9781422281246

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Global Trade and the Environment I n affluent districts in the city of Beijing, the capital of China, some families are sitting in their homes breathing in fresh Canadian air bottled from Alberta’s Banff National Park. The Canadian company that sells the bottled air saw its first shipment of five hundred aluminum bottles of compressed air sell out in four days. The next shipment to China of four thousand bottles sold rapidly as well. Who are these people in China buying fresh Canadian air? They have come to be referred to as “bubble families,” people trying to protect themselves from China’s increasingly haz- ardous air pollution brought on by the country’s rapid industri- alization in a global economy that has seen international trade and commerce grow to levels never before seen in history. They gained the designation of “bubble families” because they essen-

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