There was an incredible article in the NYT on 2/28/11: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/world/asia/01beijing.html?_r=1&ref=science
The article said, “China’s environment minister on Monday issued an unusually stark warning about the effects of unbridled development on the country’s air, water and soil, saying the nation’s current path could stifle long-term economic growth and feed social instability…’ Ignoring such risks’, Mr. Zhou said, ‘would be perilous’… ‘In China’s thousands of years of civilization, the conflict between humankind and nature has never been as serious as it is today,” he wrote. “The depletion, deterioration and exhaustion of resources and the worsening ecological environment have become bottlenecks and grave impediments to the nation’s economic and social development.’ ”
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said, “We must not any longer sacrifice the environment for the sake of rapid growth and reckless roll-outs, as that would result in unsustainable growth featuring industrial overcapacity and intensive resource consumption.”
This is a statement that could have come right out of the book Limits to Growth. That is, note the emphasis on the role of rapid growth and industrial overcapacity.
