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China's cavalier attitude towards smog and environmental pollution is destroying the planet. I could never live there because you can't even see 50 feet in fron

China's cavalier attitude towards smog and environmental pollution is destroying the planet. I could never live there because you can't even see 50 feet in front of you in Shanghai; I've heard Beijing is much worse, but I wouldn't dare ever visit because of health reasons. Here's a photo outside of my hotel during my stay in Shanghai: http://imgur.com/xW9SoZP.jpg http://imgur.com/xW9SoZP.jpg Surely, people don't want to migrate to urban areas in part because of the smog.

omio 10y ago
Those buildings look French.
- mikeash 10y ago
  Chunks of Shanghai were owned by European powers for about a hundred years. The influence persists, as do many buildings (although the ones in this picture surely aren't from that time).
  - zhemao 10y ago
    There was a sizable French Concession in Shanghai's International Settlement and its architecture style is widely emulated. My relatives used to own an old school row house (shikumen) in the former French Concession, but sold it off for new development. Funnily enough, that neighborhood has been turned into an upscale shopping and entertainment district, and many of the new shops are built in a shikumen style.
- Hydraulix989 10y ago
  Correct, my photo was taken in the French Concession.
chishaku 10y ago
> China's cavalier attitude ... and the cavalier attitude of those buying China's exports. "A significant portion of Chinese emissions of air pollutants in recent years has resulted from the manufacture of goods intended for export, new research by a team of Chinese and international scholars found, reflecting the increasingly global nature of China’s environmental crisis." "The U.S., as a major buyer of Chinese-made goods, has a stake in China curbing its emissions. For each of the pollutants examined—including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and black carbon—about 21% of export-related emissions in the year 2006 were tied to Chinese exports to the U.S, the researchers found." “If all the emissions were reallocated according to where goods are consumed…emissions of many of China’s trade partners would be much higher,” they wrote. In the case of the U.S., for example, emissions of the four pollutants analyzed would have been 6-19% higher in 2006 “if the emissions embodied in its trade with China were included.” http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/01/21/u-s-exports-its-factories-and-pollution-to-china/ http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/01/21/u-s-exports-it...
- peyton 10y ago
  Every country exports goods. Manufacturing these goods will produce some amount of pollution. For an individual importing from China, it is rare to impossible to get accurate figures on the environmental impact of what you're importing. Lax environmental oversight is the CCP's choice and the CCP's choice alone.
- Retric 10y ago
  Most of this air pollution is from poorly designed and operated coal powerplants and poorly maintained cars not factory's. It's a problem of poor regulation not exports.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    Well, it isn't poor maintnence, but cheap maintnence. If you follow the rules and your competitors don't, you are quickly out business. A classic prisoner's delimna. For cars, the cars are fine but the gas they put in them is not.
- epynonymous 10y ago
  nice, you hit the nail on the head with this reply.
- jeffdavis 10y ago
  True, but not particularly useful. Trying to control pollution through purchasing decisions is a very crude tool and only works when the buyer has good information. Taxing or prohibiting pollution is a much more direct way to influence the situation, and that's up to China.
mikeash 10y ago
Beijing is amazingly bad. I don't think visiting would do any serious damage, but living there certainly does. A day like the one in your picture would be an excellent day in Beijing. On a bad day, the closest building in your picture would barely be visible. I don't know how many people care, though. I don't think there's great awareness of the health consequences of pollution, and I got some puzzlement when talking about the negative consequences. I feel like it's seen as more of an aesthetic problem. I don't think it's scaring many people away from the cities. Economic opportunity is far more important for most people than far-future diseases. Beijing has a huge problem with illegal immigration from rural areas, with millions of people living there without residency permits.
gozur88 10y ago
>China's cavalier attitude towards smog and environmental pollution is destroying the planet. The entire planet? That seems a bit much. I suspect every industrializing country goes through a heavy pollution stage. "By the 1940’s, Pittsburgh was dark at all hours of the day.": http://popularpittsburgh.com/darkhistory/ http://popularpittsburgh.com/darkhistory/ The Lake Erie area was so polluted by the 1960s the Cuyahoga River actually caught fire. The lake itself was pretty much devoid of life near land: http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/58 http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/58 Plus the killer fogs in London. And don't forget Lake Karachay, which the Russians used as a nuclear wasted dump. "Starting in the 1960s, the lake began to dry out; its area dropped from 0.5 km2 in 1951[1] to 0.15 km2 by the end of 1993.[6] In 1968, following a drought in the region, the wind carried 185 PBq (5 MCi) of radioactive dust away from the dried area of the lake, irradiating half a million people.[3]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Karachay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Karachay Hungry people can't afford to worry too much about pollution, and even after the political will exists to clean up the air and water it still takes time to actually do it.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  > The Lake Erie area was so polluted by the 1960s the Cuyahoga River actually caught fire. Seems like a good time to bring up http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/07/18/separating-fact-from-fiction-about-the-cuyahoga-river-fires/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016... (Quoted below nearly in full) > As journalists descend on Cleveland to cover the Republican convention, it is inevitable that news stories mention the infamous 1969 fire on the Cuyahoga River. The story of this fire is largely a fable, however, as I have documented at length. Much of what people write and read about the fire, and its historical context, just is not so. > The June 22, 1969, fire was not much of a fire at all. More importantly, it was not the first river fire, on the Cuyahoga or elsewhere. River fires were quite common in the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries. There were several fires on the Cuyahoga over this period, as there were fires in Columbus, Detroit, Philadelphia and lots of other places. Yet prior to the 1960s, and the awakening of the modern environmental movement, river fires did not attract much attention outside of local communities. Fortunately, local communities saw river fires as a problem, and took action. > What was different about 1969 was not that a river had gotten so dirty that it caught fire but that industrial rivers had been cleaned sufficiently that river fires were no longer common.

omio 10y ago

Those buildings look French.

mikeash 10y ago
Chunks of Shanghai were owned by European powers for about a hundred years. The influence persists, as do many buildings (although the ones in this picture surely aren't from that time).
- zhemao 10y ago
  There was a sizable French Concession in Shanghai's International Settlement and its architecture style is widely emulated. My relatives used to own an old school row house (shikumen) in the former French Concession, but sold it off for new development. Funnily enough, that neighborhood has been turned into an upscale shopping and entertainment district, and many of the new shops are built in a shikumen style.
Hydraulix989 10y ago
Correct, my photo was taken in the French Concession.

chishaku 10y ago

> China's cavalier attitude ... and the cavalier attitude of those buying China's exports. "A significant portion of Chinese emissions of air pollutants in recent years has resulted from the manufacture of goods intended for export, new research by a team of Chinese and international scholars found, reflecting the increasingly global nature of China’s environmental crisis." "The U.S., as a major buyer of Chinese-made goods, has a stake in China curbing its emissions. For each of the pollutants examined—including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and black carbon—about 21% of export-related emissions in the year 2006 were tied to Chinese exports to the U.S, the researchers found." “If all the emissions were reallocated according to where goods are consumed…emissions of many of China’s trade partners would be much higher,” they wrote. In the case of the U.S., for example, emissions of the four pollutants analyzed would have been 6-19% higher in 2006 “if the emissions embodied in its trade with China were included.” http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/01/21/u-s-exports-its-factories-and-pollution-to-china/ http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/01/21/u-s-exports-it...

peyton 10y ago
Every country exports goods. Manufacturing these goods will produce some amount of pollution. For an individual importing from China, it is rare to impossible to get accurate figures on the environmental impact of what you're importing. Lax environmental oversight is the CCP's choice and the CCP's choice alone.
Retric 10y ago
Most of this air pollution is from poorly designed and operated coal powerplants and poorly maintained cars not factory's. It's a problem of poor regulation not exports.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  Well, it isn't poor maintnence, but cheap maintnence. If you follow the rules and your competitors don't, you are quickly out business. A classic prisoner's delimna. For cars, the cars are fine but the gas they put in them is not.
epynonymous 10y ago
nice, you hit the nail on the head with this reply.
jeffdavis 10y ago
True, but not particularly useful. Trying to control pollution through purchasing decisions is a very crude tool and only works when the buyer has good information. Taxing or prohibiting pollution is a much more direct way to influence the situation, and that's up to China.

mikeash 10y ago

Beijing is amazingly bad. I don't think visiting would do any serious damage, but living there certainly does. A day like the one in your picture would be an excellent day in Beijing. On a bad day, the closest building in your picture would barely be visible. I don't know how many people care, though. I don't think there's great awareness of the health consequences of pollution, and I got some puzzlement when talking about the negative consequences. I feel like it's seen as more of an aesthetic problem. I don't think it's scaring many people away from the cities. Economic opportunity is far more important for most people than far-future diseases. Beijing has a huge problem with illegal immigration from rural areas, with millions of people living there without residency permits.

gozur88 10y ago

>China's cavalier attitude towards smog and environmental pollution is destroying the planet. The entire planet? That seems a bit much. I suspect every industrializing country goes through a heavy pollution stage. "By the 1940’s, Pittsburgh was dark at all hours of the day.": http://popularpittsburgh.com/darkhistory/ http://popularpittsburgh.com/darkhistory/ The Lake Erie area was so polluted by the 1960s the Cuyahoga River actually caught fire. The lake itself was pretty much devoid of life near land: http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/58 http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/58 Plus the killer fogs in London. And don't forget Lake Karachay, which the Russians used as a nuclear wasted dump. "Starting in the 1960s, the lake began to dry out; its area dropped from 0.5 km2 in 1951[1] to 0.15 km2 by the end of 1993.[6] In 1968, following a drought in the region, the wind carried 185 PBq (5 MCi) of radioactive dust away from the dried area of the lake, irradiating half a million people.[3]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Karachay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Karachay Hungry people can't afford to worry too much about pollution, and even after the political will exists to clean up the air and water it still takes time to actually do it.

thaumasiotes 10y ago
> The Lake Erie area was so polluted by the 1960s the Cuyahoga River actually caught fire. Seems like a good time to bring up http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/07/18/separating-fact-from-fiction-about-the-cuyahoga-river-fires/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016... (Quoted below nearly in full) > As journalists descend on Cleveland to cover the Republican convention, it is inevitable that news stories mention the infamous 1969 fire on the Cuyahoga River. The story of this fire is largely a fable, however, as I have documented at length. Much of what people write and read about the fire, and its historical context, just is not so. > The June 22, 1969, fire was not much of a fire at all. More importantly, it was not the first river fire, on the Cuyahoga or elsewhere. River fires were quite common in the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries. There were several fires on the Cuyahoga over this period, as there were fires in Columbus, Detroit, Philadelphia and lots of other places. Yet prior to the 1960s, and the awakening of the modern environmental movement, river fires did not attract much attention outside of local communities. Fortunately, local communities saw river fires as a problem, and took action. > What was different about 1969 was not that a river had gotten so dirty that it caught fire but that industrial rivers had been cleaned sufficiently that river fires were no longer common.