Smog Pollution in Beijing Essay

Pollution continues to pose an enormous threat to residents of urban cities worldwide. In the August 2008 Monthly Update, it is stated that approximately 800,000 deaths each year can be attributed to outdoor air pollution, making pollution the single most harmful environmental hazard to human health in urban areas (Kallman). The fact that pollution kills hundreds of thousands of people each year alone portrays just how dangerous living in these conditions can be. Kallman writes about a study which proves an increase in upper respiratory diseases, cardiovascular mortality, respiratory mortality, and low birth weights when exposed to air pollutants (August 2008: Monthly Update). These can be very serious diseases and complications which, when contracted, can lead to death or very serious illnesses. There

Throughout history there have been many examples of tragedy of the commons. Tragedy of the commons is when people in a certain area over exploit a common resource which leads toa higher problem. Tragedy of the commons normally happens when people get greedy and get more than they really need. For example, if one farmer is public grazing area were to add a cow over the limit the field can sustain it won’t do much damage but if the other farmers also add another cow to the field it could end up harming it to the point where it is no longer usable.This comes to show that if even a single person becomes greedy it could ruin so many things for other people. Ideas will be pulled out from Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” to be used in this essay.

As the exploration of the industrial development and increased speed of the urban sprawl in Beijing, many severe environmental issues attribute mainly to the anthropocentric activities have been come out of the scene. One of them is the air pollution. Air pollution has been regarded as the most severe environment issue in China since it has already threatened to physical health, especially for the respiratory tract and lung. “In January 2013, Beijing experienced historical heavy air pollution. In this particular month, very few days were observed with blue sky.” (Lijian Han et.al., 2015) According to the analysis of the driving factors, “the population grew fast, and energy consumption and the number of vehicles increased rapidly” (Ju Zhang et.al., 2010), these factors add together can make the air quality worse than any one of them separately can. Firstly, it has been an undoubted truth that more and more people originally lived in rural has been moved to core urban of Beijing since there are more opportunities in there. Therefore, the huge explosion of urban population with more energy release and more CO2 exhalation is seen as an inevitably primary factor causing the bad air quality. What’s more, as the population

According to the EPA pollution recommendations, when a city reaches an air quality index (AQI) of over 400, all people should avoid going outdoors. Beijing’s highest AQI is 895. This impacts the daily lives of Beijing citizens immensely. Air pollution has been related to increased cases of cancer, heart disease, stroke and other respiratory illnesses. It is also associated with asthma in children.

Auslin recounts specific stories of his numerous trips to China to express the magnitude of the effect pollution has on everyday life. The author vividly remembers his first-hand experience with the smog in China,

In Garret Hardin’s paper, “The Tragedy of the Commons”, he talks about the problem of overpopulation and why it can’t be solved by a technical means. He talks deeper about the population rate and a supposed optimal population. Also, Hardin mentions the commons which are the resources of our world. On this subject he argues the problems of how the commons are unregulated which would lead to them being exploited into ruin be rational people. I will write to argue why the commons are being protected regularly and how rational people can reason and understand long-term effect of their actions on these commons.

In the past decade, the severe air pollution problem in fast developing countries, particularly in China, has caused highly social and scientific attention. In 2014, 92 % of the world population are exposed over to the WHO Air Quality Guidelines (AQG) PM2.5 concentration level of 10 μg/m3 (World Health Organization, 2016). Ambient particulate matter (PM) pollution ranked as the third leading risk factor in India and Nepal, and ranked as the fifth in China (GBD 2015 Risk Factors Collaborators, 2016). In 2012, about 3 million deaths globally were attributed solely to ambient air pollution, and around 87% of it occurred in low- and middle-income countries (World Health Organization, 2016).

Garrett Hardin wrote an essay titled “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor”. In this essay he spoke of the Earth being similar to a lifeboat in which it has limited capacity and resources. This is a fair assumption, as the Earth does have limited resources and carrying capacity. He mentions that we are “adrift in a moral sea” saying that in today’s world it is morally abhorrent to not help a person in need but that we should do what we have to in order to survive ourselves. Hardin mentions a “tragedy of the commons” he states that if a pasture were to become a commons it would only take one person to not show restraint to ruin the system and cause mass suffering. He uses the world’s air and water as an example claiming that they

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.

In his essay “The Tragedy of the Commons” author Garrett Hardin presents several points for his argument against the population problem. The population is growing at an exponential rate leading to a decline in the quality of life for mankind. Due to the fact that the population is growing so must the energy available, if mankind is to survive. Hardin’s argument is that if the population continues to grow with the laws that are currently set in place, the quality of life will eventually decline. Hardin states “Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all” (Hardin 23).

Kan Tingting, a 35 year old cafe manager says, “‘What bothers me the most is that my child may have a very negative view of nature’”(Wong 29). The children of Beijing see smog constantly and suffer daily. Although the ordinary person does not do much to restrain smog, it has killed thousands of people throughout history.

We live in a world where sometimes we are told there are endless resources. The population of the world is growing rapidly, so the question we must ask, are we going to run into a problem where there are too many people in this world and not enough resources to accompany this rapid growth in population? In the article “Tragedy of the Commons” written by Garrett Hardin, Hardin believes that the population problem cannot be solved in a technical way because the problem involves questions of human freedoms and rights, both of which are issues of morality as opposed to scientific fact. He goes on to explain how we have become too self-interested in the short term that we aren’t looking at the long-term affects. In order to fix the problem

Garrett Hardin’s essay, “Tragedy of the Commons” has a view of the population of the world different than any other. In his essay, he writes about how the world is biophysically finite. He believes that the more people there are the less each person’s share will be. This was a main point in his essay. He goes on to talk about how agricultural cannot help fix this problem and how we can’t both maximize the number of people and satisfy every desire or "good" of everyone since every person has a different good/desire.

You know your needs, so don’t damage them but also don’t let others damage them also. So in relaying with the tragedy of the commons if you were to enhance a land with your labour so that it is productive and ‘where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others’, then Hardin’s idea of the tragedy of the commons would not persist. There would be enough of everything to go around and everyone would only use what they need, nothing more. But that is in a world where greed and selfishness does not

What is the tragedy of the commons? It is said to be in the 1968 publication in Journal Science by ecologist and philosopher Garrett Hardin a depletion of the earth’s resources, including, but not limited to overpopulation. Should why should you care? Hardin explains in his article that people tend to see the world as place of infinite resources, and space when in fact he argues, it is not. Throughout the article there is undertone of urgency; ‘we have to!’ it blares, ‘It’s too late’ another voice squeaks, but in fact, he tells reader directly that is no solution to overpopulation.