So to add a third to the interesting people I've sat next to on flights to Asia (for some reason returning isn't usually as interesting)
#1 - The Baptist Minister from Malaysia:
#2 - The Evangelist from Jerusalem.

#3 - A mid level environmental bureaucrat.

This time I'm sitting next to a mid level advisor for the US EPA. He specializes in international affairs, and is traveling to an air pollution standards conference in Beijing.

Stunning...
First - Yes, the Environmental Protection Agency, a US government organization, has any traction at all in China. Someone's listening.
Second - Yes, the Chinese care about air pollution. At the government level, and probably even at an individual level. Plus they're really doing somthing about it.

After talking to him for a while, it was fasinating. Looking out over Beijing with it's dust storms, limited visibility, and the man sitting next to me showed me that simply flying in, the closer we got to China the thicker the smoke and haze became.

I've been to the big cities in Asia, Shanghai, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Seoul, and seen the traffic and pollution there. And China just might be the worst, 7 of the most polluted cities in the world are in China. Yet, there's hope for China. I'm not about to give up on it. Even the people I know in Beijing say that despite the increased traffic and the increased sprawl, the air is better here now than five years ago.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that China, a centralized government does have a multiple layers of bureaucratic ministries all interested in the environment, with varying levels of power, and varying enforcement abilities.

Yet talking to the man, I realized there was a calm reasonable demeanor to what he was saying. It was encouraging, concerned but not alarmed. Air quality is no longer simply a national issue, it's an international issue. Polluton crosses borders, oceans, and affecting the entire planet.

And lastly one of the things he pointed out is that global warming and pollution, although related, they're not quite the same.

It's not hopeless...