China pays a heavy price for its fast economic growth without regulations

[Tender Branson]

If you look at the pictures below, you can always be happy to live in places like Western Europe, Canada etc. - with really clean water. I wouldn't jump into these waters like these people do without much thought ...











































http://derstandard.at/1362108161306/Tote-Schweine-in-Schanghai-und-andere-verseuchte-Gewaesser-in-China

[opebo]

Owners always get what they want.

Little secret - the destruction of China (and all the rest) was decided on Wall Street, not in Peking.

[dead0man]

wow....I know this is going on, but it's still both disgusting and sad.

[opebo]

wow....I know this is going on, but it's still both disgusting and sad.

Really?  But your E-score suggests support for this.

[Zioneer]

That is incredibly gross. I know it's China, but hasn't anyone spoken up about how wrong this is?

[anvi]

There are a rather large number of environmental NGOs associated with Chinese universities and not infrequent protests in the rural areas about the pollution of local water supplies by factories and so on.  But, overall, what you see in the photos is what things are like.  I love visiting China, but the toxic environmental conditions combined with the terrible state of China's hospitals at present would prevent me from living there on a long-term basis if that opportunity ever presented itself.

[opebo]

That is incredibly gross. I know it's China, but hasn't anyone spoken up about how wrong this is?

Sure.  Those people are in jail.  Or.. their whereabouts are unknown.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

How much of this is attributable to fast economic growth? I don't doubt there's some connection, but there are also plenty of impoverished places around the world that are environmental wastelands.

[anvi]

Good question, shua.  In the case of water pollution specifically, depending on whether we're talking about coastal or inland China, a lot of it is related to the explosive population growth that has taken place in the last sixty years.  In 1950, China had 500 million people and now has 1.5 billion, and until recently, the vast majority of that increased population lived in the countryside.  Their drinking water often had to be drawn from wells that were so deep that the aquifers they accessed were naturally contaminated with arsenic and dense with fluoride.  These farming communities, in order to increase their production to accommodate the growing population, used fertilizers and pesticides that added to the water contamination.  But even the circumstances of countryside pollution were affected by industrial development, since water frequently has to be pumped into rural communities from major nearby rivers that have been sites of continuous waste dumping.  So, there are a mixture of factors that have contributed to the results you see in the photos Tender has posted above.  But the scale of the problem and the phenomenon of "GNPism" in China have conspicuously restrained government regulatory and environmental cleanup measures.   

[Tender Branson]

The Chinese air also poisons the Japanese now:

http://www.dw.de/parts-of-japan-smothered-in-chinese-air-pollution/a-16665471

[Tender Branson]

Also:

http://www.dw.de/economic-growth-chokes-china/a-16395393