Thread: China is polluting the world

As well as killing their own people:

Chinese government officials pressed the World Bank into removing estimates of the number of premature deaths linked to pollution in China from a bank report, according to a person involved in drafting the report.

A formal draft of the report, “Cost of Pollution in China,” was released at a conference in Beijing in March after the deletions. The excised information included statistical models estimating that as many as 750,000 people a year die prematurely in China, because of air and water pollution.

When will the world take off the gloves and deal with China?
I will be interesting to see how much press this gets.
link

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

When will the world take off the gloves and deal with China?

Probably after they deal with America.
China is "becoming" the number one polluter in the world but still takes a back seat to the US.
As long as that is the case China has a an excuse to go on doing what is has been?
Correct?

Originally Posted by Gerontion

if it wasn’t for those nasty little slit-eyed dog-eating Chinese, we’d all be skipping through fields of daisies.

Harsh, but fair.

Originally Posted by cali kid

As long as that is the case China has a an excuse to go on doing what is has been?
Correct?

Not really, what matters is the increase, which has been phenomenal in the case of China. Though the US may not do all it could, there is awareness of the issue and action taken.

Overall, China has 16 of the world's 20 most air-polluted cities. In some, the air carries twice the pollutants considered safe by the U.N.'s World Health Organization, causing as many as 400,000 premature deaths a year due to respiratory disease.

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If our liberal activist were serious about the environment they'd be calling for Chinese products to be banned from the world market. But cheap DVDs and IPods are just too seductive.

^
You'd find that some do just that.

Boycotting consumer products has had some postive results in the past, but by and large it's not an effective strategy, even if all the "activists" put their money where their mouth is, there are too many consumers who don't give a toss.

Just on the news report about China Biz today that China's coal mining production is at its peak now and going great guns..

With China's economy growing at 8-12 percent a year I'd think they could afford to implement some enviornmental standards without too large a drag on their economy. They have exchange reserves of $1 trillion dollars In fact they could initiate a whole new profitable business of enviornmentalism technology and products. That's what the west is asked to do. China could at least put some scrubbers on their smokestacks. Time to mature if they are sitting at the table.

During the summer I leave my windows open at night. In the morning there's a thin layer of black dust on the window sills that builds up over time. I thought US pollution output was getting worse. Turns out it's coal fumes drifting from China.

China is a developing country, that should be doing more than it is for the environment.
The USA is a developed country. There would be no better way for the rest of the world to put pressure on China to clean up it's act than for the USA to sign up for the Kyoto Accord, which it refuses to do.

At the end of the NY Post article Peter Brooks make several good points.

One thing the United States can and should do is offer help:
* Over the next 20 years, half the world's new buildings will be built in China. We should share expertise so that those buildings will be energy-efficient - that's a productive way to reduce energy consumption and pollution.

* We should work to open the Chinese market to energy-efficient American industrial and consumer goods. It will help reduce emissions - and maybe put a small dent in our $200 billion annual trade deficit with China.

* The United States should also push to export smokestack-scrubber technology and clean-coal technology. We can't stop China from erecting new coal-fired power and industrial plants; we can help reduce the resulting dirty emissions.

In the end, a growing Chinese middle class will be the most potent force for clean air and water. But that stratum of society is only 80 million out of 1.3 billion people now. We can't wait for China to "grow out" of its polluting ways - we need to encourage progress now

Perhaps the knee jerk reaction of boycotting china isn't the right solution.
Likely changes will be an inside job where the emerging middle class Chinese will demand a clean up and some more transparency from their government.
That China has a population of nearly 3 billion people complicates things a bit.

Once they develop their domestic market they can get back to their insular tendencies.

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

As well as killing their own people:

Chinese government officials pressed the World Bank into removing estimates of the number of premature deaths linked to pollution in China from a bank report, according to a person involved in drafting the report.

A formal draft of the report, “Cost of Pollution in China,” was released at a conference in Beijing in March after the deletions. The excised information included statistical models estimating that as many as 750,000 people a year die prematurely in China, because of air and water pollution.

When will the world take off the gloves and deal with China?
I will be interesting to see how much press this gets.
link

Where were those sensible and environment friendly people when the west was polluting the world while in development phase?

China's still polluting the world less than the US although its population is four times more!

The western economies fucked up the O3 layer as long as they could in a time when people didn't even know fuck about O3. How come they abruptly woke up now?

Dealing with China is something that's out of question now. You're too late mate.

And China in Ten years will make the wests polution (Do you mean America??) look like a fairy tale.....

Originally Posted by machangezi

The western economies fucked up the O3 layer as long as they could in a time when people didn't even know fuck about O3. How come they abruptly woke up now?

Dealing with China is something that's out of question now. You're too late mate.

The only reason that the asian economies have not fcuked it worse etc,because untill now they were backward...

^ Very fucking true. But now they are on their way (turbo charged bro). Time for the west to come up with some sort of hurdles to stop them. Even John fucking Coward, in today's bangers post, expressed his worries about the growing military and economic might of China.

Sure the US is a big bad polluter. Much of it from the meat industry. (Methane)
China is guilty of pumping huge amounts of sulfur dioxide(read acid rain) into the atmosphere.
I suppose you can discriminate between acid rain and what CO does to the environment.

As always, greed will win the day and the environment, and hence the people, will pay the price later. The US, China, Russia and India ain't gonna do anything about it beyond token measures until it really begins to hurt. Then it's too late. So the rest of the world is only bleating in vain. Ditto the destruction and burning of rainforests in Indon & Amazonia- short term greed wins the day.
So just put on that sun screen and enjoy the global warming.

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

Sure the US is a big bad polluter. Much of it from the meat industry. (Methane)
China is guilty of pumping huge amounts of sulfur dioxide(read acid rain) into the atmosphere.
I suppose you can discriminate between acid rain and what CO does to the environment.

Why not clean their own home first??

Sabang is right this aint gonna stop. When it comes to envoirnmetal issues fuck China.

America being the biggest polluter should be the first to lead cos the leade always leads. This might in turn put prssure on China to stop. You know Charity begns at home sort of stuff.

^I guess you missed the "sulfur dioxide" part!

Google "sulfur dioxide".

The US and Europe have had "scrubbers" on their coal power plants for decades now.