Location
The topic of air pollution in China has not gone unnoticed. Air pollution has gotten so bad in China that it has contributed to numerous health problems and environmental severity.
Chinese air pollution has become a nationwide issue. Not only is it caused the number of health problems to increase, but it has also caused worldwide concern on how its affecting the environment. Within China alone, there are several biomes that are being affected by its growing air pollution which include, but not limited: alpine, deciduous forest, temperate grassland and tropical forests.
http://aqicn.org/map/china/#@g/9.5577/97.1675/3z
Specifics of the problem
Air pollution in China can be traced back to the 1980s when its economy began to develop greatly. Since China is a developing country it has been trying to reach the same economic status as developed countries such as the U.S. and Great Britain. With such rapid expansion and very little to no restriction on air pollution led to factories releasing carbon dioxide and other toxins into the air. Many power plants don't use scrubbers, which filters any unwanted toxins from released gas, subsequently leading to the release of air particulates such as CO2. This situation has been worsening. 70% of China's electrical energy is generated by coal, which when burned, releases sulfur and other chemicals. Since the 1970s, the total amount of energy consumed has greatly increased from 571 million tonnes of coal equivalent (Mtce) in 1978 to 1220 Mtce in 1999. China is also where most of the automobiles of the world are manufactured and a large number of those cars are bought and driven by the people in China. Most of these cars are made using old technology that increases pollution, specifically releasing CO2, and reducing efficiency.
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-This graph demonstrates the correlation between energy usage and their annual income. This graph reflects China's energy usage which correlates with the huge amount of energy being utilized by the industries that are emitting high levels of toxic pollutants into the atmosphere.
Health Impacts
Less than 1% of China's 500 cities meet the air quality guidelines led by the World Health Org. The rise in pollution has been linked to the rise in chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. The lifespan for the Chinese people has also been shorten. The pollution has been connected to the heightening of asthma, respiratory problems, heart problems, cancer and premature deaths.
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Larger ConsequencesUnfortunately, China is not the only known place where air pollution is shown to have negative effects on the environment and human health. India is another example where air pollution is massive. However, it has been proven that in India, their indoor air pollution is 10x worse than that of outdoor air pollution. Indoor air pollution also has a higher health impact due to combustion, burning of biomass fuel, bio aerosols, and carbon monoxide released when burning dung, wood, coal, and kerosene. Indoor air pollution has been the cause of 2 million premature deaths, most of which are women and young children since they spend most of their time indoors.
Los Angeles is also another area greatly affected by air pollution. Most of the air pollution in Los Angeles is caused by automobile tailpipe emissions. These emissions have been linked to increasing asthma and heart failure. Furthermore, air pollution has also been linked to chronic respiratory health problems in children.
https://jentrifiedcitizen.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/chinese-wear-masks-to-fight-pollution.jpg
Solutions
Some of the possible solutions to the drastic air pollution in China are primarily using different forms of renewable energy such as hydropower, solar, wind or even nuclear as a way to slowly replace coal which is and has been the primary energy source of China since it is so abundant and cheap. Since most of the air pollution in China comes from the exhaust of cars replacing regular cars with electric ones is one possible solution as well as making stricter emission controls for cars used there. Besides introducing more environment friendly cars, reducing the number of cars produced in China to be sold to foreign countries and number of cars used in China by city planning would allow for the pollution of China to reduce dramatically. Closing some of the big factories that produce the largest amount of pollution has also been a solution explored by legislators in China. Closing the big factories that contribute to China’s industry is not realistic because China is trying to catch up to the rest of the industrialized countries and to do so would hurt China economically, but by enforcing that factories use scrubbers to filter exhaust coming out of factories is a more feasible solution. The same applies to China reducing the number of cars they produce for foreign investors, as are the brands of Toyota and Nissan. The productions of these vehicles helps fuel China’s economy and government officials are hesitant to alter their source of income. Unless the government of China realizes the need for change little will change on China because in order to be change in their air pollution situation government involvement is essential. One of the main organizations that are acting to change the air pollution situation in China is the Greenpeace whose main goal is to combine short-term initiatives and policy changes by bringing to the attention the severity of air pollution of the attention of government legislators. Greenpeace also focuses on establishing a cap on regional coal consumption and intensifying regulations fro factories and businesses so they reduce their pollution. These solutions have been applied with some success with the Chinese Ministry of Environment Protection announcing a 350 billion dollar plan to reduce air pollution between 2014-2015. This initiative includes stopping the building of power plants and making stricter emission controls fro cars used in China. Besides the MEP introducing their new approaches to air pollution, China as a country has began to monitor air quality by monitoring pollutants like sulfur oxides, particulate matter and nitrogen oxides in more than 350 cities.
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Conclusion
The likelihood that air pollution in China will be resolved is likely as long as the government continues to realize that their air pollution is having a dramatic impact on not only the environment by releasing carbon dioxide into the air that contributes to global warming, but also is hurting the lives of their citizens. The severity of the contamination of air in China has increased the cases of respiratory problems like asthma and contributed to two million premature deaths per year. The government of China has begun to take an initiative to improve the situation of air pollution with the government beginning to order businesses to reduce their use of coal for cleaner energy sources and shutting down big factories that are the main source of air pollution. However, the severity of air pollution in China will take a long time to truly be resolved since for years it had been ignored over the need of economic development and the best way to do so is to educate Chinese citizens on the negative effects of air pollution so that they continue to pressure the government in the need for change. The over- aching lessons that can be learned from China’s situation are that ignoring what we as people do to the environment can not only lead to devastating effects on the environment but also harmful results for humans. The need developing countries have seen to rapidly industrialize as a way to catch up to the other developed countries has led to the unhealthy levels of pollution in countries like China and India. Money is behind rapid industrialization and it is believed that by making more money through industries and factories developing countries will be able to prosper like other developed countries. But in reality, rapid industrialization has come at the cost of the health of China’s citizens. The reason why the Chinese government began to see the severity of their air pollution problem was because they were losing six percent of their gross domestic product, the annual income of a country from selling goods, to providing health care for its citizens because of air pollution. When air pollution began to hurt China’s finances was when a reaction was seen from the government. It should have taken more than fifty years for the Chinese government to become involved because now the country is facing the grave consequences of waiting so long to take action on air pollution.
Bibliography
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