on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York, which focuses on multimedia journalism, original research and public events to bring attention to areas of mutual interest to the United States and China. Since its inception, the Center has focused primarily on issues of energy and global climate change. Schell oversaw "The China Boom Project", "On Thinner Ice", a joint multimedia project with David Breashears' Glacier Research Imaging Project (GRIP) and MediaStorm, and a new policy effort to maximize American interest in response to investment from China. A frequent participant in the World Economic Forum, Schell is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, The Climate Policy Initiative, GE's Eco Imagination Advisory Board and the Council on the Future of Media, which claims to be "championing a new global, independent news and information service whose role is to inform, educate and improve the state of the world-one that would take advantage of all platforms of content delivery from mobile to satellite and online to create a new global network". Schell is also a senior research scholar at Columbia University's Weatherhead East Asian Institute. Farming career Schell has criticized factory farming. In 1976 he published The Town That Fought to Save Itself, about the San Francisco suburb of Bolinas, where he has a ranch. In 1978 he co-founded the company Niman Ranch (then named "Niman-Schell") with Bill Niman with the objective of raising cattle in a humane and environmentally sound manner. He left the company in 1999. In 1984 he published the book Modern Meat: Antibiotics, Hormones, and the Pharmaceutical Farm, criticizing meat production in the United States. Views on China Schell first visited the People's Republic of China in 1974, during the last years of Mao Zedong. After Mao's death, Schell wrote: "He conceived of the Chinese revolution, and then helped cause it to happen. And, in the process, the thought of Chairman Mao became inculcated in almost every Chinese. The word almost literally became flesh. And it seemed clear, even before Mao died, that his death could not erase the way in which he had almost become transubstantiated in his people." In 2004 Schell called China's Communist-Capitalist mix "Leninist capitalism". In an interview with Terri Gross of NPR's Fresh Air broadcast November 19, 2009, Schell stated that whether or not China's "autocratic capitalism" could deliver economic growth better than democracy was a question he faced "with some