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China's Pollution Problem (In 1 Stunning Chart)
The disgusting images of face-mask-wearing Chinese going about their daily business in minimal visibility and lung-busting conditions are strewen across the interwebs. However, even fake sun-rises pale into significance when the full dismal reality of China's pollution problem is put in context. Perhaps the following chart is why China's latest round of reforms appear to 'declare war on pollution'.
h/t @conradhackett
And it seems that has finally tipped the Chinese over the edge to do something about it... (via Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com)
On March 5th China’s Premier Li Keqiang declared war on pollution, outlining significant steps the Chinese government will take to improve air quality. China has suffered from truly epic smog over the last two winters, choking its cities’ inhabitants and cutting off visibility. The pollutants in the air have surpassed hazardous levels, at times jumping beyond the index that measures particulate matter.
"We will resolutely declare war against pollution as we declared war against poverty," Li Keqiang told the legislature, according to Reuters. The central government’s top concern has always been social stability, and the Premier’s announcement that China will take some drastic measures to improve the environment indicates that the government is beginning to worry that air pollution may spark unrest around the country.
Among the measures the government will take, Li said the government’s focus will be on reducing particulate matter (PM 2.5 and PM 10). The government will shut down 50,000 small coal-fired furnaces in 2014, and overhaul power plants in high intensity industries. China will also reduce steel production by 27 million tonnes in 2014 – equivalent to the total output of Italy. Also, the government will look at reforming energy pricing in an effort to pave the way to greater use of renewable energy and nuclear power. The government also hopes to remove six million high-emissions vehicles from the nation’s roads.
The speech comes after an announcement last month by the powerful National Development and Reform Commission (NRDC) that the government will spend $330 billion to reduce water pollution. Much of China’s agricultural land and rivers are contaminated with heavy metals.
Over the last several decades, China has succeeded in lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty, often described as the greatest achievement in poverty reduction in human history. China hopes to continue to grow, but now with a greater pro-environmental focus.
Of course this all sounds great until growth is affected - or a coal plant is shutdown causing contagious defaults across the shadow banking system... at which time we will see just how committed the Chinese government really is...
Here, as we explained previously, are the coal-mining-industry-based trust products...
We believe that coal mine trusts are the most likely to default over the coming months because 1) coal price has dropped sharply in recent quarters; 2) most of the issuers are private enterprises; and 3) they tend to be from provinces whose governments rely heavily on resources related income, e.g., Shanxi and Inner Mongolia.
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Written by Wun Tin Lung?
P U, you stink!
How many China mans would there be with clean air?
They will mimic the USA during our "industrial revolution".
Unions, protection agencies, over regulation, then a slow slide into international obscurity.
Then, Africa.
The funny thing is that there are a lot of people who defend China's pollution, because it is a perfect example of what is wrong with letting companies put profit ahead of everything else.
Can you give specific examples of the people who "defend" China's pollution "because it is a perfect example of what is wrong with letting companies put profit ahead of everything else."
Your statement appears to have several "logical fallacies" in it...
In other words, I call bullshit! lol
Did you not read this thread?
pollution is the price to pay when saving on manufacturing costs.
and they have saved on manufacturing costs for years
now they're costs will go up as well and maybe some jobs will come back
come ba
cksom
Cash for clunkers?
They actually had a cash-for-clunkers program in China, as well as 75 other countries, at the same time the US did. Does that surprise you?
I know 535 clunkers in Washington that I'd like to trade in for cash...
The 535 have already been traded for $
if their war on polution goes as well as our war on drugs, or terror, or poverty, then the country i going to be covered in a permanent haze in 4,3,2....
...
...
Ill take the smog over clean air with Obozocare any time.
Are you retarded, or just a partisan nut bag?
Haven't tesla won a contract to provide shit loads of electric buses to China?
Tesla? :) China has it's own electric car producers that build much better electric cars.
But the lithium batteries are still to dangerous and inefficient to use in a commercial way.
Fuck em, let them choke on thier own choices.
Let's hope that pacific filter keeps working.
The only way to solve this problem is to change the maximum pollution levels to 200.
Please, problems like this tend to "fix" themselves.
As if the average Chinese person choking to death actually has a "choice"...
LOL, "Pacific Filter", not according to NASA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btai5CgZHtg
If it is smoggy outside, won't they work longer hours so as not to be exposed?
Bullish?
china is the single-largest agricultural producer, feeding 20% of the world's population.
what happens to ~ 1.5 billion people when they regularly eat contaminated food?
http://youtu.be/e7S7r31cjAQ
I mean... I don't think their food can be more contaminated than this... gutter "oil"....
Their hunger abates
China is not the single largest ag producer. Pure propaganda.
for a moniker "lawsofphysics", you should at least offer up some evidence for your claim.
i'm waiting...
China had a war on poverty? Poverty won. They shifted poor farmers and poor laborers into poor factory workers.
Oh yeah. The government had little control over farmers living in remote areas, but now all of those people are basically indentured servants living in barracks. so poor they can't even afford a train ride home to visit relatives. It worked, all right!
all that over supply of housing for the 'new' middle class that can't afford the ticket for the train ride home, much less the housing built for them.
or shipped them to Africa... the land of opportunity...
yeah China's all like: omg we switched to a mixed economy from full fascist, and reaped other informational benefits from dramatic advancements in telecommunications benefitting the Earth as a whole, and we so totally say any benefit derived therefrom was our "War", rather than acknowledging the central deciders stand in the way of prosperity, and are nothing but opportunistic leeches blocking the swift return to a natural state of affairs
Anything the WHO recommends as a "safe" number is sure to be absurdly low (10 mpcm). The American Medical Association says that I - as a middle-aged man, 6', good health -- should weigh 165 pounds. C'mon. So, if I'm in at 200, I'm obese.
By the way, even in the humble opinion of this baroque Master, the WHO did write a few good songs (Baba O'Reilly, Won't Get Fooled Again, The Kids Are Alright).
And the WHO and AMA are associated in what manner???????????
We wont get fooled again!
Fool me twice!
Maaannn! You never read the Illuminati Trilogy? Where you been all your life?
7. The American Medical Association
Long before Dan Brown incorporated Illuminati mythology and iconography into Angels & Demons as an action-adventure plot device, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson authored the definitive masterpiece on the “Illuminati conspiracy” in their picaresque Illuminati trilogy consisting of The Eye In The Pyramid, The Golden Apple and Leviathan. In Shea and Wilson’s universe, the world’s attention is drawn towards the American Medical Association, the most popular and significant rock band in the world - imagine The Beatles in their heyday and then some. Foreshadowing the influence musicians would one day exert over populist political and social issues like world hunger, African debt relief and global warming, the American Medical Association uses their popularity to attract hungry concert-goers to Bavaria, Germany, the birthplace of the Illuminati, for their European version of Woodstock. Unfortunately, the AMA’s motives are far more sinister than the simple domination of the hearts and minds of the world’s youth. As Illuminati Primi, the AMA serves as 4/5 of the secret organization’s executive council and masterfully and invisibly orchestrates all the world’s major events. Satirizing the paranoid belief that rock and roll is simply a communist plot to take over the world by poisoning its youth, Shea and Wilson create a scenario that only a demented, tyrannical anarchist could love. The AMA plans to use the good vibes and energy generated from their performance at the concert to reawaken dormant Nazi battalions, bring about the resurrection of Adolf Hitler and conquer the world.
http://www.earvolution.com/2007/07/ten-best-bands-that-never-existed.asp
Illuminati Trilogy, my first experience w/ disinformation...
...and still one of my all-time favorites. It's damned funny.
I know it's Monday, Gents... but you need to chill out.
I was merely pointing out the fallacy of allowing the likes of Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey to dictate Global Pollution Standards. That's all. Sheeeesh.
Looking at that chart one might conclude it is time to get rid of the EPA......
Maybe it's time to send the EPA to China....and leave the rest of us alone.
Send the NEA and Common Core with them....we need to dumb down the Chinese in a big way.
Reading some of the posts on ZH it seems that the "normalization of stupidity" has been accomplished....
It sure looks lke it from some of he responses to this article.
Mr. Koch, is that you? Why don't you just move to China, instead of trying to turn the USA into China?
Though I guess that turning the USA into a poison pit like China would stop the Chinese from moving here and buying real estate. And you, I am sure, have an estate on a nice island with fresh air, and don't give a rat's derriere what happens to ordinary Americans.
I forgot to put <sarc> at the end.... I was subconsciously "trolling" on ZH...... lol
Enjoyed your response and concur with you.
At ZH, you definitely need a sarc at the end of that comment. Straight up, I think it's a fairly common opinion around here, unfortunately.
I have lived in Asia and seen and tasted the poisoned air and food first hand. The EPA (not counting the global warmist aspect) is the only thing right with America.
The snark/sarc was very clear, not your fault that many here suffer from terminal confirmation bias...
I would love to know what the PM2.5 levels were in major US industrial cities before the Clean Air Act...
BP and numerous large multinationals would thank you profusely
July 10, 2013
A study released earlier this week indicates that airborne pollution in China may have shortened the lives of 500 million Chinese by 2.5 billion years. The paper, published inPNAS on Monday, examined pollution data and death records to see whether coal burning, long a source of air pollution, could have damaged public health across northern China in the 1990s. The findings raise concern for developing countries across the globe.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/air-pollution-linked-to-health/
2.5 billion man-years equates to 33.3 million people dying at age zero assuming a life expectancy of 75 years. Or 66.6 million people dying at half their age - at 37.5 years.
they can counter that by relaxing the one child rule
After decades of enforcing a one-child policy, China may in the future allow every couple to have two children, a senior family planning official has said.
China's national health and family planning commission will study the impact of a universal two-child rule, its head of research, Ma Xu, told state news agency Xinhua, adding that there was no specific timetable for the decision.
Experts said it was inevitable that China would make the shift, but probably not for several years.
While most couples face large fines if they have more than one child, there are several exemptions, notably for ethnic minorities and rural residents.
China recently relaxed its tight birth control rules slightly, allowing couples to qualify for a second birth if one of the partners was an only child; previously, both had to be without siblings. The move affects a relatively small proportion of families, but experts saw it as opening the door to further reform as the labour force begins to shrink and China faces a rapidly ageing population.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/04/china-may-opt-two-children-...
The comparison of China to the US is actually not in context. The difference is wider. 30% of the smog in Los Angeles comes from China.
Context ?
The context is MSM China-bashing done to support false US innocence and self-congratulatory arrogance.
As though the transfer manufacturing from the US to China had nothing to do with low wages and absent environmental regulations. As though the global corporations and financial institutions did not lobby the Chinese government and demand those conditions of production.
As though air particle pollution is the only kind. The worst polluter on the planet is the Pentagon-led global military and its suppliers, affectionately known as the MIC. The military is the single biggest consumer of petroleum. The military promotes the production and uses all sorts of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. From agent orange to cluster bombs, from depleted uranium to direct bombardment, the military does it all. And because the military is the biggest user of oil, it becomes a matter of military security to control oil resources, thus militarism not only fights wars, but provides self-serving justification for them. And because the military wants nuclear weaponry, it is a major supporter of Fukushima power. Yet, every US government, including Obama's, has INSISTED that the military be exempt from any environmental treaties.
How often compared to China is the environmental impact of global militarism reported by the MSM?
How often compared to China are India's problems mentioned by the MSM?
Air in Delhi, India on average last year had double the toxic particles per cubic meter being reported in Beijing.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-27/india-s-diesel-subsidy-spurs-po...
Yes China has BIG problems with pollution. But the world's BIGGEST environmental problems are not just China's. nor simply China caused.
so, what happened to the three trusts that have matured already in 2014?
Haha.
China great hegemon. Great superpower
China take over world soon.
With great ally Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Socialism is communism using nice words.
China being a total fuck up is not surprising.
California - the land of the socialist nut bars is doing a pretty good job fucking the planet too.
It makes me want to slap the shit out of the limousine liberal liars who hug trees at home and send their corporate dirtywork to China.
Are you calling the Koch Brothers " limousine liberal liars"????? lol
Throwing the Koch brothers out there is like calling me a cracker.....just don't care.
"So who occupies the 58 spots ahead of the Evil Koch Bros? Six of the top 10 are … wait for it … unions. They gave more than $278 million, with most of it going to Democrats.
These are familiar names: AFSCME ($60.6 million), NEA ($53.5 million), IBEW ($44.4 million), UAW ($41.6 million), Carpenters & Joiners ($39.2 million) and SEIU ($38.3 million).
In other words, the six biggest union donors in American politics gave 15 times more to mostly Democrats than the Evil Koch Bros."
Read more at http://lastresistance.com/4802/liberals-dont-want-know-evil-koch-brothers/#jwBZHhvWpbYvyEYZ.99
This is about the structure of a corporation. This is about the fiduciary obligations a corporation has to it's share holders to max profits. It is not within the corporate charter to considering the long term impacts of environmental degradation or the "trashing of the commons" or the resulting human pain and suffering. For a corporation to take these issues into consideration and for these considerations to effect the profitability of the corporation would be grounds for a shareholder lawsuit.
Thoreau said, " a corporation has no conscience".
We live in a society were "Greed is Good".... the worship of Mammon.
It is just business.... and this is the way it is.
And by entering into the false, liberal/conservative argument you are being played, ... hence my calling attention to the Koch bother.
The liberal/conservative argument is an example of the "Normalization of Stupidity" in our society.
>> the Evil Koch Bros?
Oh, amongst your other admirable traits, a Koch sucker. Don't forget to wipe your chin.
totally agree except that it is not just the limo liberal liars
I thought the cure for everything in the US is deregulate?
Are you suggesting we kill off all the Czars? I'm pretty sure that's highly unconstitutional.
If we can save just one spotted owl....I'm all for killing 350 million Americans ala Stalin style. Gonna need a lot of bullets....but word is we've got them.
>> I'm all for killing 350 million Americans ala Stalin style.
Drama queen.
Well, the cure for everything that matters to Roger Ailes and the Koch brothers, anyhow. Proles don't count.
Listen dudes, this shit is for real. In South Korea people go out with particle masks morning and afternoon. Priests advise parishoners old and newborns to stay in for the day. I got off the plane at Incheon and my eyes were sore and my throat coated. Every day. Since I've been here. For 7 days. WTF.
I was in Korea a few years back. One day the "yellow dust" was so bad you couldn't see the traffic lights a block down the road. You couldn't see the buildings across the street. You couldn't see anything. It was just brown.
That day, I did hawk the most ginormous lugee ever spat. It was a pearly, blood-mottled monster; a Lovecraftian tumor, excised from the greater depths. I still remember it. I can still see it writhing on the pavement.
Don't scare the children here. They don't really want to know.
I wonder what the PM 10 readings look like....
There are two sizes of Particulate Matter that are "looked at" and "regulated" from "emission sources" PM 10 and PM 2.5.
This really does beg the question, is what you are seeing in the levels of pollution in China, the consequences of environmental deregulation?
Without regulations how do you encourage companies to install and use BACT (best available current technology) to min. their emissions and be good neighbors?
Here are PM 2.5 and 10, as well as ozone and sulfur dioxide readings: http://aqicn.org/city/beijing/
Thank you for the link, that was a "eye opener".
Why are the Chinese population tolerating these conditions?
Do you know or have links to what the pollution transport models look like at these volumes and levels?
Been to Shijazhuang, Handan and Zhengzhou. They are all on the beltway due South of Beijing. Some westerner just did a docu on the pollution along that route, riding by train. We did it by trains and cars. The Feng Feng Mining District lay down there, and it is truly awful. Came back with a bronchial condtion that took a month to clear. Stay away.
Guess the coal mine trusts will be the canary in the coal mine. How poetic.
does honey badger know about this? when honey badger finds out about this "problem" the dow will jump 100 pts.
Gurge Soroz of JP Capital?
Me thinks the war on pollution loses out to producing more garbage to sell on Amazon. Plus they need to build at least another 50-100 ghost cities just to keep that GDP growing.
what happened to flight 370? possible terrorist action? dow up 200.
#TimeStamp
A 3-D plastic gun shot a hole threw the side of the plane, then the undetectable plastic explosive blew a larger hole which put a drag on the tail end of the plane forcing it to turn and drop at the same time. That's why no one called to inform you of the accident, because they didn't have the time to control the plane and talk at the same time. It's similar to a US congressman chewing gum, walking and thinking at the same time, it just can't be done.
That's the most plausible explanation I have heard yet.
Nice detective skills negative.
Once they are able to see themselves maybe they won't reproduce at all.
lol
I would far prefer to mate with a cross-selection of Chinese women than the Amerikan cows I see in flyover country.
Just in flyover country????? Get real biotch!! Hefers are everywhere, sucka!! On both coasts. I know, I've seen them all over this great land. btw, growing up in Asia gave me a taste their women, such as:
http://wallpaperus.org/vietnamese-4416x3312-wallpaper-2357403/
If you could get it in and get it marketed, sales of American herb remedies, vitamins, what have you would make you a millionaire overnight. The problem is, you will have your product knocked off and a clay/waxen effigy of it would be on the streets by Monday. That's what happened to Burt's Bees, which is widely popular over there. Frustrating./
See, as others have said before, the real risk in China is the cost of cleaning up the polution, the number probably is in the trillions ($) over the coming decades.
Looks like the West has properly stuffed up the 'long term thinking' Chinese by exporting most of their polution to the Orient.
Watch out Electric Cars and Lithium now:
Tesla Battery Gigafactory, Lithium Materials And Lithium Miners
Time is to study the Tesla Gigafactory plans and its implications for the Lithium materials industry and Lithium miners. Euro Pacific has produced a very good report on the Lithium industry last summer. Now you should adjust Lithium demand estimates with Tesla Gigafactory news and LG Chem plans for the battery factory to be built in China.
http://sufiy.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/tesla-battery-gigafactory-lithium.ht...
Nah, Lithium is a joke. The real story here is paladium, platinum, iridium and rhodium, the only metals that can be used in high temperature catalytic converters.
For the denialist mass-junkers.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/09/ozone-hole-antarctica...
AGW theory has losts its credibility so they drag out the Ozone Hole again. Its over the south pole FFS and doesn't migrate.
Its always been there
Why is China polluting their own country? Is it because they really cannot compete and so they cut corners? They have the technology to NOT pollute. Oh well sucks to be them drowning in their own shit.
Someone should point out that these US "cities" like Merced, Hanford, and Bakersfield are actually out in farming territory and any pollution is either natural dirt/dust or farming by-products. Even in Los Angeles proper we get a lot of pollen and dust from the hills, not to mention this pine tree outside my window. AND now some 30% of stuff from China, though I figured that was more CO2 and NOx not particulates. And even Beijing has a lot of stuff blowing in from the Gobi desert, always has - and on special occassions measurable amount of Gobi actually reach the US, too.
How much diesel particulates play in any of these, especially the US, I dunno. Wouldn't really figure diesel tractors pollute square miles of farmland so it matters.
CO2 is not pollution. It is plant food that you body exhales every minute of the day and which is not toxic.
The breath you exhale is 4-5% CO2. CO2 in the atmosphere is about 0.04% CO2, ie the concentration of CO2 in your lungs, produced by your body, and to which you are adapted is 100 times the air concentration.
The generation of CO2 in China or anywhere else, is small compared to existing CO2 in the air and its contribution to CO2 concentration is absolutely minute compared to what is in your lungs at point of exhalation.
Let's not forget their water problems: polluted lakes and rivers, depleted aquifers, salinization of farm land, and desertification.
I suppose when you have 1.3 billion people you can afford to kill off a few hundred million in the name of progress.
Why is the free market not solving their pollution problem??????????????????????
For an alternative view, see what the Sydney Australia readings are (updated hourly)
http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/aqms/hourlydata.htm
Pretty good when there is not a bushfire about.