Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Environmental Pollution
Environmental Pollution
Environme
ntal
Issues in
East Asia
(Fig. 11.2)
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• http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200708/r171792_646585.jpg
The Polluted Yellow River!
Migrant worker, shoveling extremely polluted water and mud
from a nearly dried river.
(Johnson,Tim. China's Environmental Woes are so Large They've Begun to Generate Social Instability.
http://earthhopenetwork.net/economic_boom_batters_chinas_climate.htm)
Water Pollution
• Substances such as cadmium, lead, DDT, coliform
bacteria, and arsenic have been found in the rivers
(Some Polluted Outlets… 2004).
• “The decline in water conditions across China is directly
related to China's population growth, strong economic
growth, and uncontrolled urbanization and
semiurbanization” (Karasov 2002).
• In 1996, governmental officials in the country reported
that 40% of the sections of the Huang and Yangtze rivers
near major cities did not even fulfill the minimum
standards of water quality (Environmental Health
Perspectives 2002).
Water Pollution: Waste Water
• Waste water is when raw sewage is dumped
into the rivers and carries water-borne
diseases like typhoid, cholera, dysentery and
hepatitis
• This leads to health epidemics and deaths
• It also contaminates farmland due to irrgation.
Cancer mortality from water
pollution - TVE
• Increase in cancer
mortality over time in
control area, polluted
and most polluted
townships
• Show that increased
pollution results in
increased mortality
Liver and stomach cancer deaths • steady increase in
doubled since the 1970s. China has cancer mortality over
Highest liver cancer dead rate in the time in polluted areas
world
Cancer mortality and birth defects –
changes to agriculture
Impact of new practice of
using industrial
wastewater for irrigation
70 km long canal build in
1960, daily received
400,000 m3 of untreated
wastewater from
coalmines and
petrochemical, power and
chemical plants –
increasing cancer mortality
and birth defect
Ocean pollution
Air Pollutants
• Sulfates
• Sulfur dioxide---China is the world’s leading source
of---respiratory and cardiovascular disease and acid
rain---25.5 million tons each year
• Ozone
• Black carbon---produced by cars, stoves, factories
and crop burning
• Desert dust--from sand and dust storms in the Gobi
Desert
• Mercury
Air pollution • Most severe env.
health problem
• 3 out of 4 city
dwellers live below
Chinas air-quality
standards
• Acid rain fell on a
quarter of cities for
more than 60% of
rainy days
Iron, steel and chemical factories spew sot, • High mortality rate
fly ash and sulfur dioxide into the air from lung disease,
• High rate of lung
Pollutant trapped in the valley and within
the walls of the city. 2 million people live
cancer because of
Taiyuan – Shansi Province smoking
Air Pollution
• "Overall urban air quality is good with relatively heavy pollution
in some cities. Among 471 cities, 3.6 percent met grade 1 air
quality standard, 79.2 percent met grade 2, 15.5 percent met
grade 3 and 1.7 percent failed to met grade 3."
• Interpretation: Almost one in five cities still fails to meet the low
passing grade set by the government on an annual basis.
Statistics in this slide are from China Revs Up 2004 unless otherwise labeled.
Air Pollution
• Now nine out of the ten cities said to have the most
serious air pollution in the world are located in China
(Schmidt 2002).
• Urban haze fills the air with the appearance of fog.
• Ding Yihui, of the China National Climate Center,
explains “This smog is mainly smoke though, not fog
which would be comprised of water vapor.
• In the large cities of China, substances such as
lead, sulfur, carbon monoxide and tiny particles of
dust are in the air.
• Respiratory diseases cause ten times as many
fatalities as in the United States.
Statistics in this slide are from China Revs Up 2004 unless otherwise labeled.
China has the most deaths from urban air pollution in the world.
(Worldwatch Institute. Coal, China, and India: A Deadly Combination for Air Pollution?,
http://www.worldwatch.org/features/vsow/2005/12/14)
A picture of downtown Hangzhou, China hazy with smog
(Skiba, Tom. Smog in downtown Hangzhou China,
http://cai.blogware.com/blog/Photos/China/_archives/2005/4/27/625887.htm)
Effects of Air Pollution
• Evan Osnos lived in Beijing and in The New Yorker he wrote,
• “After four years in Beijing, I have learned how to gauge the
pollution before I open the curtains; by dawn on the smoggiest
days, the lungs ache. “
• The US Embassy in Beijing installed an air monitor on its roof
and every hour on Twitter it posts the score from 1 being the
cleanest to 500 the dirtiest
• It is normally around 500 and public health notices are
constantly posted that you should avoid all physical activity
outside.
• The only time any American city ever reached 300 was in the
midst of a forest fire
China - Effects of Air Pollution
• up to 656,000 premature deaths each year
• Crop damage
• Climate change
• Only 1% of people in cities breathe safe air
Effects of Air Pollution
• Different colored smog
• Gray comes from iron deposits blown from
steel mills
• White comes from the chemical factories
• Black comes form the coal mines and plants
Effects of Air Pollution
• China has the world’s highest number of deaths
attributed to air pollution
• In 2007, the WHO estimated that 656,000 Chinese died
prematurely due to indoor and outdoor air pollution
• Air pollution causes premature babies, low-birth weight
babies, and depresses lung functions in healthy people
• Lung cancer is the number one cause of death in China
• Asthma is on the rise
• Reduced crop production because the smog blocks
sunlight over 2/3 of eastern China where rice and wheat
are harvested
Car Emissions
• Huge shift recently towards driving cars and in
some areas of the cities, bicycles are no longer
allowed (Global Refining 2004).
• Most cars built by foreign companies, because
leaders wanted foreign investors.
• Cars sold in China have much older equipment
to control emissions than cars sold in Europe or
the United States
• Emissions standards in China are much lower
than in Europe and the U.S.
Statistics in this slide are from China Revs Up 2004 unless otherwise labeled.
CO2 emission - China
• Indoor air pollution.
Women in Xuan Wei in
Yunnan province has the
highest lung cancer rate
among Chinese women.
From the burning of
unclean coals in the
homes without
ventilation
• Improving as industries
achieve emission
standards – change from
coal to gas
Social equity on CO2 emission
• CO2 emission,
largely a by-product
of energy
production and use
• Low and middle
income countries
have seen a
relatively much
higher increase in
CO2 emission
Chinas problem – A global issue
• China largest contributor of
– Sulfur oxides
– Chorofluorocarbons
– Ozone depleting substances and
– Carbon dioxides
Coal and Air Pollution
• Coal is the number one source of air pollution
in China
• China gets 80% of its electricity and 70% of its
total power from coal
• Around 6 million tons of coal is burned
everyday to power factories, heat homes,
cook meals
Coal
• 70% of energy is from coal, used for electricity and
forging steel.
• Most homes and businesses use coal.
• Coal is cheap and extremely dirty, releasing sulfur and
other chemicals when burned.
• Some businesses in big cities have switched over to
fossil fuels, but most still rely heavily on coal.
• Previously the government had claimed that the cost of
solving the problem by building cleaner factories was too
high.
• Governmental leaders are starting to order businesses to
clean up, and some of the worst polluting factories to
shut-down.