Building a green community 117the general public, media campaigns that encourage urban citizens to adopt a low-
carbon lifestyle, use more public transportation, and drive cars less often have
been appealing to public consciousness on environmental issues. Meanwhile, the
rhetoric and practices of China’s “community building” (shequ jianshe) initiatives
since the late 1990s aimed at reorganizing urban middle-class neighborhoods also
encouraged responsible consumption and individual behaviors that promote a
“harmonious” community (Tomba 2009). Community-wide activities organized
by neighborhood committees to “beautify community environment” have included
practices such as planting trees, classifying garbage, and restricting use of plastic
shopping bags. Although as Lewis and Potter (2011) point out, the discourse of
ethical consumption is not necessarily marked by a coherent set of shared politics
or values, these practices of care, solidarity, and collective concern are meaningful
for a lifestyle choice that is not necessarily wholly defined by consumer culture.
Traditionally, grassroots environmental monitoring in China takes the form of
individual citizens’ reporting pollution offenders who fail to implement national
environmental laws and regulations, especially when they are directly affected
by the problem in their local environment. The 1996 State Council Decision
Concerning Certain Environmental Protection Issues encourages public reporting
on, and exposing of, violations of environmental protection laws and regulations.
Since the late 1990s, new participatory mechanisms have been gradually
adopted: for instance, the public hearing component of the Environmental
Impact Assessment Law as well as regulations related to public dissemination of
environmental information (Wu 2009). Individuals can complain about pollution
incidents to local agencies directly or use telephone hot lines, mass media, and
even public protests in some cases. Occasionally, local environmental agencies
even offer cash rewards to citizens who provide solid evidence about pollution
sources. However, the recourse available to individuals is limited to reactions
to existing pollution problems, as there are few opportunities to challenge plans
or for preemptive actions and lobbying prior to developments that might lead to
pollution (Schwartz 2004). In this context, it is likely that as Hsin-Huang Michael
Hsiao (1999) suggests, grassroots environmental actions stem often from short-
sighted “victim consciousness” that focuses on grievances in contrast to long-
term “environmental consciousness.”
The existing complaint system, which allows Chinese urban citizens to report
environmental problems to local authorities and get feedback, has many areas
that need improvement (Van Rooij 2006; Tilt 2007). Warwick and Ortolano found
in a qualitative analysis of Shanghai Municipal Government’s environmental
complaints system that it is useful for uncovering information not previously known
to the Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB) about some self-evident pollution
emissions from industrial enterprises, thus serving as “an important, yet somewhat
unreliable, source of information about the many environmental problems not
otherwise detected by regulators” (2007, p. 237). As citizens do not recognize many
violations, especially those not identifiable by the physical senses, Warwick and
Ortolano suggest that increasing the public’s environmental awareness and access
to information would further enhance the effectiveness of the current system.