China Dialogue, the bilingual website that aims to encourage discussion about the environment in China and abroad, has a new project called Cooler Living. It's an internet forum specifically aimed at younger readers. As with all the other content on China Dialogue, everything including reader comments is published in its original language together with a translation into either English or Chinese.

Also on China Dialogue right now is an interview by Isabel Hilton with Jonathon Porritt: Sustainable development’s “taboo territory”. The article examines the question — Can poor nations be expected to do change their consumption and development patterns? Excerpt:

Right now, the only thing you can say is: “consume much more intelligently,” because this is an appeal to the idea that China ought to be able to build a new paradigm of consumption, which doesn’t go through the massively wasteful, destructive and inefficient processes that we have been through in all western economies.