Those Crazy Chinese

[Jeff Lebowski]

The environment always loses in China. This blows my mind.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,3195261.story

[KillerDog]

The funny part to me is that we still wonder how they have such a high % increase in GDP.

[TripletDaddy]

The environment always loses in China. This blows my mind.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,3195261.story

The odd part is that all of this seems to be an effort to mass migrate water supplies that aren't likely potable in the first place.

My FIL made his way in life working for a DC-based company that specialized in disposal of CERCLA material across the globe. He said that back in the day, countries like China were basically free port dumping grounds for much of the world's toxic goo....the price was right and China had a LOT of land, zero environmental controls, and very little outside bureaucracy. Combine that with domestically produced hazmat throughout the country.

Now we are reading that much of the main water supplies throughout China are unfit for human consumption or agriculture. Not a big surprise, I guess.

The Water Cube was cool, though.

[Jeff Lebowski]

The funny part to me is that we still wonder how they have such a high % increase in GDP.

Raping the environment is not a recent change for China. Mao's Great Leap Forward was one of the worst environmental disasters in history. They are still suffering from that one. They denuded the hills from vegetation to fire all of the private steel mills and this caused massive erosion and a loss of topsoil for much of the country. The rivers still carry far more silt than they did prior to that time. They build levees by the rivers and they keep making the levees higher and higher because they silt up. The bottom elevation on some rivers is far higher than the surrounding villages (just imagine the fun when a levee breaks). Many of the new reservoirs are completely filled with silt in less than two years, rendering them useless . Some silt up as fast at the dam fills with water.

Completely unregulated industrial pollution has resulted in unbelievable levels of contamination in Chinese rivers, canals, and aquifers. Chinese suffer from stomach cancer and many other ailments as a result. Polluted runoff from fertilizers leads to deadly blue algae in many of China's lakes:


(hackers - DO NOT DELETE!)

In other news, the Three Gorges dam is filling with trash at a rate of 3000 tons per day. They will need massive landfills just to handle this waste. I am guessing they will end up burning it in open incinerators.



I could go on and on.

In most countries, a healthy economy results in increased environmental awareness and better stewardship. This is happening to a degree, but with the communist party in charge, most criticism of the government is systematically squashed.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

The environment always loses in China. This blows my mind.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,3195261.story

I'm glad we have Thomas Friedman around to point out that you're wrong. The Chinese are the world leaders in the Green movement!

[wally]

My favorite Chinese environmental goof was the massive algal bloom prior to the 2008 olympics. Good times.

[myboynoah]

Raping the environment is not a recent change for China. Mao's Great Leap Forward was one of the worst environmental disasters in history. They are still suffering from that one. They denuded the hills from vegetation to fire all of the private steel mills and this caused massive erosion and a loss of topsoil for much of the country. The rivers still carry far more silt than they did prior to that time. They build levees by the rivers and they keep making the levees higher and higher because they silt up. The bottom elevation on some rivers is far higher than the surrounding villages (just imagine the fun when a levee breaks). Many of the new reservoirs are completely filled with silt in less than two years, rendering them useless . Some silt up as fast at the dam fills with water.

Completely unregulated industrial pollution has resulted in unbelievable levels of contamination in Chinese rivers, canals, and aquifers. Chinese suffer from stomach cancer and many other ailments as a result. Polluted runoff from fertilizers leads to deadly blue algae in many of China's lakes:



In other news, the Three Gorges dam is filling with trash at a rate of 3000 tons per day. They will need massive landfills just to handle this waste. I am guessing they will end up burning it in open incinerators.



I could go on and on.

In most countries, a healthy economy results in increased environmental awareness and better stewardship. This is happening to a degree, but with the communist party in charge, most criticism of the government is systematically squashed.

Yikes. Just yikes.

But I still like a good General Tsao's Chicken.

[SoonerCoug]

I love this thread.

[YOhio]

The environment always loses in China. This blows my mind.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,3195261.story

Classic line at the end of the article.

The 1,600 people relocated in August are undergoing training to farm their new land, which is drier than their old fields, and are even being taught to change their diet from noodles to rice, which is more popular in this part of Henan province.

"We have given up everything for the greater good of the country, but the party has been good to us too," said Yao Ziliang, 74, sitting on the curb in front of the community center with many of the other old men. He said he was confident that the water diversion project would be a success.

"Of course it will bring water to Beijing," he said. "The party would not lie to us."

[Mormon Red Death]

I'm glad we have Thomas Friedman around to point out that you're wrong. The Chinese are the world leaders in the Green movement!

The world is flat damnit!!

[RobinFinderson]

I'm glad we have Thomas Friedman around to point out that you're wrong. The Chinese are the world leaders in the Green movement!

The Chinese actually are leading the world in investments in green technology. While this is ironic, it is also true. I'd summarize this thus: The Chinese are not willing to give up the economic growth opportunities that come from abusing the environment, but they see a near future when such policy will no longer be possible, and they are positioning themselves for continued economic growth under the coming paradigm.

[RobinFinderson]

BTW, if anyone is interested in an amazing natural survey of China's nature assets, check out the BBC's [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_China"]Wild China - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Wild_china_title.jpg" class="image"><img alt="Wild China title card" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e0/Wild_china_title.jpg/250px-Wild_china_title.jpg"@@AMEPARAM@@en/thumb/e/e0/Wild_china_title.jpg/250px-Wild_china_title.jpg[/ame].

[statman]

The Chinese actually are leading the world in investments in green technology. While this is ironic, it is also true. I'd summarize this thus: The Chinese are not willing to give up the economic growth opportunities that come from abusing the environment, but they see a near future when such policy will no longer be possible, and they are positioning themselves for continued economic growth under the coming paradigm.

But what does - "investments in green technology" really mean?

They themselves are NOT "going green" - they're investing in technologies that will allow the rest of the world to pay high prices for renewable electricity. Making those products can be a very non-green process - lots of energy to get pure silicon, plus lots of plastics, solvents, and heavy metals used in coatings, connectors, casings, etc for the cells. With China's track record, you can bet the process will be done as cheaply as possible, with little concern for "greenness"

So, yeah, they've invested in "green" technologies more than anyone else. But what is really meant when that quote is given, is that they have invested the most to produce green products so that the west can feel good about itself.

What the Chinese most definitely haven't done is invest in actual green manufacturing technology - far from it.. Their processes will be many times less green than anything we make here. But as long as the Chinese pollution isn't happening in our back yard - that it's Chinese kids who have to deal with arsenic, gallium, mercury and other toxic metals in their drinking water - I guess we can just keep telling ourselves how great it is that we're going green...

[wally]

Completely unregulated industrial pollution has resulted in unbelievable levels of contamination in Chinese rivers, canals, and aquifers. Chinese suffer from stomach cancer and many other ailments as a result. Polluted runoff from fertilizers leads to deadly blue algae in many of China's lakes:

In other news, the Three Gorges dam is filling with trash at a rate of 3000 tons per day. They will need massive landfills just to handle this waste. I am guessing they will end up burning it in open incinerators.

Oops, apparently I deleted the first part of my post, so I'm editing it back in:

Overfertilization is leading to a Phosphorus shortage that is being termed: Peak Phosphorus. The U.S. exports Potash to China, but china has imposed a 100 to 175 percent tariff to curtail phosphorus exports. China over-fertilizes like America, but is much more sloppy about it. More on Peak Phosphorus:

http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/...20of%22&st=cse

The jist of it is that there is a finite supply of mined phosphorus in the world (think fossil fuels) and that we are running out. Troubling is that our agriculture industry has been mostly reliant on mined P for the 50+ years (also think fossil fuels and see chart below) and there is no competing form of P that can step into the marketplace to take Mined P's place. The concern is that this will create a more expensive food for people and animals as P prices go up as cheap P supplies go down. Another concern is that because we are reliant on sloppy over fertilization to produce crops, any change in P fertilizer (source or amount) will cause smaller yields, again increasing the price of food.



As a side note, one of the attractive things about mined P is how easy it is to spread on a field. Also, it doesn't contain E-coli like manure or some composts.

Ironically, Algae (not cyanobacteria as you mention is a problem in China and elsewhere) is being discussed as a phosphorus recovery mechanism for production of fertilizer. Certain strains of algae are also being heralded as much more efficient than corn as fodder for biodiesel and alternative energy.

Also, I am guessing that since the dam was constructed in 2006, this trash accumulation is just exposing how much has been thrown in the river all along, and how much is just slowly making its way to the ocean.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Hey, what happened to my blue algae photo? Did one of the mods do some editing?

EDIT: It's those damned Chinese government hackers. They are censoring CUF. I will try another one and see if they delete this one.