China Now the World's Most Polluted Nation
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  China Now the World's Most Polluted Nation
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Author Topic: China Now the World's Most Polluted Nation  (Read 1364 times)
Frodo
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« on: August 26, 2007, 10:15:12 AM »

One thing about this article that particularly caught my attention was how nothing would really change the underlying economic growth dynamic until China's political system is reformed:

As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes

By JOSEPH KAHN and JIM YARDLEY
Published: August 26, 2007


BEIJING, Aug. 25 — No country in history has emerged as a major industrial power without creating a legacy of environmental damage that can take decades and big dollops of public wealth to undo.

But just as the speed and scale of China’s rise as an economic power have no clear parallel in history, so its pollution problem has shattered all precedents. Environmental degradation is now so severe, with such stark domestic and international repercussions, that pollution poses not only a major long-term burden on the Chinese public but also an acute political challenge to the ruling Communist Party. And it is not clear that China can rein in its own economic juggernaut.

Public health is reeling. Pollution has made cancer China’s leading cause of death, the Ministry of Health says. Ambient air pollution alone is blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. Nearly 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water.

Chinese cities often seem wrapped in a toxic gray shroud. Only 1 percent of the country’s 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the European Union. Beijing is frantically searching for a magic formula, a meteorological deus ex machina, to clear its skies for the 2008 Olympics.

Environmental woes that might be considered catastrophic in some countries can seem commonplace in China: industrial cities where people rarely see the sun; children killed or sickened by lead poisoning or other types of local pollution; a coastline so swamped by algal red tides that large sections of the ocean no longer sustain marine life.

China is choking on its own success. The economy is on a historic run, posting a succession of double-digit growth rates. But the growth derives, now more than at any time in the recent past, from a staggering expansion of heavy industry and urbanization that requires colossal inputs of energy, almost all from coal, the most readily available, and dirtiest, source.

“It is a very awkward situation for the country because our greatest achievement is also our biggest burden,” says Wang Jinnan, one of China’s leading environmental researchers. “There is pressure for change, but many people refuse to accept that we need a new approach so soon.”

China’s problem has become the world’s problem. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides spewed by China’s coal-fired power plants fall as acid rain on Seoul, South Korea, and Tokyo. Much of the particulate pollution over Los Angeles originates in China, according to the Journal of Geophysical Research.

More pressing still, China has entered the most robust stage of its industrial revolution, even as much of the outside world has become preoccupied with global warming.
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Jaggerjack
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« Reply #1 on: August 26, 2007, 10:43:19 AM »

This is really no suprise.
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Ban my account ffs!
snowguy716
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« Reply #2 on: August 26, 2007, 12:12:40 PM »

When I was in Beijing, we didn't actually see the sun except when we took a trip out to the Great Wall.  The sunniest it got was a bright light filtering through the milky brown cloud of pollution.  You felt the burn in your lungs and your snot was black.

China is going to have some major problems and their economic growth will ultimately suffer due to this absolute ignorance of the environment.
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exnaderite
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« Reply #3 on: August 26, 2007, 12:43:35 PM »

This goes in the "No sh1t, Sherlock!" pile.
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Lief 🗽
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« Reply #4 on: August 26, 2007, 12:56:43 PM »

Don't worry guys. The free market will fix it.
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StatesRights
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« Reply #5 on: August 26, 2007, 02:01:33 PM »

They don't even give a damn about their own people. Why would you expect them to give a second thought to the environment?
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exnaderite
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« Reply #6 on: August 26, 2007, 02:20:42 PM »

They don't even give a damn about their own people. Why would you expect them to give a second thought to the environment?

Okay, answer this question: who buys all the cheap junk that China produces? And what percentage of those people are willing to pay more to ensure they don't treat the environment carelessly? And why are those multinationals turning a blind eye to the actions of their suppliers? There's no moral high ground for people to complain on the internet using machines that are made in China.
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StatesRights
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« Reply #7 on: August 26, 2007, 02:29:48 PM »

They don't even give a damn about their own people. Why would you expect them to give a second thought to the environment?

Okay, answer this question: who buys all the cheap junk that China produces? And what percentage of those people are willing to pay more to ensure they don't treat the environment carelessly? And why are those multinationals turning a blind eye to the actions of their suppliers? There's no moral high ground for people to complain on the internet using machines that are made in China.

In the words of our esteemed John Engle : "We have no other choose".
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MasterJedi
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« Reply #8 on: August 26, 2007, 04:51:43 PM »

They don't even give a damn about their own people. Why would you expect them to give a second thought to the environment?

Okay, answer this question: who buys all the cheap junk that China produces? And what percentage of those people are willing to pay more to ensure they don't treat the environment carelessly? And why are those multinationals turning a blind eye to the actions of their suppliers? There's no moral high ground for people to complain on the internet using machines that are made in China.

The question you should really ask is who doesn't? Everyone does because almost everything is made in China.
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