There can never be an exact picture. His second piece of advice is never to use general terms to describe a country as big and complex as China.
Situations are different from place to place.
That is especially true, he said, about the country's environment. A visiting scholar in Earth and Environmental Studies, Yu is teaching an undergraduate class, China, Society and the Environment, and a graduate course, Environmental Magnetism, a field in which he is considered a pioneer in China. Yu's visit here is the result of an agreement between Montclair State and East China Normal University signed last year while President Susan A. Cole and a delegation of faculty, administrators and students spent two weeks in China strengthening ties with the country. Collaborative agreements with Shanghai Teachers University and Nanjing University also were established. A specialist on environmental change, Yu spoke at a recent Tea and Talk sponsored by the Global Education Center about how China's government and people are responding to the country's environmental challenges.