Amazing Pictures, Pollution in China - (a must see)

[FreakinDJ]

Amazing Pictures, http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/">Pollution in China

October 14, 2009, the 30th annual awards ceremony of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund took place at the Asia Society in New York City. Lu Guang (卢广) from People’s Republic of China won the $30,000 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his documentary project “Pollution in China.”



1. “At the junction of Ningxia province and Inner Mongolia province, I saw a tall chimney puffing out golden smoke covering the blue sky, large tracts of the grassland have become industrial waste dumps; unbearable foul smell made people want to cough; Surging industrial sewage flowed into the Yellow River…”

- Lu Guang



2. Chemical waste from Jiangsu Taixing Chemical Industrial District (江苏泰兴化工园区) dumped on top of the Yangtze River bank. May 15, 2009

http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/

If anyone here still believes the Chinese government is going to negotiate in "Good Faith" for a reduction in the Carbon Emissions, or even make a 1/2 hearted attempt in reducing the amount of pollution they are spewing into the Air, Land, and Sea - you need to see this Website

Obama is right in the statements he made several weeks ago. The only way we are going to be able to reign in the amount of pollution being spewed onto this earth is to bring manufacturing back to the United States where such emissions are regulated

[Mari333]

1. Isnt that where many US companies are now located?

Factories, Jobs, et al? why yes, yes it is. That is where fat corporations dont have any regulations and can pay their employees squat. and send shitty products back here filled with melanine and crap.
of course the corporations dont have to worry about things like destroying the atmosphere and the air we all breathe as long as they are in China. Thats why they are there, of course.

[Buzz Clik]

3. That's the nice thing about environmental contamination -- it's highly portable.

[FreakinDJ]

5. Gephardt tried but was shot down

Started during the NAFTA debate trying to place Evironmental Standards, Worker's Rights and Civil Rights in the bill.

Imagine - members of your own party questioning the wisdom in the POTUS in owing unbridaled capitolism to run rough shot over the people and environment

[sandnsea]

11. Exactly

So we can buy this useless shit from Target or Costco and pat ourselves on the back because we didn't shop at Target.

WE are the problem in China and they know it.

[happy_liberal]

26. WTO

This is why I will never understand why 'environmentalist' Al Gore helped push the China trade agreements.

[enid602]

2. China

Alas, the engine behind the Chinese economic miracle. How much would their goods really cost if their government grappled with these costs of development? Using dangerous and toxic ingredients, not addressing pollution questions, slave wages. What kind of miracle is that?

[rucky]

4. Yep. Right now, China doesn't really have much incentive to curb this. n/t

[lpbk2713]

6. The pics at the link are horrifying.

They are murdering their own people. Generations upon generations will pay the price for their greed and apathy.


KnR

[dugaresa]

9. where there exist a lot of poor people, life is cheap and that is unfortunately why

the Chinese don't care.

[Subdivisions]

7. China's disregarding of environmental consequences, coupled with their

indifference to the safety of workers, is why we no longer have a robust manufacturing sector in this country - and the jobs that go with it.

K&R.

[dugaresa]

16. and it says a lot about the lack of conscience of the "corporation"

there is not national identity or conscience or guilt in a corporation. it is all about profits and maximizing profits means finding a place that will let you rape and pillage the land and its people.

[dugaresa]

8. Let us be honest, we aren't any better in some areas of our nation

Mountain top removal in the Appalachia area.
Visit the Ohio Valley region and you will find small manufacturing facilities that pull the same bullshit.

We regulate emissions only because people eventually fought back, however most major chemical/manufacturing companies that existed in our nation had to be dragged kicking and screaming to regulation.

I look at those pictures of China today and it was what Pittsburgh looked like 50+ years ago. There was a time that people had to change their clothing twice a day in what is today "America's most livable city". However not far outside the city there are creeks that run orange with runoff from mines that are long closed.

Things can be turned around in China too, however it will take a lot of work.

[FreakinDJ]

10. LINKs Please - I would like to see that

Perhaps in the distant past - yes the United States was horrible. But as Americans realized we had a responcibility to our workers, the planet, and the people that live around us, America made amazeing strides towards cleaning up our bull shit.

So by all means post proof of your accusations

[dugaresa]

13. here is one link

http://www.earthjustice.org/our_work/campaigns/stop-mountaintop-removal.html?gclid=CIiE9cGS954CFcx25QodZ1-4JQ

[dugaresa]

15. here is a picture of Pittsburgh 60 years ago

<>

this was a "midday picture"

I want to add that it isn't that I think what is happening in China is bad, however let's be honest the polluters that were here in the US moved overseas.

Instead of building better facilities here and being beacons of manufacturing and environmental stewardship, they looked for the place that would let them shit all over it.

Too bad that the Chinese people don't rebel against their goverment for letting this happen. The grand Yangtze River is a polluted mess and that is a shame and a disgrace.

[FreakinDJ]

17. My point exactly - Kyoto protocol would promote more "Globe Hopping"

The is exactly the reason I am against the Kyoto Protocol in any form. It has ZERO Safeguards to prevent Globe Hopping by the major polluters. The fact China has actively been seeking friendships in African countries is proof of that.

The only way to clean up this mess is by placing tariffs on High=Polluting Countries to bring home the manufacturing and maintain the environmental standards we already have in place.

[City of Mills]

21. My home city - Lowell MA in 1910

A couple of images - taken from http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/sia/31.1/malone.html





Lowell was the first planned industrial city in the United States...eventually the factories all closed and moved south, for cheaper labor. Most of the mills are still here, converted to museums and urban lofts.

[FreakinDJ]

22. You still don't realize just How MASSIVE China's Air Pollution is

This image is pretty striking, even though it's from October 2004. It shows how "a pool of air pollution has spread out over eastern China and then slipped over the coast like water over a dam. A river of haze flows across the East China Sea past the Korean Peninsula and northeastward toward Japan, where it arcs along the western coastline of the island chain before disappearing out of the scene at upper right." The picture is from NASA,





So where is the "Outrage"

[City of Mills]

24. Well

I certainly wouldn't label the problem is being 'comparable', any more than a mouse and an elephant are comparable...the difference is the horrifying large scale of the pollution in China and the prospects of future regulation. Unregulated industry is a horrible thing, and this will affect generations of people even if it somehow magically stopped tomorrow.

[Hannah Bell]

27. not so distant. your chart starts in the 70s.

[FreakinDJ]

31. and did we not "Share our Scientific findings"

its not as if we haven't presented the information to the whole world so they don't have to follow our same mistakes

[Zynx]

12. For people who don't think this is worse than what we do,

nearly everyone I know who has visited China says that you really can't breathe the air in some of the cities without getting sick. They describe it as LA, but only five times worse on good days. A friend of mine who has asthma said he always felt like he was going to die when he did study abroad in Tianjin. In some cities, they've gotten used to not really seeing the sky. It's nothing short of bizarre.

[dugaresa]

14. and the reason a lot of those American companies are there in China is because

they were fleeing our strict environmental laws and the audacity of the american worker who wanted to make a living wage.

When China cracks down, those companies will move on to the next country who is willing to take an environmental and wage beating.

[FreakinDJ]

18. First convince me China will crack down

It'll be a cold day in Hell before you pry the funding mechanism for the Chinese Military from the hands of the Chinese Communist Government

[dugaresa]

28. it may not happen for a very long time and it may never happen

perhaps when the chinese military can't find any soldiers to fight because half their population is disabled? when the party leaders have children born with disabilities because they have no regulations?

when the masses rise up in another revolution?

who knows when or if it will happen. doesn't mean i don't feel for those folks, i just don't know what we can do. people all over the world benefit from cheap merchandise made in China. in a way everyone who buys something cheap crap made in China supports turning China into a toilet bowl.

[phasma ex machina]

20. +1"nearly everyone I know who has visited China says that you really can't breathe the air" nt

[leeroysphitz]

19. Free market paradise. Unshackled by onerous government regulations.

[flvegan]

23. That site is a must-see. Thank you for posting.

Those pictures are simply horrifying.

[NJmaverick]

25. Reminds me of what you could see in the US in the early 70s

[Juche]

29. What about the environmental Kuznet curve

http://www.aei.org/outlook/23617

http://www.ecoeco.org/pdf/stern.pdf

An economist named Kuznet found that as per capita income goes up, so does pollution up until a point (roughly $5000-10000 per capita income). After that more economic growth leads to lower pollution. Possibly because the increased growth goes to fighting pollution rather than improving quality of life. I don't know if it applies to CO2. But with other pollutants it supposedly is a good rule of thumb.

With China's current per capita income of about $3000, it should only take 1 more doubling of their economy (7 years) before things start turning around. Of course by then there will have been hundreds of millions more illnesses.

[FreakinDJ]

30. Feeble attempt to justify the Kyoto Protocol

Kuznet's theory has the major flaw of not accounting for a "Totalitarian Government"

This planet would be a wasteland if we followed what Kuznet is suggesting

And do you honestly believe the Ruling Communist Party is going to allow any thing to come between them and the "Fuel for the Chinese Military machine?

In a country where they line up people for summary executions in town square as a firm warning "We will not tolerate any form of criticism, dissidents, or civil unrest" just where do you suppose the public out cry the generated changes in our own environmental policies come from.

[Myhrejl]

32. At what point do these

Multi-national corporations stop being called American Companies?