Air Pollution in China - Research Paper Example

? Environmental Issue Reviewing three articles about Air Pollution in China …………………. College/ ………….. …………. Introduction China has emerged as a fastest growing economy in the world to claim as the superpower since 1978, but, its environment degradation continues to cause severe economic, health and many other problems due to greater pressure from its population. The annual expenditure from environmental pollution has been accounted to be 283 billion Yuan per year (Wang, 162). Many media around the world made headlines about China’s air pollution in 2008 when Ethiopian long-distance runner decided not to compete in the Olymics-2008 held in China due to its extremely dangerous condition of air pollution. The severity of air pollution in China and the extent it creates serious health hazards are evident from alarm that its people are warned are warned to stay indoor in order save their breath from contaminated air. This piece of paper considers three articles that talk about air pollution and its effects on human environment and sums up major emphasizes from those articles. This paper is to analyze how media, based on these articles, played its role in spreading about this severe environmental issue and what solutions have been recommended by them to make people aware of its severity. Air Pollution: a superpower in to a ‘worst-land’? (defining the issue) BBC in August 2006 reported, in an article titled ‘China hit by raising air pollution’ that China has become world’s largest sulphur dioxide polluter, due to that it has emitted 26 million tons of the gas in 2005, showing a 27% increase from the figure of 2000. This excesses emissions of sulfur dioxide has been causing acid rains in different part of China and other parts of the world. As Kahn and Yardley noted in their article- ‘As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes’, published in New York Times (2007), China’s air pollution itself is a cancer leading to a large number of deaths. Costs yield benefits. Its economically true and naturally very evident, especially from China’s case. This fact has been highlighted in their article. China, being unparalleled in the history, emerged as a major industrial power, but created a legacy of environmental issue, air pollution that may negate all the credits its economic growth has conferred. The article has defined and described the issue in detail. Pubic health is extremely affected by air pollution as it alone causes hundreds of thousands deaths every year. One of the most critical and perhaps more dangerous effects of this pollution is that around 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water. Both cities and rural areas have been turned to be toxic areas where only around one percent of air is considered quite safe. In industrial cities, people more often are not able to see sun, not due to raining or sky being cloudy, but due to the pollution that made the air and sky dry. The atmosphere has largely been contaminated. On one side, the economy gains ever-recorded growth and large multinationals still attempting to grab the slice of this international marketing pie, whereas on the other side, people die for bad breath due to air pollution. As this article emphasized, China’s pollution is not only China’s problem. It is adverse effects have widened to other countries. Dangerous chemical elements like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides that are spewed from China’s coal plants caused acid rains in Seoul, South Korea, Tokyo etc. Tatchell in 2008 wrote in their article titled ‘The Pollution Marathon’, published in the Guardian, about the issue of China’s air pollution and its drastic impacts on every one’s life in the Guardian newspaper. This article starts with Ethiopian long-distance runner Haile Gebrselassie’s decision not to participate in 2008 Olympics held in China. He was highly concerned about the extremely hazardous air pollution in China and its impacts on his health if he stays few days for Olympics. This was disappointing and rather a very wise decision. The same may be repeated by many in the future when people think of a short visit to Beijing or any other towns or tourist place in China. Haile Gebrselassie was right, because, Beijing’s toxic air was so toxic and this can cause severe risks to the health of sportsmen and their career for long-term. In 2008 marathon held in Beijing, 22 athletes were hospitalized out of which two were in critical condition (Tatchell, 2008). As he pointed, any one who visits china, including athletes and coaches are in risk due to high vulnerability to respiratory or any other diseases caused by contaminated air. In 1997alone , air pollution in China caused around 97,000 premature death and more than 1.4 million cases of chronic bronchitis. Health damages alone in China will accounts to be around 137 billion Yuan per year or more specifically 1.8% of GDP. According to A World Bank finding, out of 20 most polluted cities, 16 cities are from China where respiratory syndromes are very common among many causing deaths. Danger of outdoor air pollution and its hazardous impacts on human health has been studied from main Chinese cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenyang, Wuhan and to assess the short term exposure to mortality and morbidity. As compared to other parts of the world, the morbidity or mortality risk estimated in per unit increases in air pollution level. All three different articles, published in 2007, 2008 and 2009 have in short highlighted an important economically significant point that even a superpower country will become worst-land if people are not safe from hazardous pollutants. Causes of Air Pollution in China Out of three articles reviewed for this paper, two articles highlighted that major air pollutants are emissions from coal-burning power plants and chemical factories. Kahn and Yardley’s (2007) article published in New York Times has given greater emphasis on analyzing the causes, effects and future impacts of air pollution in China. Coal is major source of energy in China providing around 75% of all energy sources and it is one of the major causes of air pollution. Sulfar dioxide, a principal air pollutant, is caused by coal smoke. Rapid increases in industries and motor vehicles have largely impacted the level of pollution in China in recent years. In recent years, both sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide have been increasing in China mainly due to ever-increasing vehicles that burn low-grade gasoline. Cars and trucks are the major sources of heavy haze causing many deaths, severe king and other diseases including respiratory syndrome and cancers in many cities. Kahn and Yardley (2007) stated, based on Chinese leaders’ argument, that outside world is a partner in degrading the air and other environment of the country. Large number of multinational companies, either through agencies or through their FDIs operate in China and manufacture large volume of chemicals and other products, by dumping waste in to rivers and pumping smoke in to sky. Foreign investment continues to rise, Chinese economy also continues to grow and in turn its air continues to worsen day by day. Air pollution in large cities like Beijing has been caused by rapid increase in number of vehicles, low-grade gasoline and heavy traffic. Another major pollutant, as Kahn and Yardley (2007) pointed, is particulate matter that includes concentration of fine dust and aerosol particles less than 10 microns in diameter. Apart from sulfar dioxide that makes devastating effects on human health in China, ozone which is an important component of smog, smaller particulate matter known as PM 2.5 which is emitted from gasoline also make pollution in the air. All three articles pointed the severity of air pollution in China, identified major causes that are coal and rapid increasing vehicle use and mentioned how this affects on human health and his nature as well. How to clean its air? It’s really difficult to find an answer to this question. May be some would say that it’s too late to take effective actions. Tatchell’s (2008) article was pointing that it’s too late for the world’s largest air pollution capital to find an effective way out. Chinese government has taken a number of policies like restricting car purchases, traffics and more surprisingly warning people not to go out in certain days. BBC article says about China’s plan in 2006 to cut sulphur dioxide emissions from various power plants which will be likely to result a 10% reduction in sulphur to be achieved by 2010. But, researchers and media report that things getting too worse in China’s air. BBC reports also pointed that there has been remarkable result in reducing the air pollution by phasing out things like coal-burning boiler, diesel-powered buses and old vehicles etc. Kahn and Yardley’s (2007) article brought suggestions and gave much clear picture about what actions can help the country reduce the risks of the issue and how far such actions can be positive to the country. The essay says that though there have been initiatives to reduce the risks, due to ever-increasing industrialization and population, air pollution continues to raise more drastic impacts on human health. China’s air pollution looks so gloomy because its heavily relies on energy-intensive industry and urbanization to foster the economy. A special team at the Department of Research Centre, after long stay in China, found that China’s most energy-hungry parts of the economy grew more rapidly and this shows how its future of air would be. This in turn means that China has two ways, either to increase its air pollution to foster its economy, or reduce air-pollution risks by taking any effective way without considering the economic growth. Reducing energy-intensive and energy-hungry parts, industrialization and urbanization are few of effective ways to save air, but these in turn may adversely impact its economy. In 2006 alone, China burned an energy equivalent to 2.7 billion tons of coal which was around three-quarters of what has been expected to be required by China in 2020. China now requires energy equivalent to what it expected to require after 5 years. More specifically, it moves more faster than how it was expected to be and so is its energy-use. Unless energy use has been effectively reduced, people are less likely to breath good air in China. Kahn and Yardley (2007) finds a difference between two countries’ steel production and likely impact on air pollution. In 1996, both China and USA accounted for around 13 % of global steel production. By 2005, US’s share declined to 8% whereas China’s share increased 35%. It shows why air pollution continues to become an ever-increasing challenge to human health and nature in China. Out of three articles reviewed for this piece of research, only one article, as detailed above talks about ‘solutions to air pollution in China, with a pessimistic perception on those plans. People stay home or out-door, to die or live? Air in China is barely breathable. As mentioned earlier, only 1% of total population breath safe air. Chinese cities are wrapped in a toxic gray shroud. While searching for finding effective strategies to reduce air pollution in China, it was interesting and rather surprising to note that its government warned people not to go out in certain days. Rapid urbanization, car exhaust and industry emissions deteriorate air quality and cause severe lung and respiratory syndrome on human health. Some of solutions China has taken are restricting car purchases, restriction on car registration and relocating coal-intensive plants and heavy industry out of Beijing. Even after taking these measures, Beijing has been very vulnerable to severe death rise and other health issues due to bad breath and thus it shut down many power plants in neighboring provinces mainly with an intention to provide safe air to athletes for 2008-Olympics (Campbell, MacKinnon and Stevens, p. 136). But, when it comes to a recent government warn to people not to go out, it seems extremely dangerous and quite thought-provoking to everyone in this world. Campbell, MacKinnon and Stevens says that children are periodically warned to stay at home due to its air is too dangerous to breath (p. 136). BBC reported the same in March 2010, pointing about government’s advice to people not to go out. Cha reported that children were advised not to come out of home due to that dust from construction cause dangerous lung-diseases (p. 116). Are these alerts to stay home or stay in door effective ways to save people from bad-breathing? This is not, but rather, it shows the extreme severity of the issue. The polluted air will be always almost equal in both indoor and outdoor, except the difference that outdoor may be more dusty or smelly than indoor. The pollution outdoor cause significant pollutants indoor as well. Many other researches show that air pollution indoor is also extremely dangerous in China. As mentioned earlier, only one percent of air is safe-breathable. So, it is surprising that staying in door is even not safe way to get breathable air. Peabody, Riddell and Smith emphasized that staying indoor in China is also not safe, due to that air indoor is largely contaminated by excessive use of stoves, cooking fuels and mainly due to exposure from outside coal and vehicles (p. 86- 90). Staying in houses, in door, is not safe due to that air in China, both indoor and outdoor is largely contaminated causing sever diseases on children as well as others. So in short, it seems meaningless to warn children and people not to come out to breath safe air. Conclusion This piece of research paper has presented an analysis on three articles published in BBC, New York Times and the Guardian, to find how they give coverage about air pollution issue of China. How these articles define the issue, identify its major causes and suggest solutions have been detailed in this paper. When searching for solutions, it was found that Chinese government has warned people not to go out of home. It represents how bad is the condition and this paper asks how this would be a way to save people from bad-breathing, because, air both indoor and outdoor in China is almost same and both have been found to cause severe respiratory diseases, based on a study done by Peabody, Riddell and Smith. References BBC.com, China hits by raising air pollution, bbc.co.uk, retrieved February 4th 2011 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5241844.stm, August 2006 BBC.com, Hong Kong’s air pollution reaches the record level, BBC.com, retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8579495.stm, (March, 2010), Campbell, P. J, MacKinnon, A and Stevens, C. R, An Introduction to Global Studies, Illustrated edition, John Wiley and Sons, 2010 Cha, V. D , Beyond the final score: the politics of sport in Asia, Illustrated edition, Columbia University Press, 2009 Kahn, J and Yardley, J, As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes, New York Times, Retrieved February 4th 2011 from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/world/asia/26china.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1 2007 Peabody, Riddell and Smith, Indoor Air Pollution in Rural China Cooking Fuels, Stoves, and Health Status, Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health, Vol. 60, No. 2, Heldref Publications, 2005 Tatchell, P, The Pollution Marathon, For the sake of athletes' health, the Beijing Olympics should be relocated, The Guardian, Retrieved February 4th 2011 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/12/thepollutionmarathon?INTCMP=SRCH , 2008 Wang, Y, Environmental degradation and environmental threats in china, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004 Read More