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China has become the World's Smokestack |
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Thursday, 27 December 2007 |
When residents in Handan, China hang their clothes to dry, they soon need to wash them again as they are covered with black fallout from the nearby Handan Iron and Steel Company. China has been in a rush to bring the industrial revolution to their land and with their eagerness they have absorbed the majority of the industries that previously made their neighbours to the West dirty. China is currently the world's leading maker of steel, coke, aluminum, cement, chemicals, leather and paper. In other parts of the world, tougher environmental rules have been introduced to help regulate these industries but in China this is not the case and they have not only become the world's factory but also our smokestack. |  |
In fact, China's eagerness to accept the polluting industries has facilitated their economic rise. But at what cost? According to some economists the trade off of double digit growth rates has done nothing to improve people's lives due to the significant damage to the air, land, water and human health. Not to mention that China's declining environment has upended the geopolitics of global warming. China is now producing so many products / goods that had been made in the West that those countries can boast of declining carbon emissions, while the world's overall emissions are increasingly rising.
Read the full story at The International Herald Tribune |
