Pollution Estimated To Cause 750,000 Premature Deaths Each Year In China
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 07. 3.07
"Beijing engineered the removal of nearly a third of a World Bank report on pollution in China because of concerns that findings on premature deaths could provoke “social unrest”. The report, produced in co-operation with Chinese government ministries over several years, found about 750,000 people die prematurely in China each year, mainly from air pollution in large cities. China’s State Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) and health ministry asked the World Bank to cut the calculations of premature deaths from the report when a draft was finished last year, according to Bank advisers and Chinese officials." See some of the "lost" details of mortality figures, by category, below the fold.
"Missing from this report are the research project’s findings that high air-pollution levels in Chinese cities is leading to the premature deaths of 350,000-400,000 people each year. A further 300,000 people die prematurely each year from exposure to poor air indoors, according to advisers, but little discussion of this issue survived in the report because it was outside the ambit of the Chinese ministries which sponsored the research.
Another 60,000-odd premature deaths were attributable to poor-quality water, largely in the countryside, from severe diarrhea, and stomach, liver and bladder cancers.
The mortality information was “reluctantly” excised by the World Bank from the published report, according to advisers to the research project."
What are we to think of this?
China has relatively few cars, and the US many. In 2005 there were over 40 thousand people killed in traffic accidents in the US. Our point is that cumulative annual mortality data like these are pretty meaningless without a parallel "per capita" rate to make a comparison between nations.
What does strike us, however, is the parallel between the US government, which recently has seemed quite willing to deceive it's citizens about the future risks of climate change, and the Chinese government, which seems to have wanted to hide evidence that national environmental laws and enforcement programs were ineffective. Both governments wanted to prevent 'social unrest,' and, we might suppose, demands for corrective action. Peas in a pod.
Via:: Financial Times
Image credit:: Dave Band's Art, Peas in Pod
Government leaders should be conscious of air pollution problems because they must breath the same air as the rest of us. They also should be responsible for the control of other forms of pollution (nuclear, water and soil) because they have been entrusted with the authority to look after the good of the people whom they represent.
Industrial air pollution, especially from burning coal affects all because the fumes and especially the particulates are harmful. Water pollution severly affects life by enabling cancer causing chemicals to enter the water from factories which then becomes part of the river sediment and later part of the soil. Water pollution from sewage, dead animals and other sources promotes and maintains disease organisms.
Thousands of dams presently serve to collect silt and to serve as resevoirs for breeding grounds for diseases that are lethal to humans and to most natural forms of aquatic life such as fish and frogs.
Air, water and soil pollution in China is extraordinarily bad . Even in a society such as one so strictly controlled by the government, the leaders must realize that they too are subject to the very pollution effects they have power to control. They must have a concern for their own health and the health of their people in order for them to act effectively. They are the ones primarily responsible for the passage and enforcement of stronger pollution laws of all types to protect air, land and water resources. The conditions may have already gone too far and even corrections or changes at this stage may prove futile but still, the effort should be made.
Government officials are the ones who can pass laws regarding the air contaminant levels of their utility coal thermal plants; they have the authority to close down ones that are serious polluters. They have the power to pass laws governing the emptying of industrial waste and sewage into their rivers. They are the ones who can decide to continue the building of thousands of new dams resulting in the increase of stagnant water, diseases and contaminated silt aggegate build up or to look at free current hydro as an alternative..
Whether in China or in the US, we live in a top down society. The top has the lead and the people at the bottom follow. However, if the ones at the top do not have the interests of others at heart, then it becomes a case of the blind leading the blind or the wore case senario of the Pied Piper.
The situation is similar in our country with climate change. By having so long denied any link between carbon output and climate change, our leaders been denying the truth to others just as much as to themselves. Yet, they have the power to make decisions that would cut down the way we use carbon fuels, especially with respect to gas milage of vehicles or the burning of coal from our thermal coal electric generating plants.
The fact that President Bush attempted to push through legislation that would enable extensions of our coal burning utility plants not to be subject to air standards is indicative of the mentality of our administration toward the understanding of the relationship between air pollution and health. It was fortunate that our courts disagreed.
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