Linfen, China: China’s Most Polluted City Moves up a Notch
by Mairi Beautyman, Berlin, Germany on 04. 3.07
According to China's latest pollution rankings, the country’s most polluted city is now Urumqi. Linfen, the city that formally held this title, is showing some small progress, says a recent article in The Guardian. Swallowed up by 50m tonnes of coal mined each year in the nearby hills of Shanxi province and located smack in the middle of a 12-mile industrial belt, Linfen plains to shutdown 160 of 196 iron foundries, and 57 of 153 coking plants by the end of 2007. In 2006, if you lived in Linfen, you inhaled 163 days of unhealthy air—but that’s a 15 day improvement when compared to 2005.
Despite recent green policies, cleanup efforts, and the launch of a green building program, economic growth usually crushes environmental concerns in China. In Bejing, the curtain of smog over the city was only recently labeled haze--previously, it was called fog.
Therefore, the improvement in Linfen is remarkable. “The changes are being driven by business (nobody wants to invest in such a polluted place), bureaucratic self-interest (local officials find it difficult to be promoted) and shifting political priorities,” The Guardian reports. Thanks tipster Mike. ::The Guardian
I think they should turn this smog into a public park, like they do here:
http://quixoticals.blogspot.com/2007/04/turning-smog-into-public-park.html
I hate to be so pessimistic, but what is happening in China is that though some of the wealthier cities are getting cleaner, the really bad polluters still remain. They are just moving elsewhere.
It is wonderful to see that China is making such drastic inroads in curbing its overpopulation.
By creating an environment that is essentially unfit to live in China assures that the life expectancy of a significant part of its population will be drastically curtailed. This is a good thing.
pollution, the depression of knowing that one lives in a place that is unfit for life, a society where people smoke like... smoke stacks and cars do not have to have the same environmental safeguards as in the Western world, together with an ever growing pressure to work harder and harder just to accumulate stuff that will be gathering dust in the house -has- to be a major contributing series of factors that will sharply reduce an overabundant population.
Go China! You guys are part of a winning team, never change a thing! I love you just the way you are.
/not sarcasm, unadulterated cynism, and well-deserved.
It's sad when you see mismanagement and abuse of natural resources. I have expereinced this in the quality of some teas being produced in recent years from China. As I collect Puerh Cha, a form of age tea I have often requested teas from older stocks produced before 2004.
Varat
http://www.puerhcha.com
apparently about 70% of china`s rivers are overpolluted. I imagine there are lots of food items coming out of china. I propose all foods expored out of that country be tested for pollutants(im sure they are to some extent.. but i think laws have laxed in the last dozen years.)
keep trying to clean up realllllllly good ! :)