This isn't a climate change debate thread.

So since I am really bored. In recent news china "overtook our economy"
we have always known the china approach probably aided them in this small victory. and what I mean by approach is their industry obviously cuts all corners and has no real proper restrictions and regulations.
In the united states at least we have some respect for the land, country side and breathable air. Now aside from the other reason I wish to avoid talking about that doesn't help our economy.
My question is how long or may it be possible that china's pollution starts effecting their society so badly it actually blows up in their face. Do you think their pollution could cause a problem with their economy and has this total disregard for the environment help push their economy this far?
I mean the pollution over there is so insane in a sanitary and health sense I wonder how long could this last. It's like they went total Stalin on the environment there.

It is impossible to hold developing countries to the same standards as developed countries. Apples and oranges.

Good point but I mean this is a different area humans are more capable in their destroying of the environment more then ever. they reported that they wont be able to make clean drinking water by 2020.



This post was edited by Historic on Dec 13 2014 12:13am

This is true, even the people that got wealthy in China are moving out (rich people have to breathe the same air as others). That being said, Chinas pollution problem is leagues worse than U.S.

Usa and China are both responsible of 45% of this pollution at world level...
China is definitely toxic there's a cancer problem arround now, it looks really horrible, basically it's like their food scandals... Did you heard about food safety incidents in China ?

But saying usa respect its land, hmm not sure at all, i remember problems like the "freedom industries" one...

This post was edited by Saucisson6000 on Dec 13 2014 02:34am

It's already affecting their society. We can think of China's middle class as a wide variety of people ranging from a police officer or high school teacher in Guangzhou to a multi-millionaire investment banker in Shanghai. They're all pressuring the party (whose high ranking members are the "upper class" of China) to change. The environment is one of the CCPs biggest challenges, and it has an impact on CCP policy.

China's been trying to reduce their reliance on coal. They're building many nuclear plants to do this. Remember the Senkaku-Diaoyu dispute? China won't relent due to a lot of factors, but natural gas that could help them shut down coal plants is part of it.

They know it's a problem, and I suspect they're working hard for a solution.

Yeah I mean Its quite obvious the worse their population gets the better their economy gets. I think its realistic to assume their economic growth may have to be slowed or be placed on a level playing field. Do they even have environmental laws and restrictions in their corporations and industry. I also think the amount of money its gonna take to fix their problems is astronomical.

Yes they do have environmental laws, but it'll take widespread government initiative to generate meaningful results. It starts with reducing reliance on coal power. Even reducing dependency on coal by 5% will drastically improve the air quality in China. As cost of living in China goes up, dirty industries will became much less plentiful. There's a lot of work to do, but China does know they have to drastically improve their situation.

First, they need to solve the corruption issue though.

This post was edited by Caedus on Dec 13 2014 11:48am

I'm guessing its something reminiscent of our corruption where money influences our politics. while over there money influences politically what their industry can get away with.

It's a lot worse. Corruption in China comes from the local levels of government. High levels of the CCP tend to be distinguished by good governance (tends to be, always a few bad apples). There is just so many people in China, which means local administrators often hold great amounts of power over millions of people but are relatively ignored by the rest of China. This allows them to skim tax money, give their sons/family/friends overpriced contracts, control state owned enterprises. This effects every aspect of local government in China and probably damages their economy substantially. If China wasn't corrupt, they might have passed the US already in GDP. Industry and politics are linked because China is a corporatist command economy, so even the private industries are linked closely with what they government wants (Chinese companies share technology similar to how Japanese companies shared technology after WW2). .