As we drove toward Taiyuan and Datong, two of the most polluted cities in the world (China has 16 of the top 20 contenders for this dubious honor, and 4 of the top 10 are in Shanxi Province), we crossed bridges over rivers-or perhaps it would be more accurate to say riverbeds because, with rare exception, they were all bone-dry. North China admittedly has been experiencing a severe drought these past few years, but the destruction of China's rivers is not caused by drought alone. Uncontrolled construction of dams and overuse of riparian water have dried up hundreds of North China rivers, or left them as little more than sewers flowing with industrial effluent and human waste. In fact, even the mighty Yellow River that once repeatedly flooded millions of acres as it flowed down from its high-altitude watershed on the Tibetan Plateau until it crossed the flat North China Plain, where it became known as "China's Sorrow," has ceased to flow at its lower reaches. Now, because of diminished glaciers, extensive damming, and overuse of its flow for irrigation and industry, the river commonly ceases to flow in the summer and fall altogether, long before it should debouch into the Yellow Sea. That this once legendary river system should now have dwindled to a seasonal trickle is both a new kind of sorrow for China and a cautionary casualty of how this country's dynamic rate of economic growth has led to rampant exploitation and destruction of its already strained natural-resource base.

If one travels from city to city by plane, it is easy to assume that one has perhaps just arrived on a bad day-that the polluted air and even the dried-up rivers and despoiled land are something of an exception to the rule. But when one drives hundreds of miles from city to city, it becomes inescapably clear that China is on the precipice of an environmental implosion the likes of which our world has yet to experience. The simple truth is this: The enormous cost that China is paying for its impressive development is not reflected in its 9-10 percent average annual growth rate. It is, however, abundantly evident for anyone who cares to notice the country's polluted air (sulfur dioxide emissions are estimated to cause some 400,000 premature deaths each year); contaminated rivers and lakes (75 percent of river water flowing through urban areas is unsuitable for municipal water systems or even fishing); ravaged forests (wooden chopsticks alone devour some 70.6 million cubic feet of timber annually); overgrazed grassland (90 percent of which are facing desertification and degradation); and polluted coastal habitat (grossly polluted by those toxic rivers that do make it to the sea). "The conflict between environment and development is becoming ever more prominent," a report from the State Council (China's Cabinet) recently warned. "The relative shortage of resources, fragile ecology, and insufficient environmental capacity are becoming critical problems hindering China's development."

Nowhere is this contradiction more evident than in Shanxi Province, the heart of China's coal-fired industrial revolution.

As Zhu Guangyao, Deputy Chief of the State Environmental Protection Administration, recently put it, China's environmental situation is worsening and "allows for no optimism."

Orville Schell is the dean of Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and the author of 14 books, 9 of which relate to China.

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