The Pollution Of China Air Pollution

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.

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.

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).

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

As mentioned in Diamond’s book, Collapse, China has been facing and is still facing air pollution and environmental damages. The air pollution crisis in China is caused mainly by their large economic boom causing more factories, vehicles, and overpopulation (Clark, et al.). “Pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide are rising due to the increasing numbers of motor vehicles and the coal- dominated energy generation” (Diamond 363). Because of the immediate effects of air pollution such as the smog that is visible to citizens in China, many citizens wear face masks every day to protect themselves and their health. Diamond also mentions the fact that because China has the worst environmental damages such as air pollution, this might affect the rest of the world.

Beijing, China has a coal mining history of nearly 800 and some odd years. This has been a major air pollutant and the main reason for it is because its economy has grown substantially in the last 30 years. Worldwide, there are twenty cities with the highest, worst air pollution, sixteen of those cities are within China alone. The main causes of Beijing’s air pollution can be pointed to several factors. Large economical growth, an increase in vehicles on the roads, growth in population, and manufacturing. China has also experienced major economic growth with a large rise in Gross Domestic Product. This increase can be connected with pollution. Vehicles are just one contributor to pollution which we will discuss later in this paper.

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.

For decades America has fought tirelessly to put a controlled cap on pollution, but surprisingly, America is not the problem when speaking in terms of pollution. World in the Balance- China Revs Up is a documentary on the continuously growing pollution rates in China. The documentary also explains what causes the rise in pollution and how it affects the environment around the world. The theme that follows this documentary is that, through the constant advances of China, pollution continues to grow and negatively impact the world. Cars and smoke created from coal is only two of the many ways pollutants enter the air in China, which makes it very difficult to breathe and even in some cases leads to health issues.

A Ghanaian and founder of Smart Youth Volunteers Foundation, Lailah Gifty Akita said “Laziness has made our cities unclean. If we begin to work and act appropriately, we will clean our cities of any dirt.” People’s self-centered personality had caused the pollution, and if people think more about the city and implicate to help then people can get rid of the pollution. So, as the city that suffers from one of the most serious pollutions, Beijing air quality is a getting worse every year because of the dearth of citizen support. Also, Beijing population is increasing and as people increase so do the number of cars. Unfortunately, the amount of trees shrinks, and the Beijing government cannot reduce the use of coal that is unnecessary. Consequently, Beijing suffers from air pollution as a result of high population density, commercial use of coal, and lack of citizen involvement.

The smog in Xingtai blankets the northeastern Chinese city in a perpetual gray overcast. Media outlets show a monochromatic slide show of how badly that air quality is in regions of China creating and their own buzzword, Airpocalypes. Pictures of heavy smog smothering high-rises, offices, and apartment complexes that would fit well in Ridley Scott’s dystopian movie, Blade Runner. Images of motorcyclist wearing pollution masks in the hopes of blocking out most of the harmful air particles. Californians can see these images and yet feel as if a scenario like Xingtai can never happen here.

This article that is based on the air pollution in China talks about how contaminated air is constantly killing people who live in major cities of China, especially because the levels of pollution are much higher in China than they are in the United States and other areas. This article displays an environmental and social issue because people expect that there will be no host for the 2022 Olympics if the issues with the environment and pollution keep up in China. This could be a major disadvantage towards the way the Olympics works and towards the amount of deaths caused by pollution in China.

The United States of America has always been projected as a developed and liberalized nation when it is compared to other countries. China, for instance, is a very strict and still developing nation. However, that is not the case. Environmentally, the USA and China both undergo horrible air pollution that affects not only the land, but the people as well. Since both nations make up the majority of the world’s population, it is important to focus on the health and living conditions of all inhabitants.

Beijing is one place that has a huge problem. Their amount of pollution that they are releasing into the air is going to eventually become very toxic and no one is going to be able to survive. They are also one of the worst air quality countries in the world. There was a red alert that happened not too long ago and it finally hit a trigger that something needed to be done. “Now, in a swift policy shift, Beijing plans to issue a red alert on higher thresholds, despite government pledges to better address the toxic air” (Guo). Much of this issue is coming from the enormous amount of coal that is burned. After the alert was sent out, they had to close schools and also put strict limits on the use of cars. It would take years to even make half

Since Hong Kong restructured to financial industry base. Hong Kong government trend to build more high buildings in core business districts to attract foreign companies invest Hong Kong, due to high rent of office/commercial buildings and lack of these buildings especially in Central and Wan Chai. The population growth makes the demand of housing increasing. Therefore, Hong Kong has become mixed-use development and has appeared many high-rise residential or commercial buildings. Now Hong Kong has 1,251 skyscrapers and high-rises and the amount is top of the world (Li, 2014). And these high-rise buildings are known as walled-building and this term is created by some environmentalists. Over these years, Hong Kong government has to find more flat land and build new housing like pushed 85,000 housing units annual target policy (Hong Kong Institute of Planners, 2007). But Hong Kong just a small place, government increase the plot ratio to build more houses. The development density can be calculated by maximum permitted plot ratio multiplying the site areas (Hong Kong Institute of Planners, 2007). The site area was granted by government getting large; developers plan the building on one side and club-house on the other site. And Hong Kong government through different exemption or bonus and for different objectives to increase additional floor area and buildings bulks for instance ancillary uses, green incentives and provision of public