China's Past, China's Future

by Vaclav Smil

China has a population of 1.3 billion people which puts strain on her natural resources. This volume, by one of the leading scholars on the earth's biosphere, is the result of a lifetime of study, and provides the fullest account yet of the environmental challenges that China faces. The author examines China's energy resources, their uses, impacts and prospects, from the 1970s oil crisis to the present day, before analysing the key question of how China can best produce enough food to feed its enormous population.

Genres: China, Economics

248 pages, Paperback

First published June 11, 2003

About the author

Vaclav Smil is a Czech-Canadian scientist and policy analyst whose work spans energy, environment, food, population, economics, history, and public policy. Educated at Charles University in Prague and later at Pennsylvania State University, where he earned his Ph.D. in geography, Smil emigrated from Czechoslovakia to the United States in 1969 following the Soviet invasion, before beginning his long academic career at the University of Manitoba in 1972. Over the decades he established himself as a leading voice on global energy systems, environmental change, and economic development, with particular attention to China. Smil has consistently argued that transitions to renewable energy will be gradual rather than rapid, emphasizing the persistence of coal, oil, and natural gas and highlighting the difficulties of decarbonizing critical industries such as steel, cement, ammonia, and plastics. He has also been skeptical of indefinite economic growth, suggesting that human consumption could be sustained at much lower levels of material and energy use. Widely admired for his clear, data-driven analyses, Smil counts Bill Gates among his readers, while colleagues have praised his rigor and independence. Known for his reclusiveness and preference for letting his books speak for him, he has nonetheless lectured extensively worldwide and consulted for major institutions. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the Order of Canada, Smil remains a highly influential public intellectual.

Reviews

[东北风 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr Smil's books are characteristically heavy with numbers and tedious paragraphs but never ever EVER ceases to illuminate insights that casual observers cannot practically obtain. This book was surprisingly engaging, perhaps because the subject is my motherland so I gave it full stars instead of my usual 3. Highly recommended and relevant even if it is not up to date with recent numbers.

[Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a well-researched and well-written piece on China's environmental history and with some interesting analysis for what the future may hold. Smil's writing is colourful and opinionated - there are often witty jabs interlaced through the writing. If you are one for details, this book is not short of them - Smil is a true polymath with deep dives into various subject areas, all well-supported with data and other studies.

My only reservation about recommending it (hence the rating of 3 stars) is that, firstly, the book is quite dense and difficult to read - it is quite a slog and the detail at times can be too much. However, secondly and more importantly, (through no fault of Smil) is that the book published in 2004 is quite outdated now especially for a country who's pace of change has been as great as China's. So while its historical analysis holds up, the conclusions and forward looking analysis less so - although Smil acknowledged as much in his final chapter. One example is that of the 3 mega-projects that Smil exhorted China to undertake (namely subways, high-speed rail, and improved water management), China has gone a fair way to implementing subways in all major cities and has probably built the world's best high-speed rail system. As the World Bank points out: "Over the past decade, China has built 25,000 km of dedicated high-speed railway—more than the rest of the world combined." [1]

So more than anything I would want to read a new account by Smil taking into account all these new developments. If he ever gets around to doing so, it will be top of my to-read list.

[1] http://documents.worldbank.org/curate...