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Dust, Waste and Dirty Water: The Deadly Price of China's Miracle
Hundreds of millions of people are being made ill every year or dying prematurely from pollution caused by China's breakneck economic growth, a leading economic thinktank has concluded following an 18-month investigation.
The OECD study, prepared at China's request, draws on work by the government, World Bank and Chinese Academy of Sciences to spell out the scale of the ecological crisis now engulfing the country, poisoning its people and holding it back economically.
It says up to 300 million people are drinking contaminated water every day, and 190 million are suffering from water related illnesses each year. If air pollution is not controlled, it says, there will be 600,000 premature deaths in urban areas and 20m cases of respiratory illness a year within 15 years.
China's water quality gives the researchers greatest concern. One third of the length of all China's rivers are now "highly polluted" as are 75% of its major lakes and 25% of all its coastal waters. Nearly 30,000 children die from diarrhoea due to polluted water each year
Although China is the world's fourth largest economy, growing 10% a year and closing rapidly on the US, Japan and Germany, its environmental standards are often closer to those in some of the poorest countries in the world, says the report. More than 17,000 towns have no sewage works at all and the human waste from nearly one billion people is barely collected or treated. Nearly 70% of the rural population has no access to safe sanitation.
"A majority of the water flowing through China's urban areas is unsuitable for drinking or fishing. Some 300 million people drink contaminated water on a daily basis," says the report.
Although China has tried to improve its air quality, it has not invested enough to keep up with the flood of people to its cities, many of which have some of the worst pollution in the world. The burning of more than 2bn tonnes of the dirtiest coal a year is costing the economy the equivalent of 3-7% of GDP (£8-15bn a year), according to the report. While no specific figure is given for the overall cost of China's pollution, in 2004 it was thought to be in the region of £32bn.
"A healthy economy needs a healthy environment," said Mario Amano, deputy secretary-general of the OECD - the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development - in Beijing yesterday.
The report estimates that 27% of the landmass of the country is now becoming desertified. Much of the country already suffers from water shortages, but the Chinese Academy of Sciences expects water demand to increase by nearly 50% in the next 40 years. Industry's share of this is expected to grow from 16% to 41%.
Low environmental standards are now making people wary of buying Chinese goods, said Lorents Lorentsen, OECD's environmental director in Beijing yesterday. "If you have a reputation for being a polluted country, then you have a bad trademark abroad. It's very hard to sell pharmaceuticals, to sell food and feed from a country that has a reputation for being polluted," he said.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
17 Comments so far
Show AllGreat news for some super-duper chain stores.
The guys in Bentonville are probably making plans now for a few slow boats to bring the dead fish to sell in their low-price leader stores.
They don't give a crap, sell them scarps. Let's just make the mega bucks.
The stats cited are phenomenal and the emblem of global collapse. How much more evidence do we need that things like the "kyoto treaty" are actually a joke???
We are inching our way towards 10 percent annual loss of human life due to either 'lack of' or the 'destruction of' our natural environment and natural resources. We may jump above that level through any number of possible global 'events'.
Someone disagrees? You mean we have a plan in place for ...restoring the ocean fisheries? The mass migration to unlivable cities? The dependency on oil? The as yet unseen effects of global warming? The uncontrolled use of military force by the U.S.? The spread of AIDS across Africa and Asia?
The destruction of land by industrial agriculture? The destruction of more land with unsustainable other uses? The exclusion of human rights in attempting to solve any of these problems?
Really?
The Reichstag burns as we sleep.
Wait until China starts selling us cut rate bottled water!
You think people who drink Evian are naive?
I am sorry this is happening.
That said, the outrage should be directed at a global mentality that GROWTH, is the measure of how "successful" a country is, how a companies worth is measured. Growth at the expense of the planet is a recipe for disaster, and cannot be sustained.
We are headed for a day of reckoning, and the day will come when we war over the last quart of oil, clean water, the last fish, tree and the last unspoiled vista left on the earth.
God awaken us, lift the veil, hear the cry of your children, save us from ourselves.
dubs_dingleberries,
These problems will be solved in the same way they always have - war, famine, pestilence, and disease.
As long as there is no fair or true price put on all pollution and exploitation the competition will reward the most polluting and especially exploiting parties in the insane race for economic and population growth. China (amongst many others) is exploiting the crap out of its population and its environment in order to mass produce 'cheap' priced goods at the expense of the exploited. The only break will come from a severe backlash by diminishing resources, an uprising of the people who can not stand the madness of the global rat race anymore or worse: a massive ecological collapse of an unprecedented scale. I am betting on all three of them to happen sooner than we already fear. Brace yourself! Dreamers of the infinite consumer paradise! There is a huge bill coming. A bill that you have to pay that is too dearly for you to carry.
There is no necessary evil.
I have heard many say that the years 2007 - 2008 are pivotal years and we should prepare ourselves for the dawning of a new age in 2011 - 2012. We're in the pivotal years. Can enough souls pivot in a different direction and mitigate the suffering?
Oh my ...
The water we use today is about as old as the Earth--around four billion years. There will never be any new water on Planet Earth. The toxins being dumped into the water supply today will remain there for thousands of years. China's pollution is, of course, most concentrated in China, but its effects are being felt everywhere.
China is now a wealthy country by many accounts, yet it has not budged from third world squalor. Thankfully, there are stirrings of a mini-revolt against Chinese imports. We need to stop importing from any country that does not meet our (pathetic) standards of pollution control. Consumers need to stop buying it. I'm sure we would could live without those Happy Meal toys.
JJpeter says, "Growth at the expense of the planet is a recipe for disaster, and cannot be sustained." And how. Mother Jones did an important piece on the concept of NATURAL CAPITALISM that figured NATURE and her assets into the balance sheet of costs and expenditures. Dr. Seuss's brilliant book, THE LORAX should be required reading of every school child (or corporate board president/CEO), and yet I recall it being banned in school districts in CT! Years ago I wrote a poem on this travesty referring to money's valueless estate when all worth is spent. We are on that cusp.
Iowairish: I've been to Mexico and read up on the Aztec Calendar and its time-based prophecies. These do dovetail with some elements of the Christian End Times ideas. The astrology of our times is such that matters are going to get far further enflamed in 2010-2016. Four principles, almost akin to the 4 sides of the swastika (itself a symbol based on raw powers) will be in conflict. "As above, so below." The 4 sign principles battling for integration (or dominance) include Capricorn (symbolic of traditional bastions of power, inclusive of corporations and conservative churches), Aries (the principle of the sovereignty of the individual, and given the planetary placement there, a heightened propensity for actions of rebellion on the part of small militias, here and in other lands), Cancer (the US sun-sign, all about family values, as in what can be passed down from rich family to rich heirs), and Libra, the sign of social justice. Each is viable and each is a Divine principle or expression, but when these are drawn into conflict, 90 degree angles among planets being the most stressful combination of all (and here we have all 4 right angles, or squares involved) then we can expect unbelievable tension. The US is directly involved as a JULY 4, Cancer (note the idea of it acting LIKE a cancer to the world! How true this metaphor!) entity. UK is Aries, Germany is Aries, Mexico and India are Capricorn, and Canada also Cancer. Some say China is Cancer but I am not sure. (Usually the date a nation incorporates is taken as its "birth" date. But across history, old nations have reconfigured themselves, thus there remains dispute as per their date of birth.) Israel as Taurus will be a beneficiary for several years as the earth element is favored. I am NO advocate of Israel's aggressive policies, karma is karma, and injustice always finds a way to rebound. Nor is any country, or person, merely the sum of their sun sign designation. This is where skill comes in with respect to reading the map, or blueprint. I'll leave it there. Point is... the varied prophetic systems all tell mankind to hang on for a very rocky ride. If you were on a sinking ship, you'd pray and probably make up for lost time by showing kindness towards your neighbors. LOVE heals. There is still hope for a complete quantum leap... most people are motivated by deadlines!
China is undergoing a radical change of unchecked materialism that has no precedence in their history. The government cannot control what is happening. The division between haves and have-nots is a deep chasm. I believe that China may find that the only solution to its problems is ominously the same as Ebenezer Scrooge's: to let the poor suffer and die, "and decrease the surplus population."
Read the feature article in this week's Business Week.
The sad irony is that we can all have a good life with less waste and pollution. But it has to do with what economists call "externalized costs". As long as it cost the company less to pollute, they will because it saves them money. Society picks up the tab many times over with health and cleanup costs. If the businesses were required to act responsibly, it would increase the cost of good slightly, but we would ALL save money in the long run.
"History is a remorseless creditor. Eventually it demands that all accounts be settled in full---sometimes in a currency harder than anyone could have imagined."
Siouxrose calls it karma. Whatever you call it this whole horrible mess will eventually come down around our ears. It is already coming unglued. Some people act surprised, some think it has nothing to do with them, Politicians pretend it's not happening.
It's happening and most people are too busy to notice.
Ban all Chinesee products in the US. We'll all be happier and healthier.
We don't need astrology, etc., to be able to simply realise that we are in BIG TROUBLE and most surely, likely heading for ever worse. All we need to do is to get informed about real realities, so including events, processes of fiend politics and corporate exploitation, all that corruption in terms of both morality, ethics, as well as environmental and socio-economic impacts, so including related injustices, etc.; and then simply have and apply real conscience. It's all we need, to realise that not only is humanity in big trouble, but matters surely aren't going to be getting corrected and therefore better anytime on the order of 'soon'.
Iow, we just need sound commonsense and a reasonable amount of understanding what the conditions of this world presently are, along with the fact that the world was once-upon-a-time a better place, even if it never was a really good place; when speaking of the human element.
Anyway, Americans hot under the collar because of third world poverty in China should realise that third worldism is on the rise in the US; although not newly, either. Yet to stop buying products imported from China, I suppose that this surely isn't a bad idea, for the workers or unemployed workers of USA need jobs; but then if Americans stop buying Chinese products, then products of some other hard-hit country will likely be bought, instead of focusing on buying US-made. And I mean the kind actually made in the US; not US-made in China or India or ..., like a lot of high-tech gadgets are, f.e. Your PCs are LIKELY NOT US-made [in] USA, f.e.
It does no good to get steamed up about another country's population being poor when we don't care about the poor in our own country, IOW. And Americans have a broad, general tendency to not give a slightest of care about their own country's citizens. Very easy to look elsewhere and find fault there, while we ignore our own faults or injustices.
But, yep, China has a lot of problems nationally. Seems to be doing great in Africa, bringing great business deals for the accepting govts and their populations; only China needs to work on helping the poor of and in China, TOO. To find out more on the deals in Africa, one good resource person seems to be Keith Harmon Snow, and some of his articles appear at GlobalResearch.ca, while also elsewhere, including, of course, his own website, which I believe to recall is AllThingsPass (.com, or whatever the extension is). I think another person who's written on this is Larry Chin, while thinking to recall that the other writers I've read from on what's really going on in Africa did not mention the business deals and profitability therefrom; but maybe they did. Anyway, GR has a section on sub-sarahan Africa, where these other and yet more writers' articles can be found.
If only Chinese govt did for the people of China as we can learn of happening for African populations where the govts accept to cut their slavish ties with the US and do business with China, then WOW; it'd be phenomenally good for China's population. Very large country with a very large population, and surely not easy for the Chinese govt to be able to provide for so many people. There are stories of very violent gangs working for corporate interests there, and not all in parts of China that the principal Chinese govt can easily police, while local police are not strong enough to do much about these violent gangs.
Iow, it's surely not a purely simple matter to be able to provide governance over all of China; especially high quality governance. USA is much less and still has extreme poverty and NO universal healthcare coverage, ETC. Plenty of USA is also and very polluted, toxically. USA doesn't have much of a leg to stand on when criticizing ANYONE else, but Americans should certainly encourage employment and universal healthcare for ALL Americans [in] USA by not buying imported goods when there are US-made alternatives of acceptable quality. But, oops, those are usually much more expensive, and Americans like everything on the cheap, so ....
Maybe our politicians should read "Enders game" by Orson Scott Card. Its Sci-fi but he seems to have a good idea. But what can I know, I am just a naive teenager, its not its my world your polluting, your going to live to see it too.
China represents a cartoon version of industrialization unchained. It's economy, like all others in the modern world, is discussed as an abstraction, the proportions of which are described quantificationally, with numbers, graphs and charts. Gross national product, company revenues, industrial rate of growth, factory output...all accurately measurable and none having much of anything directly to do with living breathing human beings. We have to remind ourselves that it is, after all, human beings who are supposed to benefit from a country's economy. What are needed are economic statistics which include a misery index so as to humanize the actual economic trends. For example, increase in gross national product divided by deaths from environmental pollution, or gains in industrial output minus the numbers of people dying of chronic lung disease from industrial airborne pollution, or growth in housing units divided by reduction of non-renewable resources. You get the point.
Harry Truman famously declared,"there are liars, there are damned liars, and then there are statistics". Economic statistics are as unhinged from the human drama that they should represent as George Bush is from the death and suffering he creates. Such delusions cannot rationally serve as barometers by which to measure the health of a country. It is just fundamentally stupid. Especially when the costs of death and disability and suffering are so immense as to produce a measurable reduction in the wealth of a nation. The more intangible or unmeasurable elements we call "quality of life' issues can reduce a country's economic "miracle" to an indefensible criminal conspiracy. China seems to be approaching that limit. America is too. Ask any chronically unemployed victim of globalization bereft of health insurance. They will tell you.