China's Pollution issues

Pollution in China

I read this article and heard this podcast.

from the article (much more at the link)

China is laying an additional 52,700 miles of highways. Currently, 14,000 new cars hit the road each day; despite this growth, there are only eight cars per 1,000 people in China, compared with 500 cars per 1,000 people in the United States. By 2040, it is estimated that China could have more cars than the United States. China is currently the world's second largest auto producer, recently eclipsing Japan.

Real estate development. For the past several years, China has been building 7.5 billion square feet per year of new commercial and residential buildings. This represents more square footage than all the malls and strip malls in the United States. In effect, China builds the entire U.S. retail system each year.

China is now home to 16 of the world's 20 dirtiest cities, according to the World Bank. Air pollution puts what travelers describe as a "permanent haze" in many Chinese cities. Anecdotal reports suggest that the average lifespan of traffic policemen in major Chinese cities is a mere 43 years, compared with the national average of 71 years. High levels of pollution are blamed. Conservative estimates by the World Bank indicate that 750,000 premature deaths occur each year due to air and water pollution.

Only 23% of Chinese factories treat sewage before returning water to streams and rivers. A benzene spill in 2005 closed water supplies for cities near the Songhua River, eventually affecting cities in Russia. It is estimated that 90% of the aquifers that service Chinese cities are polluted, that 75% of river water is unfit for direct human usage (drinking and fishing), and 30% is unfit for industrial or agricultural use.

If water is unfit for industurial or ag use can it still be called water?

But there is some good news. People aren't putting up with it.

However, China's environmental degradation may have reached a point where social stability is being affected. In 2006, the China Daily reported that 51,000 "incidents" of environmental protests occurred. Chinese citizens have little legal recourse against polluters and use protests as a way of signaling their discontent. An event last May in the city of Xiamen, protesting the planned construction of a petrochemical plant, is interesting. Using the Internet and text messaging, protest leaders turned out an estimated 20,000 protestors. Leaders called it the first genuine "parade" since Tiananmen Square. Video of the protest was sent over the Internet. For the central government, using modern tools to organize large protests has to be a worrying development.

Yea for modern tools and protesting!