The Great Smog Of 1952

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

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

Air pollution by definition, is the presence in or introduction into the air of a substance which has harmful or poisonous effects. Beijing is a major Chinese city that endures air pollution significantly. A study on the global burden of disease found that outdoor air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China each year (Chemical & Engineering News,2017). As China is the world's second largest economy behind the United States, it is most definitely under the influence of globalization. Globalization causes industrialization, a process that will inevitably create pollution.70% of air pollution in China is from the tailpipes of automobiles (Conserve Energy Future, 2017). Thus, the introduction of advanced transportation brought by globalization has adversely affected China's atmosphere.

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

A Reuters article from April 13, 2015 titled “China to surpass U.S. as top cause of modern global warming” talked about how China has overtaken the U.S. as the lead pollution in the world and what this means in the fight against global warming. To describe the transition to being the world’s largest emitter, the article quoted Glen Peters of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo, who said, “A few years ago China 's per capita emissions were low, its historical responsibility was low. That 's changing fast.” The article then shifted its focus to how we should pin responsibility for global warming in order to pressure its main contributors into becoming more energy efficient.

China is an example of an emerging superpower; its economy has doubled in size every eight years since 1980. Since 2000, China has been the largest recipient of overseas investment, and now foreign-owned companies . 60% of the world trade since 2004 has been as a result of Chinas industrialisation. So here we can see that China has developed due to industrialisation, which has increased its power. China use to be a low-income country, so we can see from a low-income country to an emerging superpower how powers can shift over time due to many factors that influence the world. However even though China is an emerging superpower, it has come with some cost to the environment for example China has 16 of the top 20 most air-polluted cities in the world. The polluted air was blamed for over 4000 000 premature deaths in 2003.

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

According to history of China, water consumption, growing population and demand for higher living standards were increasing steadily since the 1950s, when industrial development of the country started. In theory that could lead to new economic era and growth of the country, but in practice that caused one of the most important environmental problems in China. First of all, the pollution of water resources in this country goes deep into history in the 1970s. According to Wang (1989), the situation hasn’t changed for the better and the rate of pollution increased rapidly. Even nowadays the government of China cannot tackle

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.

I visited China about a year ago, however everything I saw was discussed by Magdoff and Foster in what Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism. The intense pollution is enough to make the citizens stay inside for the day, as we here in Colorado might for a snow day. The sights witnessed there is sound evidence that support Magdoff and Fosters argument that capitalism is the primary driving force behind environmental degradation. An explorative journalistic piece by NBC’s 60 minutes Lesley Stahl, revealed that there are currently multi-billion dollar cities being built in China that are completely vacant. China’s massive economic growth can be attributed to policies set forth by the Chinese government some years ago. The Chinese wanted to, ‘catch up with the world, “20 years in a day.” Their ability to actually live up to this goal shows that their government highly values economic growth and will do anything to support it, even at the cost of the environment. This example of the Chinese government is reflective of how most of the world values economic growth, though extreme. Because, no country wants to be in a recession, it is bad for the people causing deep strife in the balance between the environment and economic growth. This paper will utilize the writings of Magdoff and Foster to contend that the way we think about economic growth is harmful to our environment. Additionally this paper will argue that violence is the often necessary for an ideal

In the article “Beijing to Raise Threshold on Red Alerts for Smog”, it’s very interesting to know that finally China is doing something about their air pollution problem. For years and years they haven’t done anything because China doesn’t have the same rules and regulation as the United States of America. China produces a lot of products for different countries so that’s a major source of pollution also and they don’t have any kind of regulations on the smoke coming from the factories, and the air quality is terrible their as well. In the United States the EPA has the authority to shut down factories and tell them they need to make changes because we take pollution seriously compared to China who just takes it lightly which isn’t a good thing.

Moreover, carbon and petroleum, compounds which produce large amounts of carbon emissions when burned, have accounted for more than half of the energy produced in 2013, while cleaner energy sources, such as solar and wind power, were reported as less than 10% of the produced energy (Adams). Developing countries, like China and India, play a huge role in the production. China alone contributed 27% of 2011’s total carbon emissions (Union). The process of modernization and the air pollution that this causes has led to uncontrollable environmental damage, in addition to a huge influx of health defects and pollution-related deaths.

This article describes the threat coal burning possesses towards China by vastly increasing air pollution, leading to many deaths. Furthermore, the article details both how effective the Chinese government’s response has been towards the increasing dangers of air pollution and the effect of heavy air pollution. The author, Edward Wong, a former TIME news foreign correspondent, has written many unbiased articles related to global crises for NY Times and TIMES News. Published by the somewhat reliable news source New York Times, the credibility of the author compensates for any issues. Covering many important issues around the world such as the Iraq war, the author’s credibility is vastly justified. This article provides detail into the damage

The Economic boom from factories connection to air pollution is unconventional. The reason factories stay open is only for the monopoly it has over monetary distress. The economical perspective affects the health concerns beyond a doubt. Nearly 5-6 million people die every year due to an illness related to air pollution. The pollution is tremendously bad in China, which the people of China have to stay inside their homes with the windows shut at all times. China has faced their first “red alert” which has put a halt to usage of motor vehicles, and factories stopped operation. People all over the world are suffering from air pollution, some cases worse than others. Urbanization constantly grows each year which contributes to air pollution which has an immense impact on the

One of China’s best successes has in turn been one of its biggest downfalls. One of the main problems is China’s greatest success which has been its phenomenal economic growth. This is one of the main drivers of the current environmental problems that the country faces. Factories dump pollutants into the air and water. It is difficult to see the Chinese government making the significant sacrifices required to improve their environment if it means slowing down their economic growth.