We’ve made so much progress in the USA. 75 years ago, we may have witnessed some scenes like this in today’s China. Unfortunately, the de-industrialization of the west just moved the western problems of the past to a country that doesn’t seem to care much about pollution control.
At the junction of Ningxia province and Inner Mongolia province, I saw a tall chimney puffing out golden smoke covering the blue sky, large tracts of the grassland have become industrial waste dumps; unbearable foul smell made people want to cough; Surging industrial sewage flowed into the Yellow River…”
– Lu Guang
Or how about his one?
In Inner Mongolia there were 2 “black dragons” from the Lasengmiao Power Plant (内蒙古拉僧庙发电厂) covering the nearby villages. July 26, 2005
See the complete photo essay on pollution in China here.
Be thankful for what you have, and show this to your favorite environmentalist the next time he/she complains about the pollution sins of western civilization.
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Remember that 100+ years ago in rich Western industrial cities, people were still dying young of childbirth, tuberculosis, rickets, malaria, smallpox, measles, polio, diptheria, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, etc., not to mention WWI . They usually didn’t have time to get sick and die from smokestacks. Born in 1850, white folks in the US could hope to live to age 39.
China’s problem now is its old people and lack of females to build the next generation and/or care for the elderly. It’s gonna be ugly!
The “Asian Brown Cloud” was named before China/India’s development as manufacturing centers for the world. Perhaps now they have some electricity in homes, before each home burned their own coal/wood/dung/wax/oil. Heating aside, people cook.
what these pcitures suggest most prominently is that a country which produces this kind of pollution is one that is highly unlikey to embrace such anexpensive technology transfer to non carbon producing environmental energy to get rid off a substance from the sir that currently kills no-one according to many scientists.
i think there is a link beteen carbon and coal and injuries, ie if they were to produce less carbon dioxide the people living near factories would not suffer the adverse effects again. however the flip side is undoubtedy thata lot more people are better off because of these advancements. I would imagine average longevity has increased in china and gdp certainly has.
Though i’m sure future design of power stations could be built further from population or have higher smoke stacks. They obviously have not even the simpler controls that we have.
again thoug much of this polltutio is not just about carbon dioxide it about chemiacls and dead rivers and other forms of pollutants that would exist regradless.
however i would agree that they could somethinig about it iremeber from some rsearcj that they have a ridicously smale environmental agency for the scale of the jobs they undertake.
Environmentalism is like black pepper, a little is good on almost anything, but it is pretty easy to get carried away and ruin dinner.
It is all about balance. It is great that we are not creating new Love Canals, rivers on fire, and that our air is cleaner. If we go too far with it, it ends up being the same place that we started from. Not only will the third world pollute madly on their road to prosperity, our prosperity will wane. Once our prosperity wanes, we will no longer be able to afford non-essentials like environmentalism, and the wheel will have spun the 360º.
The enviro movement has hit a wall much like the MADD mommies have. Both have significantly cleaned up the problem, but are addicted to the money and power. Mission creep be damned, they will find something else to worry about as long as they stay funded/empowered. We don’t need a new OWI law or a new environmental law every 6 weeks, or you WILL ruin dinner. Oh crap, too late..
If the American environmental movement were serious about the environment, they would look a lot different than they do today. They would be pushing pictures like this with a buy American campaign. They would be looking at common propulsion on highways, and looking at market based and efficiency based products instead of the always punitive approach. They would start a renewable power company and show us how it is done.
For example, if you told me that there was a gadget that would make my old 4×4 truck double in gas mileage, I would beat a path to your door and give you a grand for it. The path now is not spending money on developing that gadget, but rather mandating it, even though it doesn’t exist, and if it did, they would screw with it until it didn’t work, by law.
Easy on the pepper please..
Money makes the world go round;
counterfeit money
make the world unsound.
Bankers print;
Americans buy;
Chinese work
under polluted skies.
You don’t like the world
it seems unreal?
What would you expect
when we are clearly warned
“Thou shall not steal?”
Well what do we expect from people who are highly educated to hate this country, and bow down to foreign rulers, while apologizing for our wickedness?
“Crosspatch:
Oregon is a great example. They have put all these regulations in place to reduce CO2 emissions. It will not make an iota of difference. Oregon has a goal to reduce CO2 emissions by 300,000 metric tons per year. China is increasing emissions at the rate of 300,000,000 metric tons per year. If Oregon reached its goal, it will have been surpassed 1000 times by China. In the overall scheme of things, Oregon amounts to a raindrop in the ocean, it can not even be measured. If it takes Oregon 5 years to do that, China will have increased her emissions by 1,500,000,000 tons at the current rate of increase. These people have absolutely no concept of the scale of what they are talking about.”
Of course they don’t, and could care less. There are really two groups of individuals that I encounter on the other side. The first are the naive pawns/footsoldiers, and their mantra can be summed up as “Any pollution/C02 is bad, period, and that someone else is doing worse is no excuse. We must do our best to stop all of this evil polution from taking place here, because we can control what we do HERE.” The second are the people that know better, and understand full well what you’ve outlined, but it’s of no interest to them at all, because they’re the money-handlers. They WANT that tax, they NEED that tax to pass so that they can fund their agenda. They want to forment fear, dissent, and exercise control.
This is why I’ve said so many times here that this is not about winning a logical, rational, debate. That has absolutely nothing to do with anything.
Follow the money.
Americans did NOT support the first bank bailout by an overwhelming margin…it happened anyway.
Americans did NOT support the stimulus packages by an overwhelming majority, they happened anyway. Half of what the politicians and media do is designed primarily to keep everyone’s eye off the REAL ball…keep us focused on things that are of no import whatsoever. Greatest game of 3-card Monty ever.
We, as a society, have not yet figured out how control this system/process called “politics”, and so by default, it continues to control us. There are little glimmers of sunshine here and there…it will be interesting to see if one or more of them become serious breaks in the clouds. I have real hope that technology will play a major role in this.
Follow the money.
JimB
This doesn’t only affect China and Japan. One-third of the airborne pollution on the west coast of the U.S. comes from mainland China.
wakeupmaggy says: “China’s problem now is its old people and lack of females to build the next generation and/or care for the elderly. It’s gonna be ugly!”
That’s another problem brewing. The routine aborting of millions of females in China is producing a huge excess of boys. The government will naturally funnel those excess boys into its growing military; they can’t have them roaming the country and causing internal dissension.
The Chinese military will grow significantly, fed by millions of boys who can’t settle down because they have little hope of finding available women. The military will wield greater foreign policy influence. And when you have a hammer in your hand, you notice nails everywhere. It really will get ugly.
Both of my parents grew up in a northern industrial city, and my mother remembers quite clearly that she and her sisters were never allowed to hang white laundry outside to dry, because it would be ruined from the factory soot.
Modern (young) environmental activists have no idea how much the US has cleaned up over the last 50 years. The change is astounding, and has occurred in almost all areas. For example, it is still common to complain about “deforestation” of the US by commercialization; except that total forest covered areas in the US have been *rising* every year for 80 years now. That is explained away by claims that only “primary” forests count, which has the neat trick of meaning that once a primary forest has been cut (as most in the US were by the 1920’s) then nothing anyone ever does can make that up, even if all the land is left alone and allowed to regrow naturally for 75 years.
If you define a problem so that nothing anyone can ever do can fix it, then you’ve set up a good eternal grievance that you can milk for all you can get. Which of course is the real motive here.
David Alan (22:45:35) :
That was a five day fog in late October 1948 in Donora PA thanks to the Zinc Works and possibly related to Fluoride chemicals used in the smelting process. Various links:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_594338.html says
“To Pitt doctor, pollution in China smelled like her childhood in Donora”
Officially, the U.S. government, through the Public Health Service, determined that the deaths and the illnesses of about 6,000 people in Donora and Webster were the result of a temperature inversion that kept a layer of fog blanketing Donora for five days.
But people pointed the finger at the zinc works immediately, and Davis said recently uncovered autopsy reports point to highly reactive fluoride gas as the culprit.
http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=532
This has some small photos and a summary of the event.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/phenom_nov99.html
“It was so bad,” Jerry Campa, a Donora, Pennsylvania, restaurateur recalls, “that I’d accidentally step off the curb and turn my ankle because I couldn’t see my feet.” The acrid, yellowish gray blanket that began to smother the Monongahela River mill town in late October 1948 was more suffocating than anything any Donoran had ever seen – or inhaled – in the past. Before a rainstorm washed the ugly soup away five days later, 20 people had died or would soon succumb and nearly 6,000 of the 14,000 population had been sickened.
http://www.depweb.state.pa.us/heritage/cwp/view.asp?A=3&Q=533403#died
This has several accounts above and below this one:
20 died. The government took heed.
In 1948, a killer fog spurred air cleanup
He and another man grabbed two cylinders, tied handkerchiefs across their faces, and stepped outside into the cloud, trying to feel their way across town. It took 45 minutes to go five blocks. The firefighters didn’t have enough oxygen for everyone, so they gave the injured three or four breaths and then moved on to the next house.
“They . . . resented that, because once we left, the person would go right back into that condition,” Schempp said. “But there wasn’t anything we could do about it. We had to help those other people.”
Thousands were falling sick with crushing headaches, stomach cramps and vomiting. Some coughed up blood. Meanwhile, the zinc works churned along — the plant wasn’t ordered shut until Sunday. That night, a drizzly rain began to fall, slowly dispersing the fog.
We, Australians are running our economy on the blood money and the slave labor of these Chinese people….. I told y’all it wasn’t a good idea to deal with China…. or to let our corruptible social elites and politicians rub shoulders with tyrants.
This is all only ever gonna end in tears.
There was serios pollution in the industrial cities like Pittsburgh in the 1940’s and early ’50’s. That’s because everything had taken a back seat to the war effort, and following the war, the reconstruction of Europe and Japan.
But the basic reason for China’s horrible pollution is different. In the U.S. and the West, a clean environment and the health and welfare of the citizens takes precedence over money. But in China, nothing is more important than money. Pollution abatement costs money, and detracts from profits. The results are in the pictures.
There are some fundamentals here we are missing. First, Eastern/Central Europe’s devastating pollution came from the Soviet Union stealing factories after WWII and then stealing natural resources/human resources via industrialization that only served the Soviet masters. Vampirization we might call it.
In the US that industrial pollution was used for expanding “democracy” and affluence. As the latter was gained, “people” demanded cleaner industry. Other commenters here have discussed the problems with lack of reasonable (olive green) environmentalism; perhaps we do not desire the fruits of our industry and our smarts to clean it up at the same time. (We did not just ship it out; global corporations found the cheapest way to produce; capitalism to succeed needs discipline, not simply avarice and free market thuggery. Financial institutions making money only for the bankers/financiers by destroying equity and to hell with the rest might even be worse than the totalitarians. Only time will tell.)
Yes, China’s GDP is increasing, but to whom and for what purposes is most of that productivity going? For a long time, not just today, China’s pollution has been/is worse than ever was the U.S.’s and it kills/sickens many without much recourse. Which country’s leader(s) murdered millions in the 20th Century?
Keep your eyes not only on the money, but on the elites of whatever social/political organization — islamic, marxist, fascist totalitarianism are and have always been the most dangerous. But unregulated, unbridled, undisciplined free market thuggery can produce some of the same effects. (Aside, try George Soros as one of many capitalist elites today.)
“Smokey (06:04:31) :
That’s another problem brewing. The routine aborting of millions of females in China is producing a huge excess of boys. The government will naturally funnel those excess boys into its growing military; they can’t have them roaming the country and causing internal dissension.”
Include India in that demographic nightmare. Both nuclear powers with millions of male workers, miners, and especially soldiers. Mark Steyn and David P Goldman, Associate Editor of First Things (www.firstthings.com) comment frequently on world demographics.
How is it that the two most heavily populated countries on earth have both decided to forego the natural gender balance? Imagine the unforeseen consequences! Russia and much of Europe are depopulating altogether, how can annexation of these lands by India and China be avoided? The UN certainly isn’t going to stop them.
A little climactic warming or cooling is going to be the least of our childrens worries.
Garacka (21:21:30) :
In the U.S. the CO2 is white but in China it’s yellow and black. Does that mean it can take on different colors in different places?
Except that, in places like the U.S. where the “C02” is white, the trick is to have the light source in back of the smokestack. Voila, instant, black evil “carbon” spewing forth. And of course people know that carbon is black, which is why they always use the term “carbon” instead of carbon dioxide, which of course is invisible.
I had one AGW moron argue once, after I pointed that out, that “so is Carbon Monoxide”.
Of course, the US is the baddie. There is no hope at all of the Chinese writing checks to pay their “carbon debt”. A lot of countries still hope that the US will do that, and perhaps lead the West to do that, even better.
@ur momisugly Smokey (06:34:31) :
In the U.S. and the West, a clean environment and the health and welfare of the citizens takes precedence over money.
This environmental degradation was typical of the West in the 19th century, but the economy was less powerful, population was less, cities smaller, and some wonderful toxins had yet to be inveted. Communist regimes of the 20th century managed to combine a lot of the worst of modern industry with the worst of 19th century capitalism in its quest to “catch up” economically.
The statement by Smokey (what’s in a name?) is an optimistic one. The one truth it contains is that we do have a functioning democracy which tends to moderate the forces of industry, although not in West Virginia and other sad places. There’s no reason to think it can’t change for the better in China, as it did here.
There are major societies that implode. They don’t make it. It happened throughout history. It will happen again. China, and the wall that defines its borders, is one of those societies that I believe will implode, not get better when they rich up. It will die a slow agonizing death and will be attacked and torn apart much like a lion killed zebra. Why China and not us? Because the poor in the US are willing to fight tooth and toenail for their individual rights. I believe that we have a genetic trait brought about by our generational migration pattern. Malcontents left the old country and hung onto a slim spit of American land. They had kids. Then malcontents from there inched their way inland. They had kids. And the migration continued generation after generation. We self-evolved into malcontents. With the chops to back it up. China citizens not so much, be they rich or poor.
Most commenters here make the leap between industrial pollution and GHG emissions. While somewhat related, it’s worth pointing out that they are nonetheless completely different animals. A good illustration of this is our cars, whose engines today can be so clean-burning that in some cities they actually emit a cleaner air than they take in. That is, of course, if we disregard CO2 as a pollutant. Personally, I don’t care how one calls it. What I know is that somehow we must get rid of fossil fuels and find other ways to produce energy. I also know that it is possible. Those who say it’ll wreck the economy are playing the “alarmist” card themselves. I am sure that they wouldn’t say that if, for example, we were running out of oil, gas and coal. Those same people would invoke the genius of capitalism and free market to determine the best solutions to the problem. And I would in fact agree with them.
China seems to make the calculation that wrecking their environment for the time being is worth it. They are trying to lift millions of people out of poverty, and we all know that when that is the case, the environment is an afterthought. As they gain wealth, they will also want prestige and respect, and I think that will change. In fact, there does seem to be a turnaround in their thinking, as illustrated by their efforts to be more energy efficient in the future. They are not yet in a position to cut their emissions (after all, their emissions per capita are still far below those in the US), but they acknowledge the problem. In doing so, they are showing that they are smart. They know that there is only so much they can get from selling cheap plastic toys to the West. They see the future is in high-tech AND green industry, something that sadly not all of us do, apparently.
Perhaps this is the real reason for the recent global cooling.
They go after the USA because they know the USA is weak and will fold to their demands. A government like China wont bow down easily. Hence they go after the easiest targets first reguardless of how much damage they actually do.
Its not about the earth silly, its about the power.
“Chinese officials waste half their environmental budget”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6574125/Chinese-officials-waste-half-their-environmental-budget.html
“Wang Jinnan, the deputy director of the Academy For Environmental Planning, said that “more than 40 per cent” of the money will end up being wasted by Communist party cadres on extravagant follies to boost their personal prestige.”
“What I know is that somehow we must get rid of fossil fuels and find other ways to produce energy.” chmd
Porque? If CO2 is not a problem (and it is not, it is a blessing) then what is the objection? Let proper economics decide the issue.
An increasing population needs more food equals more need for CO2.
They see the future is in high-tech AND green industry, something that sadly not all of us do, apparently. chmd
Feel sorry for yourself since you apparently don’t understand economics that well.
When, if and where “green” makes economic sense then it will be adapted.
Let’s have true liberty and then we won’t have a few opinionated ninnies trying to dictate to the rest of US.
*********************
John F. Hultquist (21:28:06) :
**********************
One part of the solution for third world hunger has to be the high-tech remedy of birth control. We in the US really need to push that solution IMO.
In his post-9/11 essay “Can There Be a Decent Left?” about the “[t]he radical failure of the left’s response to the events” on 9/11, Michael Walzer tried to explain why people on the political left are so reluctant to condemn terrorism and at least two of his reasons are probably relevant here, too:
“(3) The moral purism of blaming America first: many leftists seem to believe that this is like blaming oneself, taking responsibility for the crimes of the imperial state. In fact, when we blame America, we also lift ourselves above the blameworthy (other) Americans. […]”
“(4) The sense of not being entitled to criticize anyone else: how can we live in the United States, the richest, most powerful, and most privileged country in the world-and say anything critical about people who are poorer and weaker than we are? This was a major issue in the 1960s, when the New Left seemed to have discovered ‘oppression’ for the first time, and we all enlisted on the side of oppressed men and women and failed, again and again, to criticize the authoritarianism and brutality that often scar their politics. There is no deeper impulse in left politics than this enlistment; solidarity with people in trouble seems to me the most profound commitment that leftists make. But this solidarity includes, or should include, a readiness to tell these people when we think they are acting wrongly, violating the values we share. […]”
A choice between starvation and pollution.I know which one I’d choose,and I believe China is rich enough now to clean a lot up.The Chinese government has been given free rein by people who proclaim that the west is responsible.China could be shamed into action,but they won’t be,not while the west is busy flagellating itself.