Nearly two centuries ago, Great Britain watched it’s environment deteriorate from the pollution caused by the rapidly expanding factories of the industrial revolution. Today, China is one of many countries who see it’s growth in industry and modernization of the economy cause similar environmental issues. The country, along with its capital of Beijing, has become the poster boy of the decline of quality of life when pollution is allowed to be emitted unchecked. Health issues related to this have been on the rise, and many individuals in China had devoted time in educating the public on these issues, with the government slowly catching up. The pollution in China is one of many examples of the issues of modern industrialization, but the responses by individuals and the government are starting to have some serious results in recent years. The pollution of the environment in China has been an issue for the country for decades due to the rapid modernization of their economy. The large-scale deterioration of the environment had started with the economic reforms in China during the 1970s, with a good example of this being the Hansteel plant in Handan, as Ian Johnson of the New Yorker writes, “As Hansteel expanded, it swallowed up neighboring villages or left them almost uninhabitable, because of the heavy pollution […] Hansteel began paying residents in the adjacent communities a “pollution fee,” typically several hundred dollars a year ” (Johnson). The factories opening and
However, China accounts for 33% of the worlds Greenhouse gas emissions, mainly arising as a result of rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, and the deforestation that occurs in its wake. China is also suffering from desertification, coastal reclamation and severe climate change as are result of their long time blasé attitude towards environmental issues. While the Chinese Government now do acknowledge that environmental oversight has occurred, strict censorship within China deprives outsiders of receiving the full story of the environmental calamity that is occurring within China. Citizens within China are becoming increasingly concerned with governmental policy that regards further unnecessary degradation of the environment. A retired party official revealed that there had been 50,000 environmental protests within China in 2012 alone. China has amended numerous government acts and implemented strict new regulations in an attempt to curb pollution and Greenhouse gas production. However, the problem China faces cannot be swept under the 'bureaucratic rug' so to speak. The problem rests with the lack of an alternative clean energy to the fossil fuels currently used to fuel China's resource hungry industry. China has implemented numerous 'real world' measures to reduce environmental impact. Perhaps the most well known of these projects is 'Green Wall of China', which is a 4,500 km green belt
Last year, china had an environmental crisis due to rapid growth of industrialization. This had become a serious threat to China as they had to use roughly 9% of its gross national income. The air
In the article, “The Filth They Breath in China,” author, Michael Auslin, discusses the health concerns that citizens in China are forced to face, and how the country put itself in that position. China positioned the importance of its economic success, above the health of its people. The air quality has reached a state where people are urged to stay inside in order to avoid the dense smog. Also, industries have dumped an immense amount of waste into water sources, causing them to be unsafe for public use. These extreme living conditions should catch the eye of those living in the United States, in order to prevent the same from happening to them.
After many years of ignoring the air pollution, smog ridden China has finally begun to
The world economy has improved rapidly as a result of globalization in past decades. However, many environmental problems began to emerge during the economic boom. Especially, in the middle of the 20th century after World War II, many countries restarted economic development and urban construction. At this time, severe air pollution influenced a number of regions. For instance, London was affected by a critical air pollution event, called the Great Smog of London, in December 1952. During a week, 4000 people had died as a direct result of smog and over 100000 were got ill by the human respiratory tract. Subsequently, from 1978 to now, China has seen a great amount of economic increase, with its gross domestic product (GDP) expanding hundreds time since the reform and opening up. Although China has obtained a huge progress with the globalization, it has resulted in a series of environmental problems at the same time. The aim of the essay is to discover how the globalization affected the environment on air pollution, soil pollution and biological invasion in China. And I intend to analyze the instances of the connection between air
During the 1970’s Shenzhen was a small fishing village called Baon County and it was also a farmland in which a only few families lived. However in 1980’s, Shenzhen became the very first economic zone of China and it was renamed Shenzhen City. When Shenzhen was developing they levels hill tops and chopped down trees to make room for the factories which became a trade zone for exports. The factories in Shenzhen had no regulations the smoke coming out of the chimneys which make some air pollution. They also dumped contaminated water into the clean rivers and lakes which made the water supply polluted. Factories in Shenzhen made whatever they wanted and they did not care about the environment. They quickly ruined the environment. During the
Many of the nation’s bordering countries have been influenced in some way by China, whether culturally or politically. Although Japan lacks in natural resources, they have proven to be successful in the realm of consumer goods. In response to a high demand from an increasing modernizing population, Japanese products flooded domestic as well as foreign markets, boosting the economy. However, after years of famine, China’s industry took off and with the advantage of natural resources, demand of Chinese made products surpassed Japan. China’s booming economy has arrived with a steep environmental cost and little regulation over factory emissions has made China’s cities into some of the most polluted places on Earth.
In recent years, China has been experiencing unprecedented economic growth. Chinese prosperity has had negative side-effects, including extreme environmental pollution (Wong, 2014). What researchers call “ambient particulate matter pollution” was the fourth-leading risk factor for deaths in China, contributing to 1.2 million deaths in 2010. Construction, industrial waste and greenhouse gasses are the major contributors to an epidemic that is creating a public outcry for government intervention. The Chinese government and other stakeholders have asserted that air pollution is decreasing and that the main culprits are not large industrial corporations. They point to strict regulations that they claim have been rigidly enforced. However, many foreign governments, environmental groups and activists around the world dispute this assertion. A growing number of Chinese also believe their government is not doing enough to curb environmental pollution. In 2012, the government announced a “war on pollution.” However, the slow reaction to a decades old crisis is a reflection of the power struggle within a government torn between those who believe in economic growth at all costs, and those who believe that these costs are becoming too high. At the heart of the controversy is a complex question: Is the Chinese government properly regulating industry to reduce and control pollution, or are
One of the assumptions that this book addresses is whether or not people in China care about their environment. The people involved in this case study were all concerned about the environment to varying extents. Many people interviewed for this study were being directly impacted by excessive pollution in their environment. An
China, one of the worlds largest industrial powers, is now facing a difficult situation. China’s industries rely largely on coal power which emits harmful gases, causing intense air pollution. The Chinese government, in fear that the country would fall in a recession, has not done much to stop these industries, so China has become the second largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world. The types of pollution created by this include air pollution and water pollution, both of which are harmful to people and wildlife. China’s problem has become the world’s problem. Nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides disgorged by coal-fired power plants fall as acid rain on Seoul and Tokyo, and much of the particulate pollution in Los
After three decades of economic growth like a skyrocket (See Figure 1), China has become an economic giant in world but at a disastrous cost --- environmental challenges. The poor treatment of industrial spills and different other major kinds of wastes, specifically electronic waste, plastic wastes and food wastes.
On October 1st, 1949, the People’s Republic of China officially became a country and a player on the world stage. Since then, China has entered a new Communist era of stability, with the Reform and Opening Up policies of 1978 bringing in China’s phenomenal economic growth (Tisdell, 2008). However, with these advances in industry come a downside: air pollution. Since the early 1980s, air pollution levels have been climbing to dangerous levels. However, in 2013, the scales tipped for the worst. This certainly was not the first year that air contamination reared its ugly face, blackening Chinese cities, closing roadways and sending children to the hospital. Although difficulty breathing and poor air conditions had been a fact of life for most people in China, awareness of the problem peaked that year, causing 2013 to be remembered as the year that China’s struggle with air pollution went mainstream. Shortly after the start of the year, Beijing and surrounding regions were hit by pollution of unimaginable levels. At one point, in the middle of January, the Air Quality Index level in Beijing peaked as high as 993, far beyond levels health officials deem extremely dangerous. For comparison, on the same day in Miami, the AQI was 11 (Xinhua, 2013). As this air pollution issue continues to develop, it is vital that the Chinese put an end to this air contamination because of the health issues, economic issues, and international relation issues.
China is one of the countries with the poorest air quality. Moreover, Eastern China has an average air quality index (AQI) of 180, and some locations like Jiangbei, Songyuan have an AQI rating of over 500 (World Air Quality, 2017). Typically, on the AQI, a rating of above 150 is unhealthy, where individuals may experience mild to serious health effects from poor air quality (World Air Quality, 2017). Additionally, an AQI of above 200 is considered hazardous, which leads to the entire population experiencing sever health effects (World Air Quality, 2017). In fact, China’s poor air quality directly causes 1.6 million deaths a year, which equates to 4000 deaths per day (Ramsey, 2015).
“Air pollution is defined as any substances absorb into atmosphere, and these substances harm the living things and environment” (Dictionary). As dictionary mentioned, during development of the Beijing for 10 years, air has been contaminated by emission of gases and smog from industrial factories whose number has been increasing. A number of particles and dusts damage to people’s health and their life style. People are always concerning about daily concentration of particles. Even though they struggle with defend their health against air pollution, polluted particles would give residences in Beijing fatal effect for people’s health. In Real-time Air Quality Index (AQI), we can compare Beijing to another countries using numerical data. This city is one of the most polluted city in the world. According to the article, “China 's massive pollution problem”, The Week, Wagstaff states that the air in Beijing is too dense with particles to watch the forest fire”(Wagstaff).
In last twenty years, China has grown into a dominant supplier of manufactured exports around the globe. Although, it increases the interest of rural Chinese manufacturers to get settle in urban areas. It results in an escalation in demand for electricity that is met via burning coal and use of other fossil fuels because it is the cheapest way to meet the burgeoning need of electricity at the lowest price. Hence, it increases the air pollution by the emission of green gases like Carbon dioxide (CO2) in China (You & Xu, 2010, p. 4471). The environment has to face the tragic significant of increased economy of China. The Ministry of Environment Protection of China has proclaimed that the industrial productions, coal burning and the dust from construction sites causes the 80-90% of the pollution in China (You & Xu, 2010, p. 4473). This data is collected from the sources analyzed from the nine different cities of China. The key element of air pollution is the excess coal consumption in Shijiazhuang and Nanjing. In winter, eastern parts of China are affected by a hazardous haze. This dust-haze is a cumulative outcome of the natural factors and economic factors. The coal-fired power plants, factories, and vehicles cause the dust-haze. The crude from oil giants is also the cause of decreased quality of air and water. The rapid development of China with