I am a teacher activist.  i do what i can by raising awareness in the classroom in China.  I try to conserve water and electricty.  I admonish littter bugs and try to set an example by picking up trash--but in China I feel overwhelmed and scared of the future.  Unfortunatley, trying to make even small differences in China is like hitting your head against the wall over and over again.  i often feel I make no difference at all.  I've had meaningful environemtal/conservation talks with students only to witness them litter right in front of me immediatley after the talk with snarky grins.  pollution to them is normal and perfectly acceptable in large part all over China.  And protestinng is a crime.  Ive witnessed protesters beaten severely--babies pepper-sprayed--the beaten arrested and no doubt vanished never to be seen again.  Students are extrememly apathetic, oblivious, and self-defeating about everything.  these are people cowed.  They threw in the towel  a long time ago.  Actually, they don't even know they live in a miasma of pollution really because they've never been abroad and had the chance to see what a cleaner world is like--like night and day.  i used to think of LA as America's toxic disneyland--having come from upstate NY I really didn't know what pollution was--the concept of filth is not the same thing as living in it.  When I came to China my body litteraly rejected the toxic environment.  I lived with fatigue, severe headaches and nausea for 5 years gagging on the very air I breathed.  I couldnt see the ramshackle buildings though the yellow sludge they called air.  I moved north by the sea to one of the cleanest places in CHina, though the rising car pollution is worst than anything I ever expereinced in America.  The streets choke with exhaust.  fortunantly we have the ocean breeze to sweep it away.

Sadly, I feel saving the planet is to late because there isn't enough time to chage the social paradigm in China.  America, maybe, I still have hope, but its a longshot with so many red state tea party thinking.  when I go home, its hard for me to find anyone who thinks progressively--actuially, I don't know one soul!  Only on the radio.  And only independent radio.   I am sad to say that we as a species will only unite to do someting about it after the great tragedy of tipping point befalls us and survival is in our face.  then the rich will have the advantage of hoarding and energy reserves--they will attempt to crush the 99 with brute force.  it is going to be ugly.  i have allready seen them building luxury bunker estates with high-voltage fencing and sophisticated communication towers to shelter the rich here in china (grabbing land from the peasentry to do it), directly across the street from the university I taught at.    When the one percent in America start putting boots on the ground to take what they want it will not be televised.

I know that many people are actively trying to make a difference, but I dont know if it will be enough.  Too many people are stoned on Fox.

Josh