With the exponential growth of technology in the 20th century, certain economic powers have come into being with the beginning of the mass production era. One of these major powers that came along with this revolution is China, the major producer of all goods found in the United States. However, no major industrial power has taken place without causing major harm to the environment we live in (Kahn, Yardly 2007).
While rapidly growing air pollution in China brought on by harmful factory production and out dated fueling methods has created an abundance of health inequalities as well as permanent damage to the surrounding ecosystems, the solution to these issues prove difficult to solve. With a communist styled government sitting on top of the world’s economy, these money hungry leaders are seemingly reluctant to change production policies that could in turn negatively affect their GDP.
With a country that has the heaviest populated and highest density of people in the world, the amount of people that face health inequalities are in the millions. In this paper I will be addressing these inequalities faced by the Chinese population, as well as discussing the government policies that have proven ineffective with dealing with these pollution problems brought on by the factors of mass production. Within the last 2 decades, China has been suffocating in their own success, with their largest economic boom of all time. The start of the start of this boom began in 1996.
This country has seen an economic growth increase of 7-10 every single year since then. The cause of this insanely high growth is mainly attributed to the exponentially extreme consumption of energy each year. (Hao, Wang 2005). Due to this rapid economic growth brought on by the onset of industrialization, millions of Chinese citizens have been able to rise out of poverty due to an increase of factory jobs created by their mass production styled economy. As of today, China is currently the number 1 world wide leader in total production of goods, and also in turn the number 1 exporter of goods to the U.
S. (1). Since major retailers around our country rely on these foreign goods, we are only contributing to the dangerous business practices that are fueling the Chinese economy. Since China is still technically still considered a developing country, they are far behind in the overall worldwide trend of going green. One of the main reasons behind this detrimental environmental production practices is attributed to the fact that China is still heavily reliant on the use of coal, which does not burn clean. (Kam, Chen, Fu, et. al. 004)
As a mentioned previously, the United States is second hand supporting these bad behaviors in China. Clear evidence of this can be found around our local Schuster Parkway, the road that many students including myself drive on to get to school everyday. If you look closely at the trains passing by below, you will notice the container carts filled to the brim with coal. In essence, we are fueling china’s harmful economy by giving them the building blocks for production, so that they may in turn provide us with our every day household goods.
While coal burning coal is harmful, the greatest source of production related air pollution is brought on by the use of fossil fuels (3) The main chemicals that are sent into the atmosphere from the use of fossil fuels consist of sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, soot, dust, smoke, as well as many different kinds of particulate matter (Kan, Chen, Fu, et al. 2004) Putting the heath inequalities to the side, when considering the environmental degradation that china is creating, they are now leaders in air pollution almost complete absence of clean water available, and desertification. Matus, Nam, Selin, Lamsal, Reilly, Paltsev 2012) The Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency clams that the country that puts out highest amount of greenhouse gas emissions none other than China (1).
According to the European union, it is stated that out of a total of 560 million residents living in Chinese cities, only a mere 1 percent of these people are provided with clean air, or what is to be considered safe clean air by their standards. 1) While the health of our earth is at stake, more importantly, the mass population consisting of families, friends and neighbors, moms and dads, everyday people such as myself resides in china. No one is safe from these toxic pollutants. This in turn creates a health inequality for almost every single person that lives in the country. In the United States, a similar inequality exists, due to city planning; typically more impoverished neighborhoods are exposed to pollutants from factories.
Because China has factories virtually everywhere, the whole country is at a disadvantage. The climate plays a direct role in the overall health of people living in that environment. (Wong, Tam, Yu 2002) due to vehicle production growth around an average of 10% each year, this is also a major contributor to the problem. (2). While these polluting factors may play a role on where you live, and how the government chooses to place low-income houses in terms of industrialized complexes, the amount of industrialization is so great in china that almost everyone is at risk.
While most democracy would work toward better urban planning and spatial analysis of industrialized areas, Chinas money hungry government oppresses its citizens by sending pollutants into the air everywhere with no thoughts on repercussions. (6) With a government focused on total economic growth, and to remain the worlds number 1 exporter of goods, health problems brought on by industrialization are seemingly no a top priority for officials in china. The pollution crisis in china has shifted from a local problem, and is starting to have an international impact (Zhang, Mauzerall, Zhu, Liang, Ezzati, Remais 2010 ).
The air quality problem in China has created a significant socioeconomic cost, which is associated with the health care and treatment needed from exposure to toxins in the air (4) some major illnesses that are common with industrial air pollution are asthma, bronchitis, lung irritation, pneumonia, the inability to fight lung infections due to a weakened immune system, and pre mature death (3) on from Factories that produce cheap goods for the United States pump an abundance of air toxins into the environment (1).
Major environmental issues that might alarm other countries are almost the norm in china. (1). The skies in major cities such as Beijing have become so polluted overtime that the sun is almost invisible to the naked eye (1). While clean air is a major problem, water is also becoming very polluted, which causes large sections of the ocean ecosystem unable to support underwater organisms (1). Considering the fact that we rely on the ocean to filter out carbon dioxide in the air, the fact that it cannot sustain life underwater should be a major red flag.
A little less than 500 million people living in china are unable to obtain clean, safe drinking water (1. ) The main reason China is so far behind in air quality, relates to their dependence on coal, which emits toxic sulfur dioxide (1). A study conducted 2003 by the Chinese Academy of Environmental planning concluded that around 300,000 Chinese residents die each year as a result from pollutants in the air.
Some of the diseases associated with this are heart disease and lung cancer (1). Other unsafe production methods like coal mining are attributed to deaths. In 2006, approximately 4,700 people died while mining for coal (1. ) As we can see, not only are people dying from toxins created by mass production, the production, the Chinese production of goods and methods of obtaining fuel are also contributing to the deaths of people.