China Wakes Up Thirsty and Worried
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 08. 3.05
A US public opinion survey typically samples a few thousand. So, when a Chinese survey on environmental concerns polled millions it got our attention. Representative sample size? Biased? Who knows. What we learned beyond doubt is that clean water is getting scarce and people are worried, seriously worried. Reminiscent of the US circa 1971. From the China Daily of July 29th: "Clean drinking water is the public's No 1 environmental concern according to a State survey released yesterday. The investigation was carried out by the All-China Environmental Federation (ACEF) and supervised by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), in April and May. More than 4 million people from 31 provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities or special administrative regions took part in the survey, airing their opinions on China's environmental issues"..."More than 96 per cent of the people surveyed said China is challenged by a water shortage crisis and that building a water-saving society is the most effective way to solve the problem".
TreeHugger saw the detailed rankings. Climate change did not even make the list. No mention of the relationship between floods, drought and water availability.
Bodes poorly for public support, in China, of a "Plan B" for the failed Kyoto Treaty. The good news is that government sponsored technocrats might be inventing a host of technologies and creative public policies to improve drinking water supplies. We'll be watching and reporting back.
The majority of the rivers are polluted badly because of raw untreated chemicals dumped in to make nice shiny cheap plastic things for $1.99. A friend who visited said the skies were horrid everywhere they went. Is it the lack of water, or the lake of clean water? I agree tho, their planned society might be able to implement some saving technology we can't seem to (because it won't help this quarter's results).
When I was in China this past year, the smog was so dense that I couldn't see the sun on a totally sunny day in Beijing. I will never forget standing about 100m away from Tiananmen Gate...and not being able to see it anymore. If I sneezed into a tissue, it turned the tissue black.
I've always taken pollution very seriously, but that trip was a wake up call even for me. I have no idea how China is going to be able to regulate enough to control pollution during its economic boom when things are already so bad.
Reply to Mer. A great deal of the filth you saw on that visit is coal based, and driven by a supply chain that leads right back to the American consumer. When coal ash and particulate emissions fall down to the earth directly, or in aerosol form, they build up on land and building surfaces until the next wet spell, when they "wash" off into surface waters, taking out aquatic life. The toxicity of this storm water stems, in part, from the unique character of much of China's coal, which is relatively heavily laden with mercury, flourides, sulfer, lead, and so on. The other toxicity influence is that the acid rain induced by coal burning mobilizes metals in soil and on building surfaces, downspouts, and sewers. People may not know the causation of what is happening,. but it must be obvious to them that their water is bad and aquatic life gone.
Incidentally, things were not that different in the US between WWII and the late 1960's, which is the period in which we transitioned from coal to oil and natural gas for building heat. From my teen years in that period, I still recall filthy black snow and old stone buildings that had gone fromnatural tones to black from city coal burning. The parts of our old cities that are still derelict may show the occasional black sided relict of that period.
This is one factor causing China to so aggressivley go after oil and gas rights overseas.