As China's Economy Roars Ahead, Entire Nation And Other Countries Choking On Filth - NYT

[hatrack]

EDIT

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. Experts once thought China might overtake the United States as the world’s leading producer of greenhouse gases by 2010, possibly later. Now, the International Energy Agency has said China could become the emissions leader by the end of this year, and the Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency said China had already passed that level.

EDIT

President Hu Jintao’s most ambitious attempt to change the culture of fast-growth collapsed this year. The project, known as “Green G.D.P.,” was an effort to create an environmental yardstick for evaluating the performance of every official in China. It recalculated gross domestic product, or G.D.P., to reflect the cost of pollution. But the early results were so sobering — in some provinces the pollution-adjusted growth rates were reduced almost to zero — that the project was banished to China’s ivory tower this spring and stripped of official influence.

EDIT

The team projected that such efficiency gains would probably continue. But the experts also offered what they called a worst-case situation in which the most energy-hungry parts of the economy grew faster and efficiency gains fell short. That worst-case situation now looks wildly optimistic. Last year, China burned the energy equivalent of 2.7 billion tons of coal, three-quarters of what the experts had said would be the maximum required in 2020. To put it another way, China now seems likely to need as much energy in 2010 as it thought it would need in 2020 under the most pessimistic assumptions.

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/world/asia/26china.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[AlecBGreen]

1. stunning

please read it. ALL of it.

[YankeyMCC]

2. I was just about to post this:

(snip)
Reining in economic growth to alleviate pollution may seem logical, but the country’s authoritarian system is addicted to fast growth.
(snip)

(snip)
They are vowing to overhaul the growth-first philosophy of the Deng Xiaoping era and embrace a new model that allows for steady growth while protecting the environment.
(snip)

(snip)
President Hu Jintao’s most ambitious attempt to change the culture of fast-growth collapsed this year. The project, known as "Green G.D.P.," was an effort to create an environmental yardstick for evaluating the performance of every official in China. It recalculated gross domestic product, or G.D.P., to reflect the cost of pollution.

But the early results were so sobering — in some provinces the pollution-adjusted growth rates were reduced almost to zero — that the project was banished to China’s ivory tower this spring and stripped of official influence.
(snip)

(snip)
The toll this pollution has taken on human health remains a delicate topic in China. The leadership has banned publication of data on the subject for fear of inciting social unrest, said scholars involved in the research. But the results of some research provide alarming evidence that the environment has become one of the biggest causes of death.
(snip) (My comment: On the other hand we in the West essentially self censor it all amounts to the same goal - keep the people uninformed or confussed on the reality and you protect the status quo)

(snip)
Since Hu Jintao became the Communist Party chief in 2002 and Wen Jiabao became prime minister the next spring, China’s leadership has struck consistent themes. The economy must grow at a more sustainable, less bubbly pace. Environmental abuse has reached intolerable levels. Officials who ignore these principles will be called to account.

Five years later, it seems clear that these senior leaders are either too timid to enforce their orders, or the fast-growth political culture they preside over is too entrenched to heed them.
(snip) (My comment: Maybe because the idea of never ending growth is still the central goal)

(snip)
"The main reason behind the continued deterioration of the environment is a mistaken view of what counts as political achievement,” said Pan Yue, the deputy minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration. "The crazy expansion of high-polluting, high-energy industries has spawned special interests. Protected by local governments, some businesses treat the natural resources that belong to all the people as their own private property." (My comment: My bold. See my last comment)
(snip)


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/world/asia/26china.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=c2fb1c3c5fe905b1&ex=1345780800&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[madrchsod]

3. good luck athletes in the Olympic games...

the womens soccer teams can`t practice in peking so they go to other asian countries. they tried peking but the air was so bad they were forced to move. the teams are worried about playing at least 90 minutes were the air can burn their eyes and fill their throats with "dirt"

[hatrack]

4. The Aussie Olympics delegation is bringing multiple asthma & respiratory MDs . . .

And they're also recommending that athletes get to Beijing as late as possible.

[NNadir]

5. Of course we don't pollute like that here. We just buy all of the crap from people

who do.

[Phrogman]

6. Like blaming the poor Inca farmers for growing coca, when every single leaf he sells

he sells for top dollar for the immediate consumption of the US market.

[Xithras]

8. China has gone far beyond that.

As the article states, they will match our own greenhouse gas output this year, and their urban population exceeds the total population of our own country. While the Chinese people may not be the wealthiest, their embrace of industrialization has accumulated a great deal of wealth in China among those who rule it. They know they have a problem, they have the money to fix the problem, but they refuse to do so because they are addicted to money.

I wouldn't blame a poor Inca farmer for growing coca, but I would blame a billionaire Columbian drug lord for doing the same thing. China isn't the poor farmer anymore, and has been leaving that identity behind for the past 20 years. At this point, they've become the drug lord...controlling our cash flow, feeding our addictions, turning a blind eye to its dangers, and smashing those who dare to try and stop it.

[NNadir]

9. Let me guess...

You're pissed off with China even though it consumes 63% as much energy as the United States with four times the population.

How endearing!

The per capita average continuous power consumption of an American is over 12,000 watts. For a Chinese the figure is 600 watts.

Your computer is probably using more energy than the average Chinese citizen gets.

What really, really, really, really annoys many people is that the Chinese have not consented to remain impoverished while we live like Americans. The <em>Chinese</em> want to live like Americans and we're all bent out of shape about it.

Thirty years ago the main source of transport in China was the bicycle. It is, tragic that they decided to imitate us rather than the other way around.

[Xithras]

10. 63% as much energy, and yet it matches our greenhouse output and eclipses our environmental damage

Funny, I don't know of many rivers and lakes in the U.S. that are so polluted that they'll kill you if you swim in them.

The problem with China is that their economic expansion is NOT about bringing the average Chinese citizen up to American living standards. The average Chinese citizen has seen no improvement in their quality of life since the economic expansion began, and a vast number of them have seen a decrease in quality of life as expansion has shoved them out of their homes and farms and into concrete block houses and slave wage jobs at the local factory.

The Chinese economic expansion has made a small elite very rich, established a very small middle class for the first time, and represses the rest of the population for profit.

When it comes to pollution, China is just as evil as the U.S. They have the money and the means to correct the problem, but refuse to do so because it might slightly impact their bottom line. When China moves past the U.S. and becomes the #1 greenhouse polluter on the planet later this year, they will be WORSE than us. The fact that they can generate more carbon emissions than we do while only generating 63% of the power, while at the same time raking in trillions of dollars a year in manufacturing trade, is unforgivable and cannot simply be overlooked because you feel sorry for the downtrodden Chinese. Heck, all of this expansion is hurting THEM even worse than it's hurting us. We only have to worry about global warming, but they have to deal with skyrocketing cancer rates, tap water that can kill you, and smog so heavy that it blocks the sun for days on end. There's NOTHING liberal or progressive about supporting or ignoring that.

[depakid]

7. Yet another of the wondrous benefits of so called "free" trade

that we can thank the far right and their enablers in the Democratic party for.

Yep- China and the WTO- and people really think we need another Clinton in the Whitehouse.