An essential and incisive discussion on China today - a country on an environmental precipice that will affect the entire world.

When a Billion Chinese Jump tells the story of China’s – and the world’s – biggest crisis. With foul air, filthy water, rising temperatures and encroaching deserts, China is already suffering an environmental disaster. Now it faces a stark choice: either accept catastrophe, or make radical changes. Traveling the vast country to witness this environmental challenge, Jonathan Watts moves from mountain paradises to industrial wastelands, examining the responses of those at the top of society to the problems and hopes of those below. At heart his book is not a call for panic, but a demonstration that – even with the crisis so severe, and the political scope so limited – the actions of individuals can make a difference. Consistently attentive to human detail, Watts vividly portrays individual lives in a country all too often viewed from outside as a faceless state. No reader of his book – no consumer in the world – can be unaffected by what he presents.

When a Billion Chinese Jump tells the story of China’s – and the world’s – greatest crisis. With filthy water, choking emissions and an unsustainable appetite for resources, China’s development has taken our planet to the environmental edge. Now it faces a stark choice that will affect us all: accept catastrophe or make radical change. To explore the response, award-winning correspondent Jonathan Watts travels from mountain paradise to blasted desert, through eco-cities, coal mines and industrial wastelands, examining the challenges facing those at the top of society and the problems and hopes of those below. His travelogue will interest anyone concerned with economic development, energy security, globalisation or climate activism. At heart, it is not a call for panic, but an expression of hope that – despite political constraints – individual choices can make a difference. Consistently attentive to human detail, Watts vividly portrays the diversity of a country too often viewed as a faceless machine. No reader of his book – no consumer in the world – can be unaffected by what he presents.

Jonathan Watts is the Guardian's Asia environment correspondent and recently covered the Copenhagen Climate Conference. He was short-listed for Foreign Correspondent of the Year at the 2006 British Press Awards, and he and his research assistant were awarded the One World Media Award for best press story in 2007. In 2009, he was a co-winner of the environment prize at the One World Media Awards for a series on the global food crisis.