While this problem is nothing new, it is getting worse day
by day and not taken care seriously. It
should be the top concern for the Chinese and the international communities.
Check out the BBC video on China's Air Pollution below:
Air pollution does not only bring into the Green House Gas problems,
which subsequently introduces acid rain that contaminates the water, and
soil. Air pollution damages health 10
times more than water pollution does.
According to Chinese government statistics more than 500,000
people die from heart disease and lung cancer directly related to air
pollution. Beijing’s air quality was 10
times worse than New York’s in 2007, and it had grown to 16 times last year.
The photo of a typical day at the forbidden city at Beijing, China:
There have been countless articles on the internet that talk
about what kind of air pollutions that China has, what kind of diseases they
can bring to human beings, and what consequences they would leave for many
generations to come. This blog will
focus more on the reasons and solution.
The obvious reason is China’s rapid industrialization process
without any regulation on air pollution.
The main pollutant is the particles from burning coals, which is the
cheapest way to generate power in China.
It is because of the exact reason why renewable/clean energy cannot
blossom in China as the way they do in Europe.
The world’s average cost of electricity is about $.20/KW, USA’s is at
$0.10/KW, and China’s at $08/KW without any government subsidies. 80% of China’s electricity is generated
through coal burning, with the rest from Hydroelectric Power plants and other
sources. It is obvious that no
electricity generator has the motivation to switch from coal because of the low
cost. Not surprisingly, many new
coal-burning stations are still being built up to satisfy the ever growing
appetite for electricity.
The decision to not interfere with the coal-burning way of
generating energy is myopia. The health
problems, lower IQ scores and long-term effect that brought by air pollution are substantial and could take even more to recover in the future. It’s not enough for the rapid industrialization
has to offset. It would be great to see
the Chinese governments, NGOs with a focus on air quality and health care, and
international institutions should work together to fight the air pollution
problems at the cost of slower industrialization, but with the benefits of our
healthier future generations.
This is really a good topic that all Chinese people care about. Few non-political issues in China garner so much attention today.
ReplyDeleteChina, to be fair, has spent a lot of time and money to try to fix the problem. Over the 10 years before the 2008 Games, for instance, Beijing invested an estimated $32 billion to clean the air. They also shut down some industries for months and removed nearly half of the city's cars from roads. The air did look better for a while. The public is also getting more engaged, as bad pollution strikes lesser-known cities. However, the challenges to cleaning China's air are still daunting. It is imperative for the government to address the urgency to balance between efficiency and sustainability, instead of just doing temporary image work.
There is no doubt that air pollution is a serious problem in China. Or we can say that all kinds of pollution are problems in China. The center of this problem is the balance between economic development and environmental protection. We cannot deny the efforts that Chinese government had made on this issue. In fact, the emphasis of environmental protection and energy conservation had been included in the 12th National Plan, which is the most authoritative plan for Chinese future development. However, this issue still remains serious as a matter of fact, we can only expect more and more efforts from government and non-government entities could be put into finding the most effective ways to deal with this issue.
ReplyDeleteThis project fits a tragedy of the commons problem almost exactly, pollution although an externality of production is something negative that impacts health. I wonder if one way to deal with this would be to instill higher taxes on the processes that cause the pollution?
ReplyDelete