This week in Shanghaiist
We recently read a report on China's water/environmental problems, based on reports from Singapore's Straits Times. Despite living in China and developing some measure of immunity to dismal statistics, there was one that managed to shock us: environmental experts claim that without some drastic change, pollution might, within five years, make the Yangtze River just about inhospitable to all forms of life. The baiji, or Yangtze river dolphin, was only the latest victim: according to the first report, in the 1980s there were 126 forms of life in the river, and by 2002, that figure was already down to 52.
Just how bad is the situation? The Yangtze River goes by 186 cities on its way from Qinghai to Shanghai, and in the process picks up 40% of China's polluted waste water. According to another report, in 2006, China produced a total of 53.7 billion tons of waste water. But that's not the bad news (brace yourself now): by 2030, China might possibly use up between 89-100% of its sources of drinking water.
All of this begs a deeper question: what kind of water are they using when they pump 10 kilos of water into pigs headed for the slaughterhouse? Because if it's waste water not fit for human consumption, there's a chance that some of whatever shit is in that water was in the bacon panini you had for lunch today. And if it's potable water, well shit, that's a waste of perfectly good water.
But we digress. Another report we read, relating to Taihu algae blooming that left 3 million people in the Wuxi area without drinking water, has an interview with a guy who claims (quite believably) that Taihu's environmental woes will never end until all the factories along the lake close down. The algae bloom was so bad there that instead of fisherman fishing, as was once possible in the lake, there are tons of people whose sole job it is to scoop the algae out of the lake.
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If the history of the growth of the City of Chicago in the 19th century is any indication, China is about 50 years away from cleaning up its act to balance growth and trade with environmental and consumer safety.
The parallels are significant - Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" documents the slaughter houses that lined the Chicago river during that time and the bile that they put not only into the canned food they made, but the river beside it. This canned food, however, fed millions across the growing USA and the City of Chicago in particular.
To this day the Chicago river, while life has to returned to it, has methane gas bubbling out of it (at a site called bubbly creek) where years livestock refuse, fat and brains were thrown into the river.
China's problem, while much much bigger, is nothing new but hopefully, like Chicago, they can find a way to save it's precious eco-system while maintaining a thriving economy.
Matt L.
Chicago USA
Matt:
You can site individual examples of the US and Europe's past environmental problems, but China is one big environmental problem that started with successive empires clear cutting the Yellow River valley.
As for methane bubbling out of the Chicago River, it is just as likely that the gas is due to the Chicago area used to be marshland.
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1757.html
Animal waste would also be washed into Lake Michigan while the marshland geology would remain in place below the river.
It gets worse for China because because it is estimated that 80% to 90% of China's groundwater is either contaminated by industrial waste or salt water intrusion (as more fresh water is removed from the ground under coastal cities, the difference in hydraulic pressure forces salt water into the porous and empty rock).
China is dying, plain and simple. The fact that things have gotten so bad so quickly and Beijing's response is to jail people who do nothing more than document the damage and which local officials/businesspeople are doing the damage shows that the entire system just doesn't care. And locals saying that the pollution is just a part of development despite China having access to all of the West's accumulated experiences and knowledge.
Many superfund cleanup projects that were started in the US in the late 1960s and early 1970s are just finishing now and that doesn't mean they were completely "cleanable". In a few cases the areas are encapsulated for the next 1000 or 10,000 years.
And China is so toxic and reckless that its filth is swallowing up Korea, Japan and SE Asia.
In the end, most of China may end up a wasteland, with global environmental companies cleaning up the mess with UN and seized Chinese funds as well as recovered metals and chemicals financing the operation. Pollution is a global problem and China is the world's biggest source of crap by far.
nanheyangrouchuan
nanhe,
Just wanted to say, even though you aren't very much liked around the blogs, good going. You may be opinionated, but a lot of the time you are right...Too bad you are crotchety and don't pull any punches and end up pissing off a lot of people...
I'll have to invite you out for a beer one of these days, but how would you know I'm not an agent? And how would I know you're not...
Paranoid in Shanghai
IT WAS 20 KILOS OF WASTEWATER....
Don't the editors of this blog read their own reports?
Wait don't answer that...
I know, you all do it for free, and all of us readers should be more understanding and not complain...
or do you have a new excuse?
Sounds like we're really up shits creek.....
wow, GREAT catch no. 4. GOLD STAR for you! that was a HUGE error by the editors. and a REALLY important stat. 10 kilos of wastewater is nothing, but 20 kilos is MAJOR. totally changed the meaning of the story for me. YOU should start you own blog and EDIT it because you are SO GOOD.
@ #3
Thanks for the props. I know I go unappreciated in the China expat blogosphere, but you know you are saying the right things when everyone is angry at you.
I'll take you and others up on the beers one day in China, but I'm sorry to say when the day comes that I "expose myself" without fear it is because a series of events has occurred that cause China's neighboring powers, the US, Oz and perhaps even the UN to see to the peaceful dissolution of what we call "China". And yes, I am involved with such a working group of US, Oz and French SMEs with gov't and military connections.
From the standpoint of my profession, it is probably too late to save China, but death will be slow. If Beijing decides to have a go at glory via Taiwan, northern Korea or India the demise will be much quicker and more painful.
nanheyangrouchuan