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Pencil This In: November 9-13
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The full report of an 18 month study conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) at China's request is out, and the picture ain't pretty. As many as 300 million people are drinking contaminated water every day, and 190 million are suffering from water-related illnesses each year. One third of the length of all China's rivers are now "highly polluted" as are 75% of its major lakes and 25% of its coastal waters. Every year, nearly 30,000 children die from diarrhoea due to polluted water. If things don't improve by 2020, pollution will cause 600,000 premature deaths in urban areas and 20 million cases of respiratory illness a year. The overall cost of health damage will be equal to 13 percent of gross domestic product.
Photo by April
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This coincides with a great influx of foreigners. I blame them.
"at China's request"
It's going to be interesting seeing the action taken from these results. A few weeks ago there was a news article from a top party member saying how environmental protection was of upmost importance to the party and the country, then the next day another top party dude said the environment was very important, but economic development is China's primary concern (i.e. fuck the environment). At the top levels, there seems to be no concensus or agreement over what is important regarding the environment.
Tie this report in with the Economist one from 3/4 months back that said that the cost to tidy up and heal China's environmental damage caused over the last 20 years was more than the economic gains over the same period.
If the world is sick, China is a living corpse. Sad.
They don't care. The rich ones will take their money and move elsewhere someday. It's not like the people are going to speak up (or be heard) any time soon.
In related news: I just got my diarrhea (not diarrhoea) fixed. In Shanghai.
Jakob, there are about 8 different legitimate spellings of dihoreahihae.
Everyone dead = true harmony
600,000 premature deaths by 2020? That's rosy compared to the World Bank's original research which mentioned 750,000 premature deaths RIGHT NOW.
Of course the foreigners are to blame, the pure Chinese culture is without flaw or fault.
As for whether Beijing will do anything about it...nah, the PLA is in an arms race with the US and Russia to create an equivalent secondary strike capability and the Varyag is being refitted as an PLAN attack carrier to teach those naughty Taiwanese a lesson. And of course hard working cadres must have imported luxury cars, booze, clothes and lots of hot KTV girls. All of that costs money, of course.
China ROCKS!
China SUCKS!
nanheyangrouchuan
China FUCKS!