Yeah, it does seem like an "out of the air, into the groundwater" solution. But sometimes you have to stop the bleeding before the injury can heal, and China is making progress [1] on the root cause also.
When the root cause is bad government that can't enforce environmental laws due to corruption...and you are the government who doesn't want to change (say by more accountability via elections and a free press), looking for something that instead treats the symptoms is attractive.
Make no mistake, China's pollution problem is very much a political one.
The root cause is focusing on economical development over everything else, including staggering inequality, pollution, and others.
The central governments' inability to enforce local municipalities to do whatever they want, is actually result of the shifting political structure from a single autocratic ruler during Mao's era to a more technocratic/autonomous style of ruling. This is a good thing, although it does create inefficiencies when central government interests conflict with local ones.
While this at least sounds encouraging, it masks regional variations, and perhaps most glaringly the impact of China:
China’s poverty rate fell from 85% to 15.9%, or by over 600 million people
China accounts for nearly all the world’s reduction in poverty
Excluding China, poverty fell only by around 10%
"""
There has indeed been a tradeoff with pollution here which they need to fix. However, I don't see why income inequality is a problem here. If you are starting from massive amounts of extreme poverty, then how would you possibly alleviate that without making some people wealthy?
... and precisely the sort of issue that only the Chinese government face. Hand-waving external commentators are quick to identify differences and ascribe guilt and blame, but often decisions must be made with consequences no honest and empathetic person would wish to set in motion. Look at the hydropower projects versus US military dominance of global oil... China (1.4 billion) is about 32% of Asia's (4.3b) population and 19% of the world's (7.3b). Imagine: one in five humans depends on your decision.
Reply to sean as out of posties: You want transparency in decision making? The west pretends it has it, but in reality even on matters of fiscal policy it doesn't. For example, look at central bank interest rate setting. It's done by secret departments. As another example, I asked Australia's body why it didn't embrace the IBAN like Europe, Israel and a growing list of other countries. I got no reply. Pot, kettle, black.
We all get that the Chinese government has to make tough decisions. All we are asking for is transparency and accountability, which would lead to better (less corrupt) decisions in the long term.
Much of this pollution has very little economic benefit in the short term and massive downsides in the long term. The real issue is corruption means it's cheaper for polluters ignore the problem than implement even cheap mitigation strategies.
It isn't that simple, right now it is a basic prisoner's dilemma: if factory A & B follow the law, they both have higher costs but these can be passed on; if A follows the law and B does not, then A goes out of business as their costs are higher than B; if A & B don't follow the law, then the environmental costs are passed on. Right now, the last case wins because the laws aren't enforced evenly.
China is not a dictatorship, but it is definitely autocratic even if the autocracy is distributed. Local party leaders are just as autocratic as central party leaders, and generally are more corrupt (getting more for their family, for example).
The biggest relevant fact on that page is half hidden. China pumps out 10 gigatonnes of CO2 every year. India? Just 2 gigatonnes tons. In fact, you could combine the U.S, E.U and India's C02 annual output, and it still wouldn't be as much as China. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
Why does that matter? Because India has roughly the same population size as China, but pumps significantly less C02 into the atmosphere.
It probably has more to do with the fact that China is the worlds factory (Foxconn?), while India has a lower portion of their economy in heavy industry.
As to why that's the case - again, this could be attributed to a political issue - government looks aside as BigCo craps on the country's environment, as long as it fuels the massive economy, keeping everyone optimistic.
Autocratic governments aren't exactly known for their forward seeking vision. Problems come up and half assed solutions come down. There's no democratic element to demand a higher level of service, say with how the US had its environment movement which led to many laws protecting the land, air, and water and ultimately culminated into several state agencies, federal guidelines, the EPA, etc. These are large holistic changes brought about by the democratic process in Western states. Autocratic states don't have this mechanism so its a lot of basic face saving moves because politically this issue isn't that important and/or interferes with the CCP's ability to grow its economy. This creates a real victimization of innocents who don't have a voice because they're governed without consent.
Birth defects have increased about 70 percent in China over the past two decades, now reaching about 900,000 per year, according to the country's Ministry of Health.
Air pollution is killing about 4,000 people in China a day, accounting for 1 in 6 premature deaths in the world's most populous country, a new study finds.
You realize that the level of environmental protection that we currently have in the US is only possible at the current level of consumption because we exported most of our polluting industry to China, right?
This is absolutely untrue. Even in the US's manufacturing heyday we had strict environment laws. In fact, this all happened because people were seeing what industry was doing the environment in the 40's, 50's, and 60's. Some light reading here:
During this period a great many new environmental laws were passed and some old ones resurrected and refurbished as well as energy legislation that impacted on the environment. Other environmental type laws were enacted, such as the Coastal Zone Management Act (1972), the Marine Protection Research and Sanctuaries Act (1972), the Endangered Species Act (1973), the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1976), the Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), the Deepwater Ports and Waterways Safety Act (1974), the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act (1974), the Water Resources Planning Act (1977), the Water Resources Research Act (1977), the Environmental Quality Improvement Act (1970), several amendments to the Food Drug and Cosmetics Act, and the Environmental Education Act. There was renewed enforcement of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899.
The Rules and Regulations issued under these laws numbered into many thousands. In its early years EPA alone placed about 1500 rulemaking notices in the Federal Register annually.
>> You realize that the level of environmental protection that we currently have in the US is only possible at the current level of consumption because we exported most of our polluting industry to China, right?
> This is absolutely untrue. Even in the US's manufacturing heyday we had strict environment laws.
Which, combined with wage laws, resulted in the offshoring of dirty industry. We still produce nearly as much as China, but our industries of choice are generally cleaner industries. It is cheaper to pollute China than to adhere to US manufacturing laws. We could not produce the same quantity of "dirty" goods here for prices that would allow for current levels of consumption. Arguing otherwise is a bit like saying manufacturing moved to China for no reason.
Presuming no stealth edits, what the parent claims is
> There's no democratic element to demand a higher level of service, say with how the US had its environment movement which led to many laws protecting the land, air, and water and ultimately culminated into several state agencies, federal guidelines, the EPA, etc.
So you've very effectively slaughtered that strawman detailed in your claim about the original claim.
I don't think per capita is a valuable number here.
China's got a twofold problem: They pollute a lot, and that pollution happens over a much smaller area of land, while the USA has it spread out a lot more. Per capita emissions doesn't tell us if the air in the largest cities is going to be the consistency of pea soup...
My link gives a bunch of other measures, and the US is lousy on most of those too.
I'm not saying the US is worse than China. Parent poster said that the US's democracy meant that it wasn't a big polluter, but that's clearly bollocks, the US has been, and is, a huge polluter.
Excuse me but I have to go downstairs where half of my 4000 sqft house is, as my coal-powered heat source is better there, and then I need to get in one third of my vehicles to drive, by myself, an hour to work. I will read your "research" later while sipping on my latte. I will google "polluter" later so I understand better your article.
You're totally underestimating the Chinese government but you don't fail to see the trade off they have decided to go for.
As you said China has decided that financial growth beats the consequences of pollution. You can discuss that direction as much as you want but that's the direction of overall Asia. It has nothing to do with forward vision or full-assed solution.
Pretty easy for you to say that considering the U.S. economy was already developed/grown (as you say) when this environmental discussion came to the forefront. It's always easier to forfeit when your whole hand is not on the table..
Why does there have to be a difference? Clearly not having smog in the first place would prevent this, but how does that help Beijing right now? If you have an open wound the doctor does not prescribe staying away from sharp things, they treat the wound.
