Life in a Toxic Country
By EDWARD WONG
New York Times
Published: August 3, 2013
China is the world’s second largest economy, but the enormous costs of its growth are becoming apparent. Residents of its boom cities and a growing number of rural regions question the safety of the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat. It is as if they were living in the Chinese equivalent of the Chernobyl or Fukushima nuclear disaster areas.
Before this assignment, I spent three and a half years reporting in Iraq, where foreign correspondents talked endlessly of the variety of ways in which one could die — car bombs, firefights, being abducted and then beheaded. I survived those threats, only now to find myself wondering: Is China doing irreparable harm to me and my family?
To read more, go to
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/sunday-review/life-in-a-toxic-country.html?ref=edwardwong&_r=0
