China--paying the price for fast development

[Wannabe_a_techie]

TArticle from the Science Magazine

Tiny particles resulting from fuel burning appear to be interfering
with the formation of rain, snow and ice on one of China’s
mountains. As aerosols increase in the atmosphere, fewer
droplets collide with one another to form raindrops.

Atmospheric scientists studied records from the past 50 years at a
meteor ological observatory that sits at the peak of sacred
Mount Hua. They not only found that visibility from the twokilometer-
high summit has, on average, declined from roughly
30 to 10 kilometers, but they also showed that rainfall has
dropped by as much as 17 percent compared with the precipitation
in neighboring areas.

The findings explain the widely observed trend—from Canada to South Africa to Israel—of a decrease in highland precipitation compared with that in adjacent lowlands. Pollution is not just obscuring the view; it is
also choking the mountain streams.

[pannaguma]

good for india we only produce services thru brain power, which do not result in formation of tiny particles and destroy the ecosystem.

[cynosure]

A whole article called "China's Great Leap" was featured in the last month's Readers Digest. That article also described how China was screwing up their ecosystem and the life of its people while increasing the rate of development. I am quoting few lines of that article:

"After all, Chinese workers lose tens of thousands of arms, hands and fingers to industrial accidents every year."

"With my translator, I wandered up to a series of crumbling courtyards shared by seven or eight families. A few pigs slept in the room next to the kitchen...... Multiply that story by half a billion and you will begin to understand why the biggest migration in the history of the planet is underway in China."

"In places, the average farm is a sixth of an acre-smaller than many Indian bunglows. About 800 million people, roughly 60% of China's population, are crowded onto these tiny farms."

"Pan Yue, the country's deputy environment minister, told the Germen magazine Der Spiegel that the country's economic miracle "will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace. Five of the ten most polluted cities worldwide are in China; acid rain is falling on the on third of our territory; half of the water in China's seven largest rivers is completely useless." But without that level of growth, there'd be no way to absorb the endless influx from the countryside."

This is china for you. I avoided the positive points of the article because the thread was named "China--paying the price for fast development"

[amol48]

India itself has its lot other problems... They r lot to keep India busy..

[amitava82]

Its very silly to say that all this is happening because of FAST development. There are couple of reasons for this but most important of them is..
Not adequate environmental rules and regulations has been adopted by the government and implementation of work safety. If you look at the developed nations such as USA they have strict Environmental rules, regulation and work safety measurement and companies bound to follow them. Many companies from developed countries moving their manufacturing facilities China because of these regulations and cheap labor. And the ultimate result is degradation of ecosystem and "Tragedy of common". Its a very nice topic of international business BTW...

[cynosure]

^^USA is the biggie when it comes to harming enviroment and they FOLLOW rules

[amitava82]

Off course they are number one in CO2 emission. But things are changing since last 7 years. Their rate of CO2 emission has decreased considerably and china's rate has increased at a dangerous rate. China is number 2 in CO2 emission but by 2020 China will be No1 and India and Japan will share 3rd position together. Another reason is air pollution from other countries mainly China, Africa and Mexico drifts into USA. This adds up considerable amount of air pollution..

[zyberboy]

^^No,usa hav not adopted any measures to decrease pollution,china is only overtaking usa,america is still in the business of polluting the world, only difference is that other countries are joinning in .

The USA drew worldwide criticism for failing to adopt the greatest international agreement for the reduction of some greenhouse gases, The Kyoto Protocol, which has been accepted by nearly every other country. This is despite the fact that the USA is by a massive margin the world's biggest polluter and very disproportionately so. President bush has repeatedly stated that he will not adopt such protocols if they harm American economy. Commercialism and greed overcome all common sense and thought for the welfare of future generations. This failure causes hatred not only of the Bush administration, but of American commercialism in general.

Many environmentalists understand that developing countries do not have the technology or means to use the most modern or environmentally friendly industrial equipment. But when such a rich country as the USA fails to take responsibility for its own pollution it really annoys a lot of people worldwide.

"The US contains 4% of the world's population but produces about 25% of all carbon dioxide emissions. By comparison, Britain emits 3% - about the same as India which has 15 times as many people"

http://www.vexen.co.uk/USA/pollution.html

[praka123]

...and these polluting countries try to dump their second materials in countries like India-remember some australian ship trying to come to port Kolkata carrying posionous dumps.I'd say go take it and dump it to their own citizen rather than poor indians,we are not second class people.better they mind it
India - Backdoor dumping ground for toxic waste?

http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml...es_bidwai_dump

[mediator]

Play with the nature and the nature plays with u.......mediator (28/5/07)!
Law of physics : Every action has equal and opposite reaction. People who believe in rapid urbanization without acknowledging the drawbacks are menace to the society!

[NucleusKore]

With the lethargy of our state machinery we'll take some time before we start bothering with tiny particles

[cynosure]

I heard somthing about the Indian government banning the use of those 40W tube lights. Only CFLs will be allowed to use.
Who knows, maybe this is a joke. Street lamps here use those yellow bulbs inspite of the rising threat of global warming.

[pannaguma]

even if india lags behind in the race for the destruction of the ecosystem, we shld take more steps to ensure that we finish the race last.