even if Whole Foods is [...]