6 ms·

How China's pollution problem defers from that of US's or UK's, say 100 years back?

InclinedPlane 13y ago
Population, population density, automobiles, and lingering effects of recent poverty. London's metro population peaked around 9 million right around 1940, although it's back up to similar numbers. The population of manhattan peaked around 2.3 million in the 1920s. The population of Beijing, Guangzhou, or Shanghai are all about 20 million plus. There were fewer automobiles in London even in the mid 20th century than there are in the big Chinese cities today (there are over 5 million cars in Beijing alone). Many of those automobiles are either diesel powered trucks, buses, and cars or 2-stroke scooters and motorcycles, all of them highly polluting. Add to that the heavy reliance on coal for home heating and cooking and you have the pollution nightmare that is now quite evident. The population of the entirety of the UK was only 50 million in 1950, and the population of the US in 1950 was only 150 million. Today in China nearly 50 million people live in Guangzhao alone, and over 100 million people live in the top 4 largest municipalities, within an area that is in total similar in size to Los Angeles county. And the pollution contribution from the population of more than a billion who often live near the major cities is also not inconsequential.
DanAndersen 13y ago
There's probably little difference, but I'm not sure if that's a legitimate excuse. Is a heavily polluting industrial phase necessary for countries to become developed? I'm not sure if that's true or not; maybe it is and it's acceptable for developing countries to make the same environmental missteps as developed nations had in order to progress to the same levels of development. I would hope, though, that with technological advances there would be a greater ability to be industrial while mitigating some of the environmental issues that plagued the US and the UK during their industrial revolutions. I don't know if this is a valid analogy, but I sometimes think about what this argument would sound like if it was about something like slavery instead of environmental damage. There was much infrastructure and industry in parts of the US built on the backs of slaves, but I think that if there were modern-day countries with substantial slave industries, we wouldn't find it defensible to say that the US also had slaves too in the past and that developing countries should have a chance to do so as well as a temporary part of their development. Maybe pollution is a necessary evil for any society, and maybe it's not as bad as slavery. It just seems like placing each society on separate 'tracks' of development for them to go through the same troubles and dangers without criticism both demeans developing societies as "oh, they're just 100 years behind us" and also ignores the sort of "horizontal gene transfer" of technology and social/philosophical/political concepts that can accelerate developing countries' development.
- testrun 13y ago
  Part of the answer might be that environmental regulation will add costs and regulatory complexity to Chinese manufacturing, and make them less competitive. Many western manufacturers moved production to China to reduce costs.
federalemployee 13y ago
Their actions may be similar. What is drastically different than 100 years ago is what we know about global warming and pollution in general.
protomyth 13y ago
The time scale is compressed, but China (others soon) is following the US / UK playbook to grow their nation. We have not provided anyone a better roadmap than coal / gas, so that is what everyone else is going to use.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
Not at all different, just a question of scale. Life expectancy will shorten, restrictions will be put on importing organics from the country. You can read about the lakes or rivers in the US or in East German that would spontaneously catch on fire sometimes until changes were put in place. I find East Germany and the former USSR an interesting data point in governments ignoring the health of the people in pursuit of some national goal. How much of the USSR's dis-assembly came from these sorts of abuses? Its sad that the government of China, rather than taking an enlightened road knowing where unconstrained industrialization led (they have examples after all) chose to follow in exactly the same footsteps of previous nations in creating massive environmental disasters that will take decades of remediation. That is the tragedy here, they know what the outcome will be and they are doing it anyway.

Population, population density, automobiles, and lingering effects of recent poverty. London's metro population peaked around 9 million right around 1940, although it's back up to similar numbers. The population of manhattan peaked around 2.3 million in the 1920s. The population of Beijing, Guangzhou, or Shanghai are all about 20 million plus. There were fewer automobiles in London even in the mid 20th century than there are in the big Chinese cities today (there are over 5 million cars in Beijing alone). Many of those automobiles are either diesel powered trucks, buses, and cars or 2-stroke scooters and motorcycles, all of them highly polluting. Add to that the heavy reliance on coal for home heating and cooking and you have the pollution nightmare that is now quite evident. The population of the entirety of the UK was only 50 million in 1950, and the population of the US in 1950 was only 150 million. Today in China nearly 50 million people live in Guangzhao alone, and over 100 million people live in the top 4 largest municipalities, within an area that is in total similar in size to Los Angeles county. And the pollution contribution from the population of more than a billion who often live near the major cities is also not inconsequential.

DanAndersen 13y ago

There's probably little difference, but I'm not sure if that's a legitimate excuse. Is a heavily polluting industrial phase necessary for countries to become developed? I'm not sure if that's true or not; maybe it is and it's acceptable for developing countries to make the same environmental missteps as developed nations had in order to progress to the same levels of development. I would hope, though, that with technological advances there would be a greater ability to be industrial while mitigating some of the environmental issues that plagued the US and the UK during their industrial revolutions. I don't know if this is a valid analogy, but I sometimes think about what this argument would sound like if it was about something like slavery instead of environmental damage. There was much infrastructure and industry in parts of the US built on the backs of slaves, but I think that if there were modern-day countries with substantial slave industries, we wouldn't find it defensible to say that the US also had slaves too in the past and that developing countries should have a chance to do so as well as a temporary part of their development. Maybe pollution is a necessary evil for any society, and maybe it's not as bad as slavery. It just seems like placing each society on separate 'tracks' of development for them to go through the same troubles and dangers without criticism both demeans developing societies as "oh, they're just 100 years behind us" and also ignores the sort of "horizontal gene transfer" of technology and social/philosophical/political concepts that can accelerate developing countries' development.

testrun 13y ago
Part of the answer might be that environmental regulation will add costs and regulatory complexity to Chinese manufacturing, and make them less competitive. Many western manufacturers moved production to China to reduce costs.

federalemployee 13y ago

Their actions may be similar. What is drastically different than 100 years ago is what we know about global warming and pollution in general.

protomyth 13y ago

The time scale is compressed, but China (others soon) is following the US / UK playbook to grow their nation. We have not provided anyone a better roadmap than coal / gas, so that is what everyone else is going to use.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

Not at all different, just a question of scale. Life expectancy will shorten, restrictions will be put on importing organics from the country. You can read about the lakes or rivers in the US or in East German that would spontaneously catch on fire sometimes until changes were put in place. I find East Germany and the former USSR an interesting data point in governments ignoring the health of the people in pursuit of some national goal. How much of the USSR's dis-assembly came from these sorts of abuses? Its sad that the government of China, rather than taking an enlightened road knowing where unconstrained industrialization led (they have examples after all) chose to follow in exactly the same footsteps of previous nations in creating massive environmental disasters that will take decades of remediation. That is the tragedy here, they know what the outcome will be and they are doing it anyway.