http://www.nbc11.com/slideshow/news/...52/detail.html

Thought this might be of interest to the posters over here.

 

Major problems exist. Guess who they want to pay for their cleanup? Yep, you and me.

 

As expected from the #1 Imitations Country, They produce 1/4 of the worlds pollution...

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Snow really wears down my car parts.

 

China is a major polluter. And they are going to get much worse. The problem is their obsession with economic growth via the fastest route possible. The problem with the fastest route possible is that it is also the cheapest (which is also exactly what the Chinese government wants).

What this means is that China is "modernizing" using all the oldest (cheapest) and least efficient technologies which are available. In other words, China is very rapidly trying to bring a backward country of 1.2 billion people locked in a medieval agrarian economy into the "modern era" of the 1960's.

This is having disastrous results. They are also trying to build a "car culture". Again, with all the latest 1960's automotive technologies. Their industrial base does not have the technical sophistication to manufacture the latest most efficient engine designs.

Same problem with their power generation technologies. Forget about scrubbers for smokestack emissions; too expensive. And totally forget about advanced technologies like carbon dioxide sequestering (underground) for coal burning power plants. The Chinese are decades behind everyone else in R&D for these technologies.

 

So basically they're going through the same industrial revolution that the United States (and most European nations) have already gone through. I don't believe the U.S. corporations or citizens cared that much about environmental concerns during that period. Why should China be any different?

If the U.S. (or other any other nation) is that concerned about the environment then it ought to give away the environmentally clean technology to the Chinese and subsidize the use of clean technology and environmentally sound practices. That won't happen because, as always, money is more important. But, don't blame the Chinese for doing what everyone else has already done.

 

What a joke to say this in 2008!

 

Hi,

First discount the dust storms. I grew up in Oklahoma and that comes with the territory when you live in the high-plains. From the dust-bowl days, it can be poor agricultural processes but there are parts of the western USA where dust storms are natural.

As for the other pollution, it sure reminds me of DC, Denver and LA in the 60s and early 70s. That is a real problem that the Chinese have to deal with and I know they've hired some USA teachers to help in that area. It is not a trivial problem but first they have to recognize there is a problem . . .

Bob Wilson

 

I think the only sad statement is that no one will pony up the technology or the cash to give China the incentive not to pollute.

It's terribly sad, but it's no joke. Seriously, why should the rest of the industrialized world reap the financial benefits of raping and pillaging the land and forbid China the same thing. "Do as we say not as we did."

To be sure plundering natural resources for profit is terrible - lucrative - but terrible.

 

The West has had almost 200 years to clean up its mess, and it's only just beginning. In that time it pretty well stripped the rest of the world of resources, both natural and social.

Now it's China (and India's) turn up, and they will only use the cheapest fuel available.Coal. Forget about sequestration, we've not got there ourselves.

And what technology are we using?

 

Well, you most certainly make a great point. We're certainly a more technology savvy industrial culture. There are some things we can do to help them out (i.e. $$$$). It's just not fair to say to them "No, you need to look at the environmental impact. . . . " When we never have ourselves. But, I agree, we need to look at ourselves first.