Amazing China Polution pictures

[GreenLantern]

First off I'd like to thank JohnnyB for saving me so much time, he made a lot of points I would have made myself.

Secondly I want to state that my intent was never to derail this thread, I apologize to HOZ the original poster for that. What I wanted to do was say from my angle, I hate to call someone out on their pollution when my own country is wasting at a ridiculous rate given our population. Think of it this way, China has 1 billion people, Canada has 34 million (approx). We have a higher CO2 emission per capita, ok that is skewed they have 1 billion people, of course if they had 1 billion people wasting at our rate the world would implode! But now think about that for a second. Look how bad it is in China, just look at it. Now think, what if CHINA wasted on the same scale as CANADIANS? That is the point I am trying to get across here. While China is bad, they are producing a ridiculous amount of waste, imagine how much worse it would be if they followed our example? Now how does that make you feel? Knowing that China, the worlds worst polluters, can't even follow our example or it would be worse. What does that say about us?

Without getting overly technical, which I apologize for doing so in this thread. I just get excited and frustrated when I see people talk about our "abundance" of fresh water.. when just 5 years ago there were Towns in Southern Saskatchewan that were down to just DAYS of water for basic survivability needs during our massive drought. It is much closer to home than you think, and given recent tests we can say with confidence that it is only going to get worse. A recent study conducted by a Colleague of mine at the University of Regina through tree rings was able to show us that the 20th century was uncharacteristically wet for our region. This means the dirty 30's, the big droughts of 68 and 82, and the prolonged drought of 1999-2005 were all just blotches on an otherwise wet century. Hell, did you even know that we are suffering through a drought RIGHT NOW in the agricultural region? 2009 is being classified as a drought year, and if it continues into 2010 we can start to see similar problems as 1999-2005.

So please, do not talk about water as an "abundance", because it isn't. Having all of these fresh water lakes is nice, but it takes money to develop the land and harvest that water. Where does that money come from? What powers the machines to do it? Oil. What are we predicted to be nearing? Peak oil. This is an equation for disaster.


As for the China policies, like Bagor mentioned already, China already began to mitigate its pollution in the early 90's.. around the same time that Canada and the rest of the world was promising to do the same. The only difference here is that China actually met their marks. I am in no way condoning China's actions but I do believe a lot of people need to realize they aren't the only ones in the world doing this. And as for the finger pointing, if you can't draw comparisons in an argument then really what is there left to do?

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

This post is ridiculous! If you don't think China is a developing nation then you probably don't know anything about China beyond it's name. The very fact that you point out Canada's GDP in comparison reinforces how phenomenally backwards that comment is. Canada's GDP ($1.511 trillion) is only 1/3 of China's GDP ($4.402 trillion) while the population of Canada is 1/50 of China's population. How does that not support the view that Canada is MUCH more developed than China!?!

Here is some more reading on levels of poverty in China that might further enlighten you to China's state of development. A country with 12-13% of adults living on $1.25/day or less has some serious development in store for it yet.

Gross domestic product is a measurement of what a country produces. Everything we produce come from and at the expense of the environment we occupy. China isn't selling turnips or wheat. Their products come from factories. China obviously has more factories producing goods than Canada does based on its GDP. It also continues to expand rapidly. So yes China is more developed than Canada.

You keep trying to divide China's impact on its environment by its population. China's population is irrelevant to the impact the pollution it produces effects the land, water and air. Overpopulation itself contributes to pollution. Besides based on your own stats not everyone in China contributes and benefits from the pollution produced. Likely very few benefit while everybody suffers from the resulting poor quality air and water.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Bagor

And the solution is?

The solution is for environmentalists to start expecting all nations to change.

I'm not saying that we as Canadians need to take better care of our environment, but people like Green Lantern need to spare us this hypocritical bullcrap. The world can, and should be criticizing China and India as heavily as humanly possible for their destruction of the environment. If they can't do that, then they need to shut up about what Canada is doing.

As a nation, China is doing vastly more damage to the environment than Canada ever could. That is an absolute fact.

[GreenLantern]

All I want you to understand is that the main reason Canadians pollute and consume at their current rate is because of attitudes like yours. People who think they can blame the rest of the world for the problems because we have a lower population or more resources.

I have never once said we shouldn't be all over the Chinese for their actions. What I have said is I wish you guys would have the same attitude towards your own country at the same time. It is so easy for you to tell them they need to do better while you continue your path of destruction. So who is the real hypocrite here?

[Resolute 14]

I've said twice now that we need to be a hell of a lot smarter about our own environment.

This thread was about China until people chose to hijack it to push their own agendas.

Edit: fair enough. I did miss that post below. My apologies for singling you out, though I stand by my argument in general.

[GreenLantern]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern

Right for CO2 emissions which covers air pollution, but there are many other aspects. I think that China has us beat in water, soil, noise, thermal and soil pollution per 1,000 people. It gets complicated if you really want to start breaking it down..

For example, Canada is among the highest in the world (15th I believe?) in water quality index scoring. BUT, Canada is among the worst in the world (among major countries and industry leading countries) for Water Consumption.

We manage our forest resources very well, but yet at the same time our forest cover is changing at a rapid rate. So as I said before, we are not much better than China, if a tall better, but I would in no way say we are worse than them even on a per 1,000 people scale. Don't get me wrong here, China is terrible and what they are doing to their environment is horrible and I totally appreciate what the original poster is trying to convey here.

It comes down to the fact that regardless of Canada's current environmental state, China is producing waste at a much higher level over all given their population and rate of growth. If they continue at their current pace they will not have a country left.

It sounds hypocritical to sit here while we pollute and waste water resources and say "Hey China, even though our pollution is comparable when broken down, you guys are on a much higher scale given your population, so... you know, stop that or else." But it does make sense in the long run, you can't let a country with that many people continue to pollute like this.

Not sure if you missed this post or not Resolute. I tend to skim threads fast myself and find the need to go back sometimes.