Smil, Vaclav S. 1997. Smil, Vaclav S. 1997.
China shoulders the cost of environmental change.
Although ecologists in the 1990s have a much deeper understanding of the implications of environmental degradation, there is no standard way to evaluate its economic costs quantitatively. However, modern studies still attempt to address this problem and somehow place a value on natural resources. Vaclav Smil compares the results of a Chinese study with an evaluation of his own in order to accomplish this. Both of these analyses allowed for improved perspective in the assessment of China's ecological standing. Traffic emissions and a dependence on coal have caused great losses in suburban vegetable farms and a general decline in the health of human and animal populations.