GEOGRAPHY IN THE NEWS:

This article from earlier this year helps explain why China is holding to its commitments to combat sea level rise. The article includes an interesting feature that maps development in the Pearl River Delta from 1988 to the present. "Guangzhou, formerly Canton, had more than a million people [a generation ago], but by the 1980s, China set out to transform the whole region, capitalizing on its proximity to water, the energy of its people, and the money and port infrastructure of neighboring Hong Kong. Rushing to catch up after decades of stagnation, China built a gargantuan collection of cities the size of nations with barely a pause to consider their toll on the environment, much less the future impact of global warming. Today, the region is a goliath of industry with a population exceeding 42 million. But while prosperity reshaped the social and cultural geography of the delta, it didn’t fundamentally alter the topography. Here, as elsewhere, breakneck development comes up against the growing threat of climate change. Economically, Guangzhou now has more to lose from climate change than any other city on the planet, according to a World Bank report. Nearby Shenzhen, another booming metropolis, ranked 10th on that World Bank list, which measured risk as a percentage of gross domestic product."   www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/07/world/asia/climate-change-china.html