Table of contentsIntroductionChina's growthAir pollutionWater pollutionIntroductionSince the 1970s, China has experienced a period of rapid expansion and growth at a scale never seen before (Bremner, 2006). The growth processes that China used were widely popularized many years ago, during the industrial era of Europe and America. However, the number of people that China can use in its workforce, but must also feed, provide housing and meet other basic needs, has also been significantly increased relative to the country's population. Europe and America during their industrial era. For China to remain in its position as an economic powerhouse, it causes significant damage to its environment as well as that of its surrounding neighbors (Stalley, 2009). This harm results in various forms of pollution, such as the thick layer of smog in many Chinese cities, the discharge of industrial waste into rivers and lakes, and the felling of trees and other shrubs to create more buildable land. which in turn promotes desertification and dust storms. These three different forms of pollution are very destructive to the natural environment and, if left unchecked, will make the lives of Chinese citizens very difficult. The environmental destruction observed in China and the consequences it faces can be explained by the somewhat new term ecological debt (Roberts and Parks, 2009). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get an original essayIn simple terms, ecological debt is the point that a country will pass when the consumption of its resources within its ecosystem or its territories exceed that of this system. ability to regenerate its natural resources (McKibben, 2011). This is also true for non-renewable resources, where the consumption of these resources exceeds the production and acquisition of non-renewable resources. This concept is primarily based on the biophysical carrying capacity of an ecosystem by measuring the ecological footprint of human society; we can determine the speed at which the country or society is depleting its natural resources (Goeminne and Paredis, 2010). Carrying capacity is the maximum population size that the environment can support for a given species. When it comes to China, many believe that it is causing so much damage to its natural environment that it will not be able to recover and repair its natural environment (Goeminne and Paredis, 2010). The main cause of China's environmental damage is its rapid growth and use of coal to power its country (Roberts and Parks, 2009). China's Growth Today, China has a growing economy estimated at approximately $12.6 trillion (Bremner, 2006). This growth was achieved through the rapid expansion of their money supply, growth in loans and fixed investments. Their economy has also evolved from a closed, command economy to a market-oriented economy that now plays a larger role than that of China in the 1970s. A proof of China's growth is China's position since 2010 as the world's largest exporter and second largest economy, just behind the United States. Similar to most developing countries; coastal areas are growing faster than inland cities. However, this growth is accompanied by daunting environmental problems, such as the degradation of mangrove forestsand coral reefs of China, desertification, deforestation, industrial pollution of rivers and increasing levels of smog in the atmosphere (McKibben, 2011). In the 1970s, China was a closed and centralized economy, since then China has become one of the world's leading powers. However, they face problems that only more developed and larger countries face, such as ecological debt and a growing ecological footprint. The term ecological debt can mean many things, such as the date in a year when the planet's natural resources have been depleted and can no longer be exploited. replenished by the end of the year (Roberts and Parks, 2009 ). The term is also used to explain in quantitative and tangible figures the extent of damage caused by countries to their environment (Roberts and Parks, 2009). The main idea behind this is that a country will have to spend as much or more time repairing its natural environment while acquiring the necessary natural resources (Roberts and Parks, 2009). To mirror the prosperity and growth of the West, China rushed to create its own industrial revolution by becoming a leader in many of the major industries that polluted America, Germany and other Western countries. during their own industrial revolutions (Bremner, 2006). Chinese companies, with state aid and support, are major producers of steel, coke, aluminum, cement, chemicals, leather, paper and other products that would be normally facing high costs and stricter environmental regulations in other parts of the world. But these factories release large particles, smog, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide and other forms of air pollution into the atmosphere that are very difficult to eliminate (McKibben, 2011). This is where the notion of ecological debt comes into play. As China experiences this enormous growth in its economy, at what cost does this growth come? It will take years, if not decades, to eliminate pollution from China's atmosphere and repair the damage already done. The use of coal to power China has led to a host of problems related to air pollution and the health of Chinese citizens. According to the Energy Information Administration, China accounts for 47 percent of global coal consumption, which is almost equal to the consumption of all countries on the planet combined (Stalley, 2009). Compared to 2011, China's coal consumption increased by 9 percent. This growing use of coal as an energy source comes from the 200 percent increase in electricity demand compared to the early 2000s (Stalley, 2009). Additionally, most coal is used during the winter months in northern China to heat homes. As noted below in the section on air pollution, cities in northern China are among the most cold-polluted, even though they are considerably smaller than China's capital, Beijing. However, this does not exonerate Beijing when it comes to air pollution. Beijing sits in the middle of an industrial belt of coal-burning factories, which undoubtedly produce many days of smog that far exceeds the Environmental Protection Agency's air quality scale. For reference, an air quality index above 300 means the air is unsuitable for breathing (Zarroli, 2013). Everyone is advised to stay indoors with an air purifier running and stay as still as possible. For a growing developing country likeChina is impossible to do. In January this year alone, nineteen days in Beijing exceeded the 300 threshold; the nineteen-day average turned out to be a score of around 500. Incredibly, on January 19, the index reached 886, which is equivalent to living in a smoking lounge (Stalley, 2009). Manufacturing industries, the aforementioned factories producing steel, coke, aluminum, cement, etc., and more than five million cars in Beijing all contribute to the air pollution that is slowly taking over the sky Chinese. It is also important to note that Beijing is not the most polluted city in China. This role falls to the city of Urumqi, in the far west of China; where, as mentioned above, the increased use of heating appliances greatly affects air pollution in China (Zarroli, 2013). Air Pollution Similar to Russia's problem of controlling a large country, China has difficulty imposing new rules and regulations regarding air pollution in China. the western regional area of ​​China. A good example is that of the Qingtongxia Aluminum group in Qingtongxia, China (French, 2007). In 2005, China announced a national campaign to reduce the country's overall energy consumption by raising electricity prices to discourage growth. Western China relies on companies like Qingtongxia Aluminum Group, which accounts for ten percent of Qingtongxia's gross domestic product (French, 2007). To circumvent regulations set by Beijing, Qingtongxia removed Qingtongxia Aluminum Group from its city's national power grid and was directly supplied with electricity by the local company. This eliminated the risk of the company being charged higher fees and also allowed Qingtongxia City to continue to receive the electricity it needed at low prices (French, 2007). This is a recurring problem in China where the local level conflicts with regulations set by the state, leading many local governments to fail to comply with state regulations. A more personal example of China's problem with air pollution and smog is the case of the eight-year-old girl in Jiangsu province who, according to the People's Daily, became the youngest person in China to be diagnosed with lung cancer (Duggan, 2013). Her doctor suspects the lung cancer developed because of increasing smog levels and her location on a busy road. She was exposed to PM 2.5 pollution which contained fine particles that can lodge deep in the lungs of humans and then enter the bloodstream, making this level of pollution very dangerous for humans (Duggan, 2013).Pollution water Pollution of rivers and lakes by Chinese industrial players is also a major problem in China's struggle to be more environmentally friendly. Most effluent discharged into Chinese rivers is untreated and not naturally dispersed by Chinese rivers (Lallanilla, 2013). Some effluents contain carcinogenic contaminants such as cadmium. Not only are the rivers polluted, but this pollution spreads to the wells that many Chinese citizens use to drink water. Tests carried out in July 2009 by BioMed Central, a UK-based science publisher, found that the well in Shangba, a city in southern Guangdong province, contained large amounts of cadmium and zinc, all of which can both lead to liver cancer (Lallanilla, 2013). ). The groundwater that fills these wells is also used for about 40 percent of China's agriculture. According to Reuters, around 90 percentOne hundred percent of China's groundwater is polluted, while about 60 percent of all groundwater is seriously polluted. One of the effects of air and water pollution in China is the creation of “cancer villages.” These villages are so polluted that even living in the city runs a huge risk of being diagnosed with cancer (Lyn, 2009). High rates of stomach, kidney, colon and liver cancer are occurring in certain regions across China; Typically, this high cancer risk area is right next to a heavy industrial complex. Shangba, the town mentioned above in the section on water pollution involving polluted well water, is an example of China's "cancer villages." According to local citizens, the river flowing through the city changes color from white to orange depending on different types of industrial effluents (Lyn, 2009). Some of the contaminants found in the river include cadmium and zinc, which are known to cause cancer. He Shuncai, a thirty-four-year-old farmer from Shangba, said this about the pollution of his town's river: “All the fish died, even the chickens and ducks that drank from the river died. If you put your leg in water, you will get rashes and terrible itching. Last year alone, six people from our village were diagnosed with cancer and were between 30 and 40 years old” (Lyn, 2009). The Chinese government has relatively ignored these areas; an example last December, where Jin Zengmin offered a reward of $32,000. to any local environmental officer who died for swimming in a river in his hometown that Zengmin swam as a young boy, his reward still stands today (Lyn, 2009). Although there are many types of air and water pollution in America and other regions. Worldwide, pollution has greater consequences in China due to its lax regulations and almost non-existent response to pollution hotspots and accidents involving pollution, such as spills (Lallanilla, 2013). Ultimately, this excessive pollution will slowly kill many Chinese people. If one were to play devil's advocate, even though the excessive pollution of the air and water of their cities and towns is a completely negative consequence, it indirectly solves another pollution problem in China, namely namely overpopulation. While this doesn't justify the murder of innocent people, it does sound like the idea put forward by the authors of Freakonomics: A rogue economist explores the dark side of everything. In chapter four, Steven Levitt explores the role of legalized abortion in reducing crime, where children who are unwanted or whose parents cannot care for them are more likely to become criminals and children born in these conditions are generally less fortunate. In some ways, pollution in China reduces the number of people who need food, electricity and heat. One of the major effects of China's disregard for the natural environment is desertification and the dust storms that coincide with it. Over the past decade, approximately 400 million people in and around China have been and continue to be affected by desertification (Tudela, 2001). Desertification is defined as the process of transformation of arable and cultivable land into desert. It is one of the major environmental problems facing China, as it affects transportation, food security and international relations with neighboring countries due to the excessive problem of sandstorms, which can blow over South Korea. South and North, Japan and evenacross the Pacific. in North America (Tudela, 2001). In central China, the Gobi Desert converts approximately 3,500 square kilometers of arable land into desert each year (Tudela, 2001). The causes of desertification are numerous, including deforestation, population increase, overgrazing, abuse of water resources, city construction, mining and destruction of vegetation (Forest Department of the United States, 1997). Even as China's population grows, it does not need to lose more space to deserts where it is difficult to build the types of things needed by its citizens, like farmland and housing. Another problem related to desertification, deforestation and vegetation loss is the increased risk of a sandstorm occurring in China (Tudela, 2001). Not only does it affect China, but the sandstorm has a high chance of spreading to the Korean Peninsula and Japan due to deforestation and vegetation loss also occurring in China (Tudela, 2001). Kim, the exchange student from the South Korea Maritime Academy, brought this idea to the GSMA official's attention when he presented the effect of these dust storms on South Korea. During the sandstorm, people cannot walk or function outside without proper protection. For China, this means constant disregard for its economic growth from surrounding countries, as they are the ones who also feel the environmental problems caused by China. Not only is dust a problem, but some fear that the sandstorm will also carry large particles that remain in the atmosphere and pollute the air of various countries in East and South Asia. East. Furthermore, the dust storms in China could very likely be a nail in the coffin for other East and Southeast Asian countries coalescing around one or more goals of disrupting the monopoly of China on power and trade. Not only is this a problem facing major Asian countries, but it is significantly disrupting their economies and could potentially lead to city shutdowns, such as what happened in the city of Harbin, China, where air pollution The smog was so bad that the city shut down so people didn't need to go out. Ultimately, China causes irreplaceable damage to its environment and that of surrounding nations, as evidenced by the creation of sandstorms. However, China is trying to come up with different laws, regulations and programs to hopefully reduce the pollution of its natural environment and renew its environment. One such program is to eliminate old, used cars that pollute the atmosphere with their decrepit technology (Wong, 2013). Another example is the creation of the “Green Wall of China,” a long line of trees planted by the government and various environmental groups to prevent the desert from turning arable land into desert (Roberts and Parks, 2009). Although this practice is backed by solid evidence and research, they apparently only plant one or two species of trees. This will lead to a gray, sparse “forest” that will not lead to biodiversity. Air and water pollution in China will most likely cause the most damage to their natural environment, due to the severity of the chemicals and pollutants and because pollution from China is somewhat ignored by the Chinese authorities. Not only will pollution cause harm to the health of Chinese citizens, but it will also disrupt growth and prosperity.