1. China has the world s largest population (roughly 20% of world s total population) and is rapidly industrializing.

Although its population growth has been limited through government mandate, China s already immense environmental (and economic) impact on the rest of the world will increase dramatically in coming years. Describe China s ability and tendency to lurch- moving forward and consider how this ability might affect its technological, economic, and environmental development. Due to China s large population, China s problems cannot be limited as domestic problems economically, environmentally, and technologically. The issues are more likely to spill over to the rest of the world, which is increasingly affected through sharing the same planet, oceans, and atmosphere with China and which in turn affects China's environment through globalization. I still remember the grey sky in Beijing whenever I visited the city, and it was always grey and smoggy due to serious air pollution. "Big and fast-growing China is the world's largest producer and consumer of coal, accounting for one-quarter of the world's total. China has become one of the biggest economic giant. China's recent entry into the World Trade Organization will be most likely to expand those exchanges with other countries and increase its influence. Although as author says Chinese has less connection through trade and travel with people elsewhere, China's large territory and population would certainly affect on other peoples merely because China's connections to the rest of the world through trade, investment, and foreign aid have been accelerating in the last two decades. The development of export trade has been a driving force behind increased pollution in China, because the highly polluting and inefficient little rural industries that produce half of China's exports in effect ship their finished products abroad but leave behind their pollutants in China. While foreign companies have helped China's environment by transferring advanced technology to China, others have hurt it by transferring pollutionintensive industries, including technologies now illegal in the country of origin. Some of these technologies are then in turn transferred from China to still less developed countries, which resulted in causing serious environmental pollution. By joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), I hope it would result in lowering or abolishing tariffs and increasing exports and imports of various commodities. When I worked with Chinese Professional Football League, what I and Japanese colleagues used to say There is nothing possible or impossible in China . Many problems seem hard to be solved and often once Chinese government decides to execute, Chinese people always brought unexpected solutions out of the blue. Likewise, the environment development will be certainly improved only if Chinese government first understand the importance and decides to focus more on sustainability policies.

There is a famous Korean saying Giving both disease and cure ; which means Providing both problems and solutions . In a nut shell, while Chinese "lurching" influence will persist, as China continues to grow and lurch on major policies affecting its environment and its population, China's leaders will also contribute to find solutions that European and American leaders are not likely to make it by mandating a one-child policy to reduce population growth, by ending logging nationally in 1998, and creating solar energy by their own technology which may solve the future environmental problem. 2. Diamond suggests four reasons societies make disastrous decisions. Which of these (if any) might our global society have been guilty of over the last 50 years? Can you provide any examples? Any recent progress? Coming challenges? I think the most relevant reason would be the failure to perceive a problem after it has arrived is distant managers, a potential issue in any large society or business. Perhaps the commonest circumstance under which societies fail to perceive a problem is when it takes the form of a slow trend concealed by wide up-and-down fluctuations. The good instance in modern times is global warming. We now realize that temperatures around the world have been gradually rising in recent decades, due in large part to atmospheric changes caused by humans. Just like the widespread anecdote boiling frog story, people do not tend to realize such a gradual environmental change until it becomes significant. "creeping normalcy" to refer to such slow trends concealed within noisy fluctuations. If the economy, schools, traffic congestion, or anything else is deteriorating only slowly, it's difficult to recognize that each successive year is on the average slightly worse than the year before, so one's baseline standard for what constitutes "normalcy" shifts gradually and imperceptibly. It may take a few decades of a long period of such slight annual changes before people realize, that conditions used to be much better several decades ago, and that what is accepted as normalcy has crept downwards. Another term related to creeping normalcy would be "landscape amnesia": forgetting how different the surrounding landscape looked 50 years ago, because the change from year to year has been so gradual. The author shows an example about the melting of Montana's glaciers and snowfields caused by global warming. While he could sense the extreme change when he visited Montana, Montana resident friends hardly sensed the change, which is gradual global warming. Creeping normalcy or landscape amnesia made it harder for residents than for nonresident to recall what conditions had been like 50 years ago. Such experiences are a major reason why people may fail to notice a developing problem, until it is too late.

3. To what extent is the relationship between the Dominican Republic and Haiti comparable to that of the U.S. and Mexico? What responsibilities, if any, do the countries have to each other? To large extent, the relationship between two countries is alike. One is more dominant that the other in many ways mainly based on its economic, decision making, and political power. In addition to this, two countries both have significant illegal immigration issues; from Haiti to Dominican Republic and from the Mexico to the US. This immigration trend has caused numerous societal problems. Those migrants from Haitian and Mexican mainly do things that Dominican and American are not willing to take and suffer from lower income and unfriendly working conditions considering that they better off than their salary in their own countries. Dominican and American might be hostile toward Haitian and Mexican who have their own culture, language, and sub-culture. All in all, one has more economic power than another, which results in making a big impact on environment, economy and politics between two. While these gaps can be found in both relationships, there is recognizable difference between two relationships; Dominican and Haiti are on the same island having similar environment and history before the split. Unlikely, The US and Mexico cannot be described in this regards. Although immigration has been more and more popular nowadays, it is hard to deny that one has more dominant powers than another. In particular, when two countries are connected to each other geographically, it is more likely to result in illegal immigration and which cause numerous inequalities.

4. What generalized lessons/insights can be extracted from Diamond s observations regarding how differing conditions (histories, cultures, operating characteristics, economics, etc.) across industries affect their environmental performance? Usually, the environment issues tend to be considered more seriously by international companies or major company. Those companies are willing to take proactively outstanding roles with these issues. Why? It is mainly because they simply understand that it is more sustainable solution by both saving cost and protecting environment in a longer term. International companies such as Coca-cola and Nike also take advantage of this sustainable strategy to be more competitive as well as to build more eco-friendly than domestic companies. When I worked for Korean Professional Football League, I worked with global companies such as Coca-cola and Nike and I noticed that they put additional efforts to build sustainable society by promoting aggressively internationally. Simply they cannot sell products without sustainable markets and customers. However, if those companies with fewer histories would not be able to be proactive to join this clean-up as they might focus more on short-term profit rather than going further in the future. Thus, they have no need to spend their budget that could be avoided.

In addition to this, from the economic perspectives, companies do not tend to cost more than it benefits regardless of the environmental problem. These companies share similar figures which are lower profit margins; higher cleanup costs, having more serious pollution problems. Those that have a traditional culture would be less likely to clean up than those hold a long-term view on building sustainable society. Those companies are usually ignorant of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and focus more on their own short-term benefits. The government and citizens will significantly affect how the companies behave regarding the environment issues. A strong willpower from the customers to make the environment more sustainable is likely to bring the governments support. In this regards, people can force companies to take their social responsibility. 5. Diamond describes two industries (seafood, lumber) that have proactively initiated steps to operate more sustainably. What are some strengths /limitations of this approach? In what other ways might business be proactive to reduce the need for regulatory intervention? As the books describes, some actions that include removing the selected valuable species, logging at a sustainable rate, cutting small rather than large patches, replanting trees and removing the trees by helicopter in the logging industry. These proactive actions have the advantages that individual companies are able to implement in more efficient way while not ruining their properties. In addition to this, that formation of the international nonprofit organizations, FSC and MSC, provide the standard certification that ensures the productions are done by eco-friendly procedures. This universal certification gives companies guidelines to follow and maintain the value of the productions. Things to consider are those solutions may include some limits. Those who were against the FSC and MSC may issue their own certification organizations, which might not be well qualified. Most likely the multiple standards would confuse the customers, thus cause ruin the value of the original standard. Not only that, it takes a long time for companies to pass the all progresses, so this timing consuming issue for attaining and maintaining the certification would be another factor of obstacle. Running companies own recycle center for the production wastes and utilizing environmental-friendly materials for their buildings would be alternative ways.