A wilted sunflower droops over a busy Beijing throughfare, as traffic goes by July 21. During U.S. President Clinton's visit to China last month he made an impassioned plea to Chinese to work to protect the environment. Clinton said that China was set to overtake the United States as the world's largest producer of greenhouse gasses and that global warming could have a disasterous effects in the next century. Protecting the enviornment is a major challenge for China, where farmers must often till pesticide-soaked fields, factories belch untreated waste into rivers and tens of millions live in cities cloaked in sulphurous coal smoke and industrial fumes.

NB/JO/