Beijing's Pollution Problem Is Everyone's Problem  Written by
George Ding  Beijing's Pangu Plaza last week  It’s surprisingly
easy to turn a blind eye to environmental degradation in China.
The country is the biggest polluter in the world (but only 78th
per capita), but that fact becomes a useless abstraction, lost
in the narrative of China’s dawning worldwide economic
domination. Like with other global crises, self-delusion helps
to get you through the day.  Even as gross examples exhort us to
take note, wiggling our way out of considering the obvious isn’t
that hard. One thousand nine hundred seventy-three people died
in Chinese coal mines in 2011, but it’s easy for me to leave my
lights on because I’ve never met any of them. Rivers turn all
sorts of crazy colors from pollution and algae growth, but as
long as I don’t live near any of them, why should I care? Coal-
burning furnaces and polluted groundwater are creating entire
cancer villages but… OK, this one is a little tough to
rationalize, but let’s go w