Ways That Are Dark

As the countdown to Beijing 2008 continues , not a week goes by without some griping about the city’s dismal environment. The Olympics only run from Aug. 8-24, but the organizers are discussing the possibility of postponing events if pollution is bad. From the CNN report Beijing schedule changes possible:

“Extensive use of coal, the city’s geographical location and a growing number of motor vehicles means the pace of improvement in Beijing’s air quality is slow,” said Eric Falt, who heads the U.N. Environment Program’s sports and environment project.

Falt said fine particles of pollution that are harmful to human health were “particularly worrying.”

There is nothing new here. Organizers knew all along that pollution in Beijing is the most horrendous in Olympic history. Can things be expected to change in 10 months?

The Washington Post reports on Beijing’s lack of progress in tackling air pollution in the lead up to next summer’s Olympic Games. The complete article is: Gray Wall Dims Hopes of ‘Green’ Games. What is apparent to the naked eye is the air is filthy and hazardous, but government agencies are being secretive about he scientific information they have gathered on the problem.

Beijing does not regularly measure or evaluate some serious pollutants, including ozone and some types of fine particulate matter that can easily be inhaled deep into the lungs. Meanwhile, they have refused to publicly release figures on the amount of pollutants at any given location, such as the Olympic Village or Tiananmen Square, preferring to stick with a citywide average.

China has promised a “green” Olympics, but its failure to divulge what is actually in the host city’s air has alarmed athletes, surprised environmental experts and raised questions about officials’ commitment to making needed changes.

There are still ten months left before the games begin, and a lot can happen in that time. It seems that many athletes have begun to consider contingency plans if the pollution still poses a risk.

Australian athletes have announced they will arrive in Beijing as late as possible because of concerns that the air quality might hinder their performance. Two weeks ago, two Ethiopian middle-distance running champions announced they would forgo some events because of the “disgusting weather and air pollution.” New Zealand and American athletes say they will wear face masks if necessary. Even Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, warned that some endurance sports might be postponed if the pollution gets too bad.

The junta in Myanmar gets rich and stays in power by ignoring environmental laws. The repressive military regime has found stolid friends in neighbors Thailand and China by offering them access to cheap raw materials and energy that feed their growing economies. According to a report by CNN:

Myanmar has become notorious in the region for ignoring international and its own environmental laws in a single-minded effort to make the money that environmentalists say helps keep the regime in power.

About 95 percent of Myanmar’s total timber exports to China are illegal, Global Witness said, costing its treasury $250 million a year. Much of the profits go to Chinese firms as well as regional military commanders and ethnic guerrilla groups, it said.

Read the complete story: In Myanmar, rivers, forests suffer.

Today is Blog Action Day, meaning more than 15,000 bloggers are going to be writing about the environment today.

This past year has been an especially bad one for the environment in China. Hundreds of thousands of people die each year from pollution. And this may just be the tip of the iceberg. This year has also seen the extinction of the rare Yangtze River Dolphin. China’s rapid development is destroying natural habitats and causing the disappearance of countless species. According to The World Conservation Union’s Red List, there are over 385 endangered species in China. With no slowing of China’s steamrolling economy in sight, many more extinctions can be expected.

But the news is not all bad. There is hope. Economic growth does not have to be “at all costs.”

To the south of China lies Viet Nam, a country with a similar economic growth rate. Recently it was reported that eleven new species were discovered in central Viet Nam. Also a socialist state, Viet Nam’s economy is likewise fueled by rapid growth. But the situation in Viet Nam illustrates that a balance can be found.

Any country that runs on the principal of “economic growth at all costs” is being run in a reckless and a short sighted way. The environment is an umbrella under which all aspects of life fall. Without that umbrella, no society can prosper.

In China, cleaning up public perception of the ongoing environment crisis carries more political weight than cleaning up the environment itself. Reporting from Zhoutie, The New York Times writes about the man-made environmental disaster that has befallen Lake Tai. The lake, a major source of drinking water for people living in Shanghai and Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, is the clearest example of what happens when the fine line between economic growth and dangerous environmental degradation is crossed.

For years, famed “Environmental Warrior” Wu Lihong has single-handedly crusaded to expose the devastating effects of unchecked pollution from nearby chemical factories. Mr Wu’s environmental protests were damaging the areas reputation, and he has been arrested on trumped up political charges.

Lake Tai is rated Grade V by the State Environmental Protection Administration, the lowest level on its scale. In contradiction to this, the city of Yixing, which overseas Zhoutie, has been designated “Model City for Environmental Protection.” Clean up efforts amount to the following:

In 2001, Wen Jiabao, then a vice premier, now China’s prime minister, came to investigate reports of Lake Tai’s deterioration. Like most Communist Party inspection tours, word of this one reached local officials in advance. When Mr. Wen asked to see a typical dye plant, one was made ready, according to several people who witnessed the preparations.

The factory got a fresh coat of paint. The canal that ran beside it was drained, dredged and refilled with fresh water. Shortly before Mr. Wen’s motorcade arrived, workers dumped thousands of carp into the canal. Farmers were positioned along the banks holding fishing rods.

Mr. Wen spent 20 minutes there. A picture of him shaking hands with the factory boss hangs in its lobby.

Read the complete Times article In China, a Lake’s Champion Imperils Himself.

Choking on Growth series of articles

• As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes
• Beneath Booming Cities, China’s Future Is Drying Up
• In China, a Lake’s Champion Imperils Himself

I’ve been following the adventures of Greg and Francie, who are traveling around the world and blogging about it. They spent several months in China and visited numerous places. I was glad that Greg rounded up this part of the journey with an intelligent and thoughtful 5 Things I Loved And hated About China.

Excellent stuff!

Photographer Angela Palmer recently visited both the world’s cleanest and dirtiest places. Writing for The Guardian, Angela’s search for the world’s dirtiest place led her to Linfen, China.

Research into the world’s most polluted place pointed to Linfen, a city 485 miles (780km) south-west of Beijing, lying in a bowl in Shanxi province’s coal-mining region. Linfen was named by the World Bank last year as having the worst air quality on earth.

Despite the many citizens suffering from respiratory diseases, lead poisoning and disorders caused by high levels of arsenic in more than half of the city’s well water, there was no discernible sign of crisis or discontent. When I asked about pollution, people simply shrugged their shoulders, as if the question were pointless.

The complete Guardian article is The cleanest place on earth - and the dirtiest.

Linfen ranks as one of the World’s Worst Polluted Places as compiled by The Blacksmith Institute. You can read their  report on Linfen, Shanxi Province, China.

Now that China is the world’s biggest polluter, with up to 750,000 people dying each year from air pollution in large cities, and government officials warning that the environment is close to breakdown, the question being asked is “Can China be cleaned up?”

From The Guardian Unlimited article China needs to clean up its act:

The problem is that, as Ma Jun, China’s top environmental campaigner tells The Observer today, there are no independent courts, no free media and no system of political accountability, and China’s companies have no sense of corporate responsibility. Unless the communist political system changes, the Chinese people, like the rest of us, can expect its economy to remain filthy.

Who is Ma Jun? The Guardian has a profile on him today: The man making the world’s worst polluter clean up its act.

Following up on the post Problems In China May Be Worse Than They Appear, fears continue to grow that recent discoveries of tainted goods only represent the tip of the iceberg. There is an excellent piece by Howard W. French in The International Herald Tribune entitled Scandals hint at reality behind China’s ‘miracle’ . The article takes recent events and places them within a broader picture. There may be some problems with Chinese exported goods, but the real problem lies with goods made for domestic consumption which don’t have to pass the same high standards.

In the broadest sense, what the deluge of scandals suggests is that reality is catching up with the old and familiar story line of the “Chinese miracle.” Indeed, this country has been deluding itself and much of the world with the notion that healthy and lasting prosperity can be built on a foundation of counterfeiting, of exploitation and of fraud.

As governing philosophies go, “Shhh, quiet, we’re busy making money,” is not a very inspiring one, and it leaves a country and its people without any moral or ethical compass, beyond crudities like “might makes right,” or “the ends justify the means,” or “I got here first.

There are serious costs resulting from this governing philosophy.

China’s environment is being ravaged at a pace that many experts both here and outside of the country say is unsustainable, even in the medium term. A change of course proves all but impossible, though, because it is argued that to protect the environment is to slow growth, and to do that is to endanger stability.

…a system that is so clearly based on influence peddling and on power networks, where accountability is elusive and where the individual stands little chance of legal redress, is a system that breeds instability and scandal and an erosion of trust.

Pan Yue, an outspoken vice minister at China’s State Environmental Protection Administration, tells China Daily that campaigns to clean-up the environment are going backwards because the country’s primary focus continues to be on economic growth. According to this article Pan says:

China’s environment is close to breaking point and the situation is endangering people’s lives.

Pan was quoted as saying that “people’s lives are in great danger.” The following picture helps sum up China’s official ideology on the environment. The slogan says “The Path To Development.”

What powers does China’s environmental protection agency have to tackle this problem? The Financial Times reported in Lack of clout hits Chinese pollution agency that “local governments were often protecting polluters rather than cracking down on them.” The agency also complains of “a copper company of refusing entry to its inspectors, graphically illustrating its lack of clout over industrial polluters.”