Air pollution cuts life expectancy by 5.5 years in China

[Chino]

Holy. Shit.

 https://money.cnn.com/2013/07/09/news/china-air-pollution/index.html?iid=Lead

My favorite part of the article comes toward the end "China's leaders have promised that health safeguards will be improved and efforts will be made to control air pollution, but their options are restricted by economic concerns." .... yes. fan-fucking-tastic. Let's put the fate of our species on hold because it might adversely affect some companies' profit margins. This shit makes my blood boil. This blows my mind and at the same time doesn't surprise me at all. Hopefully with findings like this some action may finally start being taken.

[Perpetual Change]

Ouch. When I was there the government called it "fog" rather than smog.

[TioJorge]

It begins.








The Steampunk era.

[bosk1]

Um...this should not be a surprise to anyone who has actually been to China. 

[Super Dude]

Holy. Shit.

 https://money.cnn.com/2013/07/09/news/china-air-pollution/index.html?iid=Lead

My favorite part of the article comes toward the end "China's leaders have promised that health safeguards will be improved and efforts will be made to control air pollution, but their options are restricted by economic concerns." .... yes. fan-fucking-tastic. Let's put the fate of our species on hold because it might adversely affect some companies' profit margins. This shit makes my blood boil. This blows my mind and at the same time doesn't surprise me at all. Hopefully with findings like this some action may finally start being taken.

If we can do it here, they sure as hell can do it there.

[rumborak]

A direct shot of the sun, taken in Xian. You could look straight at it because of the smog.

[Perpetual Change]

I spent about a week in Xian this time last year. It was really that bad. Every day was cloudy, and walking around downtown was like walking into the middle of a huge construction zone, there was so much dust and smog flying everywhere.

I'm scared and concerned for Chinese people. There's a lot of buzz about how China's making great leaps and becoming part of the first world, but in my experience that was all skin deep, and it doesn't take a long gaze to realize everything's haphazard and stilted beneath the surface. There's a lot of people and if they can't solve their environmental and impending financial crisis there things could get really ugly in a lot of people's lives.

[sueño]

It's too bad the Chinese didn't ramp up their production and economy with "greener" solutions in the first place.  Here in the West, we went thru all our nasty air pollution, smog, etc to a large degree during the first three quarters of the 20th century.  Then, EPA came into effect and more attention was paid to cleaning up the environment and keeping it clean.

China was in a prime space to take advantage of the mistakes we made and use the better technology from the start.  They certainly have the means to do it -- everybody on earth owes them money.

Having air you can chew is shameful. 

[Super Dude]

Even with the EPA, we're far from clean. How can you expect to impose those standards on others if you won't impose them on yourselves?

[sueño]

True, but we're better than we used to be.

I'm old enough to remember factories, oil refineries and the like belching out tons of disgusting, smelly smoke -- everywhere.  I can't remember the last time I saw exhaust like that here.

It also used to be acceptably common to throw trash out the car window, break bottles on sidewalks, etc.  "Give a hoot, don't pollute" was a well-known slogan in my grade school days.  I think those sorts of campaigns helped.

Now, I know there is a LOT of other types of pollution that is probably even more insidious.  But the culture is now much more environmentally conscious than it was and that's a good thing.

[Chino]

True, but we're better than we used to be.

I'm old enough to remember factories, oil refineries and the like belching out tons of disgusting, smelly smoke -- everywhere.  I can't remember the last time I saw exhaust like that here.

It also used to be acceptably common to throw trash out the car window, break bottles on sidewalks, etc.  "Give a hoot, don't pollute" was a well-known slogan in my grade school days.  I think those sorts of campaigns helped.

Now, I know there is a LOT of other types of pollution that is probably even more insidious.  But the culture is now much more environmentally conscious than it was and that's a good thing.

This. Reworking the entire industrial complex isn't easy. It can take decades. We are taking the steps required to eventually get to what could be considered a 'healthy' industry environment. I actually think the US is making good progress. China seems to just not give a shit.

[yorost]

I think they are ahead of us in some areas, take their water systems (in cities I've been to, anyways). Water is widely solar heated. You can not only reduce emissions from energy production, but you end up using less water as to conserve your hot water stores.

[Perpetual Change]

Even with the EPA, we're far from clean. How can you expect to impose those standards on others if you won't impose them on yourselves?

Yeah, I mean, it was China's choice to go in the greedy direction they went. They could have gone more by way of Brazil. Brazil's not perfect, and the economy has issues, but at least the conscious decision to slow down growth for the sake of well-being means that the ebbs and flows are more stable, wheras China's like a cheap N.Korean rocket ready to launch and come crashing down.

[bosk1]

I'm scared and concerned for Chinese people. There's a lot of buzz about how China's making great leaps and becoming part of the first world, but in my experience that was all skin deep, and it doesn't take a long gaze to realize everything's haphazard and stilted beneath the surface. There's a lot of people and if they can't solve their environmental and impending financial crisis there things could get really ugly in a lot of people's lives.

This.  And I didn't mean to make light of the situation in my previous post either.  It's just that this is so obvious that it is almost comical that we need an official study for people to sit up and take notice.

Even with the EPA, we're far from clean. How can you expect to impose those standards on others if you won't impose them on yourselves?

Well, we shouldn't impose a set of standards on anyone else.  They can choose to adopt better standards or not, but it is nobody's right to impose standards on a particular nation.  I think it is terribly presumptuous to even think in those terms. 

I dunno.  Maybe I'm overreacting a bit to your word choice.  Obviously, if one nation's pollution is so bad that it impacts another nation (e.g. Chinese pollution drifting across the Pacific and contributing to the pollution in the L.A. area), there is an implicit right to say, "Hey, you guys are impacting our citizens!  Clean that crap up!"  But your word choice makes me feel as if you mean something beyond that.

[Super Dude]

Whether we should or shouldn't, we do through the Kyoto Protocols and our occasional diplomatic negotiations with this country, that country, and the other try to press them to go green. And by green, it usually means greener than us so we don't have to. You can imagine how well that goes down.

[Perpetual Change]

How about Chinese pollution that drifts over to Japan, or (dare I say) Hong Kong?

BTW, if you guys think this is scary, India currently are on track to burn more dirty energy than China.

[sueño]

I don't know if it's a matter of "imposing standards".  To me, it just seems to be common sense (of course we know how UNcommon that often is    ).

Everyone has to breathe.  If you can't breathe well, you will get sick, period.  It's truly too bad that the Chinese government has elected to expand without investing in ways to do it with less damage to environment and health.  It would have been easier to do in the first place, with technology that has already proven to be helpful, than it is now to do factories, etc. over again.  No one wants to take that time, now. 

It's a tragedy that it comes down to "you're not the boss of me" attitudes between countries (or even companies within our own) when talking about things like this.  It should be a no brainer -- keeping it clean will be better for all.

[Perpetual Change]

It's a tragedy that it comes down to "you're not the boss of me" attitudes between countries (or even companies within our own) when talking about things like this.  It should be a no brainer -- keeping it clean will be better for all.

While I agree with the sentiment, there's no avoidance of "you're not boss of me" attitudes between the US and China There's not so much the US can do to make China stop destroying their environment. Except maybe try and make US companies adhere to stricter responsibilities when doing manufacturing over there (which, in that case, they'd just go somewhere, which they are already doing anyway).

[Super Dude]

And actually it's like that between most countries, the whole "you're not the boss of me" thing. It's what international relations scholars call international realism. It's just the way of the world.

[sueño]

No, I know that.

I guess what is puzzling to me is why it's even necessary.  It's YOUR HOUSE!!!  Why should anyone have to "make" you keep it clean?

I'm more curious about the mentality of anyone/any country that callously disregards the health and well-being of where they live.  I'm not interested in the politics of it, though I know it's there.

It's the madness of it all.   

[Frank]

Well, maybe if China destroys both the Chinese land and Japan everybody can move to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and finally get along. (I would put the troll emoticon here but don't know how.)

But seriously, international relations is extraordinarily complicated and can't be broken down into a few simple guidelines. Each country has its own unique culture, its own unique relations with other countries, not to mention the diversity that exists within countries already, even so-called "homogeneous"ones like Japan. I'm a double major, among which one is Japanese, and thinking about Asian relations constantly makes my head hurt and put me in a pessimistic mood.

[Dr. DTVT]

The problem is that Chinese culture is no different than any other culture: A group of people become powerful and exploit the hell out of whatever they can to stay in power.  In 21st century China, it's manufacturing at rock bottom prices and dirty fuels are much cheaper.  The people who own the factories don't give a damn because they are raking money in hand over fist and if one of their workers dies there are a billion other people to take their place. Outsiders are more than willing to be complicit in the matter, all of us included, because we continue to order and buy from them.  Change probably isn't going to come from outside pressure, but from within.  The one big difference is that Chinese people tend not to speak against the status quo, so it might take longer for social change to happen there as compared to America, where we're basically all descendants of rebels of some kind.

[Zook]

Population control.

[The King in Crimson]

Population control.

For China or for the whole world?

[Chino]

Population control.

For China or for the whole world?

Both if they keep it up.

[Chino]

China smog emergency shuts city of 11 million people

https://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/21/us-china-smog-idUSBRE99K02Z20131021

(Reuters) - Choking smog all but shut down one of northeastern China's largest cities on Monday, forcing schools to suspended classes, snarling traffic and closing the airport, in the country's first major air pollution crisis of the winter.

An index measuring PM2.5, or particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5), reached a reading of 1,000 in some parts of Harbin, the gritty capital of northeastern Heilongjiang province and home to some 11 million people.

A level above 300 is considered hazardous, while the World Health Organisation recommends a daily level of no more than 20.

I know I bitch a lot about the US, but I'm thrilled that I don't need to live in an area where I need to deal with this shit.

[ResultsMayVary]

That is mind-blowing. Absolutely terrible.