In the not-so-distant past China was a country that struggled to feed its own people. An estimated 20 to 45 million Chinese died of starvation between 1958 and 1962. China’s population today is over 1.3 billion, more than four times the population of the United States. The challenges China faces in moving from a developing to a developed nation are unique and daunting, made even more difficult under the scrutiny of a globally connected modern world.

The late Andrew Breitbart once stated outright that the United States should put to death a climate scientist. The loudmouth of the right-wing tweeted: “Capital punishment for Dr. James Hansen. Climategate is high treason.”

Shortly after, Dr. Michael Mann, renowned climate researcher and author of the new book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, received this death threat in his Penn State University email inbox:

“You and your colleagues who have promoted this [climategate] scandal ought to be shot, quartered and fed to the pigs along with your whole damn families.”