Prof. Zhou (in red) with HNC students

It’s always great to get out of the classroom, to visit real-world facilities…. & so I was especially pleased when Professor Zhou Yuanchun invited me (and other ERE professors) to join her on a visit to a wastewater treatment (WWT) plant in Changzhou. Professor Zhou, whose research at Nanjing University specializes in water quality issues, teaches one of our key ERE courses at HNC entitled ‘Global Environmental Fundamentals.’ We’ve coordinated our teaching, however, so that her course focuses primarily on “green” and “blue” environmental concerns (i.e., agriculture, food security, forestry & water), while my complementary course addresses “brown” ones (i.e., energy, pollution, urbanization and infrastructure, etc.). [My other HNC course this Spring semester is entitled ‘Economic Instruments for Pollution Control.’]

We were also accompanied by Professor Roda Mushkat, an HNC Resident Professor of International Law, who is teaching a course entitled ‘International Environmental Law and Policy.’ Her teams have been doing exceedingly well this year in international moot court debates…. & so I very quickly learned not to argue with her about environmental topics — or about anything else, for that matter!

Prof. Mushkat braving the elements….

On our way back to Nanjing, Prof. Zhou treated us to a very nice (& filling!) lunch featuring Jiangsu specialties…. and on that trip we also passed by a power plant that had the right idea (i.e., blue skies, & puffy white clouds) — even if its plume didn’t quite match such an emissions ideal. It reminded me very much of the similar (painted!) blue skies & white clouds I had seen at the Venetian in Macau (see the December 2007 posting; no French post-modernists in evidence on this plant tour, however!).