Jonathan Watts, author of "When a Million Chinese Jump" that will be released this June 2010. [Photo: Jon Watts]

For Jon, writing a story on the extinction of a species after 6 million years represented a cautionary tale to China and to the world that progress can also bring negative repercussions.

While the idea of a billion Chinese jumping may be fictitious, Jon notes that the fact is that a frenetically developing, urbanizing China with a huge population has changed the balance of power in the world both economically and environmentally.

These inevitable implications invite the subtitle of his book, "How China will either save the world or destroy it." Watts says that it's probably not the utopian or apocalyptic extremes that people tend to assume when they look at China; instead, it's somewhere in the middle.

"When a Billion Chinese Jump" is essentially an environmental travelogue; it takes the reader on a journey through China's provinces and assesses both positive and negative factors such as augmented pollution as well as wildlife and natural resource conservation.

In this way, he predicts the sustainability of the region based on its "black" deterioration or "green" progression in recent years.

Watts asserts that a greener China is doing much more than people realize in terms of green energy technology. In fact, China already makes most of the world's solar panels, erects more windmills than any other country, and has a sizeable investment in hybrid and electric cars.

Green projects like these give credence to determined legislation and manufacturing power that could eventually provide lower cost means to protect the environment all over the world.