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Talking with Americans that have lived in China, it sounds like the problem isn't the govt, but culture. Like the anti-spitting campaign during the Olympics, th

Talking with Americans that have lived in China, it sounds like the problem isn't the govt, but culture. Like the anti-spitting campaign during the Olympics, the Chinese govt need similar strong tactics to get its citizens to care about the environment. I don't know how successful the anti-spitting campaign worked out, but the West's current love affair with the environment didn't happen over night either.

pavlov 13y ago
The West has a love affair with the environment? Maybe about 2-4% do, half of them living in cities and the other half in the countryside (very different lifestyles but similar goals of a minimum environmental impact). Another 5-10% care enough about the environment to make daily conscious choices for it, but most of those choices amount to lip service or marketing-driven "greenwashing". Most of these people live in cities. The rest just don't care, and will continue driving their cars and eating >300g of meat per day until they die or become incapable of deciding for themselves.
- jedrek 13y ago
  I think you underestimate the massive changes in attitude that have come about due to the environmental movement. The very fact that your examples are eating meat and driving, and not dumping waste into parks, throwing trash on the ground, pouring used oil into streams, using lead paint, burning leaves and grass, etc is a testament to the changes that have occurred. All the behaviors I listed were commonplace in the 1950s, now they unthinkable and strongly disapproved of.
  - WalterBright 13y ago
    My father told me that highways used to be lined with trash thrown out of car windows.
nicholas73 13y ago
The environmentalists got me when I was young. The awareness never left even if it only amounts to taking out the recycling. Some of my favorite places as a child are still my favorite today - the CA Academy of Sciences and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Those two institutions alone probably have changed Bay Area perceptions of the environment. China should set up institutions like that, both for research and public awareness. There is so much biodiversity in China that we rarely hear about [0] [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_giant_salamander http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_giant_salamander
DanAndersen 13y ago
From my time in China, I would say that the anti-spitting campaign was either not successful or not long-lived. I would routinely encounter spit on the streets or sidewalks, and would hear the telltale sound of spitting about a dozen times a day. Considering the air quality, I can't really blame them -- I felt the urge to do so quite often, and only held myself back because I didn't want to cultivate a habit that could be potentially embarrassing upon returning to the States. (I will also mention that of course this is mere anecdote, I was in China from 2011 to 2012 and don't have firsthand knowledge of how much spitting there was before the Olympics, and I was generally in a "third-tier" city in Guangxi province, rather than in Beijing.)
- politician 13y ago
  I wish we had an anti-spitting campaign here in Seattle. It's... gross.
derleth 13y ago
And what do you think caused the social change? Did you notice that it came about after the laws were put in place? The laws didn't come from nowhere, but they certainly had an impact on the majority's way of thinking. Why else would the Religious Right be so absolutely set against laws allowing same-sex marriage? If laws didn't change social values, they'd have nothing to fear from them.
coldcode 13y ago
Try talking with someone who grew up in China, not Americans who traveled there. The culture is different, but the government even more so. Remember this is a communist government which none the less worships at the altar of capitalism. A lot of behavior is illegal yet expected or even demanded. Leaders are more interested in getting wealthy or influential or even safe and less interested in wide ranging fixes to the country until there is no other way. Also realize that most of the population that matters lives in a narrow band near the ocean and sometimes in terrible geography where screwing up water or air is easy. One thing might help in the long run, bad water and air affects everyone including the politicians who might someday realize they have to do something. You can ignore a river of dead pigs if you live elsewhere but choking on air is fairly universal.

pavlov 13y ago

The West has a love affair with the environment? Maybe about 2-4% do, half of them living in cities and the other half in the countryside (very different lifestyles but similar goals of a minimum environmental impact). Another 5-10% care enough about the environment to make daily conscious choices for it, but most of those choices amount to lip service or marketing-driven "greenwashing". Most of these people live in cities. The rest just don't care, and will continue driving their cars and eating >300g of meat per day until they die or become incapable of deciding for themselves.

jedrek 13y ago
I think you underestimate the massive changes in attitude that have come about due to the environmental movement. The very fact that your examples are eating meat and driving, and not dumping waste into parks, throwing trash on the ground, pouring used oil into streams, using lead paint, burning leaves and grass, etc is a testament to the changes that have occurred. All the behaviors I listed were commonplace in the 1950s, now they unthinkable and strongly disapproved of.
- WalterBright 13y ago
  My father told me that highways used to be lined with trash thrown out of car windows.

nicholas73 13y ago

The environmentalists got me when I was young. The awareness never left even if it only amounts to taking out the recycling. Some of my favorite places as a child are still my favorite today - the CA Academy of Sciences and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Those two institutions alone probably have changed Bay Area perceptions of the environment. China should set up institutions like that, both for research and public awareness. There is so much biodiversity in China that we rarely hear about [0] [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_giant_salamander http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_giant_salamander

DanAndersen 13y ago

From my time in China, I would say that the anti-spitting campaign was either not successful or not long-lived. I would routinely encounter spit on the streets or sidewalks, and would hear the telltale sound of spitting about a dozen times a day. Considering the air quality, I can't really blame them -- I felt the urge to do so quite often, and only held myself back because I didn't want to cultivate a habit that could be potentially embarrassing upon returning to the States. (I will also mention that of course this is mere anecdote, I was in China from 2011 to 2012 and don't have firsthand knowledge of how much spitting there was before the Olympics, and I was generally in a "third-tier" city in Guangxi province, rather than in Beijing.)

politician 13y ago
I wish we had an anti-spitting campaign here in Seattle. It's... gross.

derleth 13y ago

And what do you think caused the social change? Did you notice that it came about after the laws were put in place? The laws didn't come from nowhere, but they certainly had an impact on the majority's way of thinking. Why else would the Religious Right be so absolutely set against laws allowing same-sex marriage? If laws didn't change social values, they'd have nothing to fear from them.

coldcode 13y ago

Try talking with someone who grew up in China, not Americans who traveled there. The culture is different, but the government even more so. Remember this is a communist government which none the less worships at the altar of capitalism. A lot of behavior is illegal yet expected or even demanded. Leaders are more interested in getting wealthy or influential or even safe and less interested in wide ranging fixes to the country until there is no other way. Also realize that most of the population that matters lives in a narrow band near the ocean and sometimes in terrible geography where screwing up water or air is easy. One thing might help in the long run, bad water and air affects everyone including the politicians who might someday realize they have to do something. You can ignore a river of dead pigs if you live elsewhere but choking on air is fairly universal.