Chinese pollution in pictures by Lu Guang

[AiR]

[QQ] October 14, 2009, the 30th annual awards ceremony of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund took place at the Asia Society in New York City. Lu Guang (卢广) from People’s Republic of China won the $30,000 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his documentary project “Pollution in China.”

Lu Guang (卢广), freelancer photographer, started as an amateur photographer in 1980. He was a factory worker, later started his own photo studio and advertising agency. August of 1993 he returned to post-graduate studies at the Central Arts and Design Academy in Beijing (now is the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University). During graduate school, he studied, traveled all over the country and carved out a career, became the “dark horse” of the photographer circle in Beijing. Skilled at social documentary photography, his insightful, creative and artistic work often focused on “social phenomena and people living at the bottom of society”, attracted the attentions of the national photography circle and the media. Many of his award winning works focused on social issues like, “gold rush in the west”, “drug girl”, “small coal pit”, “HIV village”, “the Grand Canal”, “development of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway” and so on.

Fan Jai Zhuang in Anyang City, Henan province, (河南安阳市范家庄) there is only one wall separating this village from the steelmaking furnaces.
The villagers live in this heavily polluted environment where the village is under the iron rain every day. March 24, 2008

In the Yellow Sea coastline, countless sewage pipes buried in the beach and even extending into the deep sea. April 28, 2008

In Inner Mongolia there were 2 “black dragons” from the Lasengmiao Power Plant (内蒙古拉僧庙发电厂) covering the nearby villages. July 26, 2005

Villagers from Kang village in Linfen City, Shanxi Province (山西省临汾市下康村) due to long-term consumption of the polluted water contaminated by industrial waste, there were 50 people who have cancer and cerebral thrombosis. 64-year-old Wang Baosheng got ill since 2003, he has fester all over his body so he cannot go to bed and lying face down on the edge of the bed each day. July 10, 2005

Many more pictures of the Chinese industrial revolution and it's victims on the link below
http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/...tion-in-china/

This is the country that makes all our electronics and many other goods and it will not move a muscle to rectify it's enviromental problems until the western world have done considerable advances. As far as Beijing is concerned, China has 200 years of pollution lag and is entitled to pollute. I can understand their point to some extent, at the same time Chinas immense pollution is a global problem. These pictures show why it's imperative that we in the west must act now, to set an example and make China follow.

[jetsetter]

It appears they didn't heed the lesson of the western world and its pollution problems during the industrial revolutions.

[nomix]

It's the same shit we saw in the USSR. An unstoppable wish for material goods and industrial progress combined with a government that couldn't care less what the environmental and human concequences are, and that's what you end up with.

Actually, looking at history, right about now, communism should start to grow in the working class, and a growing communist movement might become a reform movement.

Funny thing, in one of the last communist countries in the world, the basic reasons why a people move to the left and become communists or socialists seem to be unfolding.

Out with the communists, in with the communists!

[Koenig]

Originally Posted by jetsetter

It appears they didn't heed the lesson of the western world and its pollution problems during the industrial revolutions.

Do what we say, not as we do, am I right?

[jayhawk]

Originally Posted by AiR

As far as Beijing is concerned, China has 200 years of pollution lag and is entitled to pollute.

Please say that out loud and convince yourself that is truth. In an extreme example, that is like saying that Germany has 60 years of warfare lag and is entitled to destroy. And then you contradict yourself by saying:

Originally Posted by AiR

These pictures show why it's imperative that we in the west must act now, to set an example and make China follow.

Uh, we have, and we have so for the past 40 years. Here in America for example, the diesel vehicles Europeans drive would never pass federal emissions. Gasoline refinery's have not been built since the 1970's for fear of pollution.
And good luck making China follow anything. They do what they want to do, and who are we to say what is good or bad for them.
Isn't that what the rest of the world has been lecturing to the United States since the late 1960's?

[LittleRed]

Originally Posted by jetsetter

It appears they didn't heed the lesson of the western world and its pollution problems during the industrial revolutions.

Half the shit you can buy in the western world comes from China.

[narf]

Originally Posted by jayhawk

Please say that out loud and convince yourself that is truth.

Please read it again out loud and notice that he is stating Beijing's opinion.

[Karoug]

Originally Posted by Koenig

Do what we say, not as we do, am I right?

I think it's more a case of "please, learn from our mistakes"...

[hansvonaxion]

Originally Posted by jayhawk

Uh, we have, and we have so for the past 40 years. Here in America for example, the diesel vehicles Europeans drive would never pass federal emissions. Gasoline refinery's have not been built since the 1970's for fear of pollution.
And good luck making China follow anything. They do what they want to do, and who are we to say what is good or bad for them.
Isn't that what the rest of the world has been lecturing to the United States since the late 1960's?

It's only in the last year that China may have overtaken the US in total greenhouse gas emissions (I think they have, don't really keep track) with the US producing about 25% of the world's pollution. And on a per capita basis they have a long way to go yet, most recent numbers I saw had Australia at number 1, USA 2 and China not even in the top 30. Dividing by GDP doesn't help either.

Originally Posted by LittleRed

Half the shit you can buy in the western world comes from China.

Exactly, it's our pollution.

We have to look at it that way. Until we pull our heads out of our arses and realise this is one world and one world economy and that if we want the third world and developing countries to curb their pollution that we are going to have to pay them to do so, nothing will change. We've been running up the bill for decades and it's time to pay.

[jayhawk]

Originally Posted by narf

Please read it again out loud and notice that he is stating Beijing's opinion.

Ah, my error. The way it is written seemed to be of the poster's opinion, not of China's statement.

Originally Posted by hansvonaxion

It's only in the last year that China may have overtaken the US in total greenhouse gas emissions (I think they have, don't really keep track) with the US producing about 25% of the world's pollution. And on a per capita basis they have a long way to go yet, most recent numbers I saw had Australia at number 1, USA 2 and China not even in the top 30. Dividing by GDP doesn't help either.

I am sure you are aware that by population, not landmass, that America is the 2nd largest country in the world. And we are not exactly living in huts, and we are still a industrial nation.

So wizards of smart, what is your solution then? Interestingly how easy it is to shake your heads at photos, make a comment and then move on. It is like the oft repeated four lines:

1)shake head sadly.
2)comment on how "we" should do something.
3) ????
4)PROFIT!

So, the rest of world tell's China to stop polluting. They will, predictably, tell the world to buzz off. Then what? Impose trade and economic sanctions on them? Would Europe want to face a potential military enemy the likes of China, because I can guarantee you Russia will quietly open the back door for them. Keep pretending that Russia is the idiot savant of the east, Europe...
What if they stopped producing the goods we rely on because of those sanctions? Well, then theoretically those factories may move back to their country of origin, and be operated by workers demanding a much higher wage, which will touch off inflation, or prices will be so high that consumers cannot afford them. Plants close, people lose jobs, economic depression sets in. What happened the last time there was a major depression in Europe?

What, you think that it will never happen again? It will, it will.

So my idea's / theorys are pretty extreme, but remember what could happen if a butterfly flaps it wings in China!

[narf]

Originally Posted by jayhawk

I am sure you are aware that by population, not landmass, that America is the 2nd largest country in the world.

Hmm. So China is #1, The US is #2?

Where does that leave India, Mr wizard of smart?

[jayhawk]

Looks like #2, and the USA is #3.

Boy, you really have a bee up your ass about my little mistakes! It is actually kind of cute, like having a purse dog biting at my ankles.

[jetsetter]

Originally Posted by Koenig

Do what we say, not as we do, am I right?

As mentioned above, it is about learning from our mistakes. And this isn't "our" pollution, it is China's pollution. The government has the power, especially in China's case, to step in and assist in at least reducing pollution.

[BlaRo]

Originally Posted by jetsetter

As mentioned above, it is about learning from our mistakes. And this isn't "our" pollution, it is China's pollution. The government has the power, especially in China's case, to step in and assist in at least reducing pollution.

Right. And at what cost? Shut down the factories? Impose, as jayhawk mentioned, economic sanctions until China cleans up its act? Force businesses to invest heavily in curbing their air pollution themselves? All of these answers will result in an increase in cost for the consumer goods the Western world demands China build in the first place.

China's not an isolated problem. Western nations want China to keep producing, producing, producing stuff for them as they move in and invest heavily - yet at the same time they lecture China about contributing too much, from the factories of Western nations? And don't say that China's power plants are to blame: China has more nuclear power plants under construction than any other nation in the world, as well as the largest hydroelectric dam. And China's automotive emissions are on par with Euro 2 standards, which are still behind America's.

China isn't the scapegoat of the West.

[hansvonaxion]

Originally Posted by jayhawk

So wizards of smart, what is your solution then?

So my idea's / theorys are pretty extreme, but remember what could happen if a butterfly flaps it wings in China!

Your ideas? I missed your ideas for a solution.

But if you think we are going to have to pay big time to help developing countries reduce pollution and you think we have a burden to help them do so then I agree.

How about this; the US gov requires all companies bringing goods into the USA to show that those goods were made in factories that meet US environmental standards. I'm just using the US for argument's sake, might as well be the EU.

You mentioned, and keep mentioning cars, the only reason they even factor in is because they pollute at the destination (ie in the USA) and for the life of the product.

You also mention that America is an industrial nation and Americans don't live in huts. Well, good for you. But like I said, that was all on credit and it's time to start paying it off.

Originally Posted by jayhawk

Looks like #2, and the USA is #3.

Boy, you really have a bee up your ass about my little mistakes! It is actually kind of cute, like having a purse dog biting at my ankles.

Well, to be honest it wasn't that little a mistake. China has nearly 20% of the world's population, India over 17%, the USA just 4.5%.

Pollution per capita;

USA 9
Canada 10
Australia 11

(most of those 1-8 are small, oil producing states)

China 96
India 139

[AiR]

Originally Posted by jayhawk

text

Military action? I don't know where you got that from. As for your comment on Russia, I answer with a question: Would the USA roll over flat on it's back and open up her territory and airspace for a military invasion force from Mexico destined for Canada? I think not.

Chinese officials will not say "buzz off". When was the last time you heard a diplomat talk like that, with the exception of John Bolton (who was more of a clown than a diplomat), it's just not the lingo of diplomacy. What they will say is "you first". Fortunately we in the industrialized world have made some progress and is pretty much on a nice green path, but there is still alot to be done. What will bring about change in China? It's a good question and none of us know the answer, Nomix touched on a subject that I think is one of the best ways to bring about drastic change, the growing workers class. There are obstacles in their path, trade unions are banned (with the exception of the Party trade union IIRC?) and finding ways to organize themselves may be hard and dangerous, but they do have numbers on their side and hold the moral high ground. We'll see what happens there.

Let's talk Chinas main export, trinkets. Mobile phones, laptops, mopeds etc. Things we want. Things we need? Not really. Is China the only country that manufacture these goods? No. Some of the things made in China are pretty expensive too. SonyEricsson phones are from china yet damned expensive. Nokia manufactures many of it's equal phones in Hungary at a much lower cost. Because Nokia owns their factory. SE does not. There are many ways we can go about creating a greener China and a greener world. Not buy so much stuff. Or buy stuff that is produced according to green certifications. We must play our part, politicians must play theirs.

Copenhagen is closing in. A climate fund seems to be on the agenda. Hopefully the summit will produce results.

[LittleRed]

Originally Posted by jetsetter

As mentioned above, it is about learning from our mistakes. And this isn't "our" pollution, it is China's pollution. The government has the power, especially in China's case, to step in and assist in at least reducing pollution.

I think its sorta naive to think its not our pollution too, maybe if the west didn't rely on China's industry it wouldn't be, but unfortunately it does, so it is.
I can't see China closing down the factories (etc) in the near future to help cut pollution, thats just bad business, I bet they get a shitload of cash from the west.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Originally Posted by hansvonaxion

USA 9
Canada 10
Australia 11

(most of those 1-8 are small, oil producing states)

By population, Canada is a small, oil-producing state.

[Tobias]

China has a major population problem. Keep having sex if you want, but fucking pull out.

[nomix]

Selling condoms in China should be big business. Especially considering there must be at least 50 million Chinese with latex alergy, which means you can sell them expensive replacement condoms.