Throughout The Past Century, China Has Powered Through

In the recent years, global warming has taken an increasingly prominent role in the international society. Today, the great debate over the existence of global warming is over; almost everyone believes that global warming is a real issue that must be addressed. The world is now at the step in which it must take action to combat climate change. In the push to do this, many countries report their carbon emissions. However, in reporting our carbon emissions, many people are jumping to conclusions by wrongly pointing at China as most responsible for climate change.

Fears of polluted air and water, and the extinction of wildlife species due to contamination have overtaken the western world. In an excerpt, titled “The Filth They Breathe in China,” taken from American historian, Michael Auslin’s book, the author focuses on the nation where, due to its rapid industrial growth, these effects of pollution are most prominent, China. In his article, Auslin, uses anecdotes, uses strong diction, and uses appeals to logic and credibility in order to capture the enormity of China’s pollution problem.

Small changes that lead to bigger changes are being made. The book Collapse tells us about changes that China has made to change the environmental problem at hand. In 1973 China established Leading Group for Environmental Protection, which later became State

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.

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

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

Bill Mckibben brings up common misconceptions of what causes climate change. Since China is the world’s

In Susan Shirk’s book ‘Fragile Superpower’, the author illustrates that the multitude of internal problems that China faces and will continue to face could potentially undermine its peaceful rise. Although the Chinese people have experienced a major upgrade in their living standards in just twenty-five years, the Chinese economic transformation has not been without significant social and environmental costs. As a consequence of its economic transformation, China has developed a number of internal stresses, which have posed existential threats to its national economy and political structure. One of these stresses is a growing shortage of natural resources in China. One significant systemic level cause for the rise in Chinese developmental finance

Global warming and climate change are global issues that is occurring right now. Climate change is now a global problem that can not be ignored. As climate change hint the failure of China, this issue is causing Chinese people to look back at their religions or traditions in order to find the ecological knowledge. Daoism is one of the most popular religion that people re-examine in China. Daoism teaches ideas that emphasize on saving and informing climate ethics, which can develop a culture of supporting a sustainable future. In China, schools have been teaching “Drinking Alone Under the Moon” to kids in school to take a good care of the environment they are living in.

The IPAT Model for estimating our environmental impact is Impact (I) = Population (P) X Affluence (A) X Technology (T). More developed countries impact can be measured by taking everything (most importantly Affluence (A)) into account while most less developed countries impact can be measured through the population (mostly). Affluence could be a major player in countries whose economies are increasingly growing. Due to China’s affluent consumers, China contained 2/3 of the world’s most polluted cities. Its rivers are infested with waste and pollution. Some of its coastlines are devoid of marine life. If China continues to prosper at such speeds, by 2025, it will require 2/3 of world’s current grain harvest, twice the amount of paper consumed in the world, and more than all the oil currently produced in the world.

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.

While reading previous articles, I was able to understand America’s role in climate change and how our society can help to stop it, but when it comes to other countries, it’s difficult to understand what they do to harm or to help the environment. Anthony H. F. Li wrote an article called Hopes of Limiting Global Warming? China and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. This article was able to highlight agreements that countries, including China, France, Germany, and America, have made with each other to limit the threat of global warming around the world. Although Li’s main idea was to explain how China contributes to limiting carbon emissions, he still included information of how China connects with countries around the world to end this worldwide issue. Li states in his article, “[China’s] milestone cooperation was realized by a major shift in the domestic politics of the two countries in favor of carbon emission cuts. …China also submitted INDC of its own, which detailed reduction targets and reaffirmed its intention to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and to reduce carbon intensity by 60-65% from 2005 levels,” (Li 50). From this, I can conclude that China is willing to take major steps to limit the amount of trapped heat that stays in the atmosphere. However, I learned that most countries will not move forward on their own. Li makes it clear that all participating countries need to work

Climate change is one of the most important issue humanity is currently facing and is negatively affecting our planet as a whole; unless change occurs, our world will face a wide range of negative consequences in the future. Specifically, life in China is being drastically affected by climate change. China, a major climate change contributor, is being impacted negatively by the effects of climate change throughout their country. Along with environmental problems, climate change is creating social, economic and political changes in China. Climate change is impacting the Chinese society by increasing natural disasters and creating food and water shortages. China’s economy is being impacted from rising sea levels and the reducing amount of

The population on China is constantly increasing and it is increasing quickly. Because of the population increase there are more and more carbon emission, which is causing a lot of pollution in China. “While China’s economic boom has greatly accelerated the devastation of its land and resources, the roots of its environmental problem stretch back centuries” (Albert and Xu, 2016). China’s environment is becoming more and more polluted and it is also causing harm to the plants, animals and ecosystem there. China’s population began booming and has increased by about 10% every year for the last decade (Albert and Xu, 2016). While the population increases so does the industrialization of the country which in turn increases the carbon emissions and pollution. The water is also becoming increasingly

China has rebuilt itself from having an unstable economy, a collapsed government followed by a few turbulent years of corruption and political instability to having the world’s largest population, state-of-the-art technological advances, an incredibly growing economy and several influential leaders. The country has been credited for many inventions indispensable today such as paper, the compass, mechanical clocks, and gunpowder among others and always thought to be ahead of its time technologically. The Chinese government continues to place emphasis on innovation by allowing its people to do research on various subjects such as stem-cell research and gene therapy; these are widely controversial in other