ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS IN CHINA

Environmental problems in China are already at a critical level and they are getting worse. Rapid development has transformed huge swaths of the country into environmental wastelands. Acid rain corrodes the Great Wall; parts of the Grand Canal resemble open sewers; parts of Shanghai are slowly sinking because water beneath them has been sucked out; and some cities are so clogged with air pollution they don't appear in satellite pictures. Reports indicate that only 32 percent of China's industrial waste is treated in any sort of way. Already there are concerns of millions of environmental refugees in China and sulfurous rain clouds drifting from China to Japan and Korea. The main problem is China’s greatest success—it phenomenal economic growth—is the main forces behind its environmental problems. Factories that dump pollutants into the air and water produce cheaper products than ones that filter out pollutants and treat waste water. It is hard to see the Chinese making sacrifices to improve their environment if it means slowing economic growth. What’s different about China is the scale and speed of pollution and environmental degradation...It’s like nothing the world has ever seen. With this health problems known to the west are on the rise.

Air Pollution Facts

Air pollution is a phenomenon by which particles (solid or liquid) and gases contaminate the environment. Such contamination can result in health effects on the population, which might be either chronic (arising from long-term exposure), or acute (due to accidents). Other effects of pollution include damage to materials (e.g., the marble statues on the Parthenon are corroded as a result of air pollution in the city of Athens), agricultural damage (such as reduced crop yields and tree growth), impairment of visibility (tiny particles scatter light very efficiently), and even climate change (certain gases absorb energy emitted by the earth, leading to global warming).

Air pollution is certainly not a new phenomenon. Early references to it date back to the Middle Ages, when smoke from burning coal was already such a serious problem that in 1307 King Edward I banned its use in lime kilns in London. More recently, there have been major episodes of air pollution, such as the 1930 catastrophe in the Meuse Valley, Belgium, where SO2 and particulate matter, combined with a high relative humidity, caused sixty-three excess deaths in five days. In 1948 similar conditions in Donora, Pennsylvania, a small industrial city, caused twenty excess deaths in five days,and in the early 1950s in London, England, two episodes of "killer fogs" claimed the lives of more than 6,000 people.

Some countries are more understanding

In Sweden, science and education has developed further in regards to electromagnetic sensitivity , this has resulted in recognition of electro-sensitivity as a severe disability in the Scandinavian country. There are, for example, even hospital departments and controlled electromagnetic radiation-free units.