Evan Osnos is the Beijing bureau chief of the Chicago Tribune. He recently won the Asia Society's Osborn Elliott Prize for distibguished journalism for a series of articles about China's Great Grab, subtitled 'how China's exploding appetite for natural resources is reshaping the world.

Below is a segment from the Colbert Report in which Stephen Colbert interviews Osnos about how America consumer demand for cheap cashmere is causing an explosion in goat populations in northwestern China, which in turn has caused soil erosion and huge clouds of dust which get blown across the Pacific.

Below is another interview with Osnos by someone from the Asia Society. Osnos talks about the state of foreign correspondence and explains some of the background behind his series of articles.

The China's Great Grab stories are:

• Your cheap sweater's real cost
• The hidden cost of your hardwood floor
• The coming fight for oil

UPDATE: It seems that the effects of American consumer demand on China's environment is becoming a more popular topic amongst U.S. newspapers. The Wall Street Journal has just published an an article by Jane Spencer titled China Pays Steep Price As Textile Exports Boom which is about accusations that suppliers to U.S. Stores are dumping dyes in china's rivers to slash their costs. This problem has also been noted by Tim Johnson, Beijing bureau chief for Beijing bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers, on his blog.