A new report, to be published by the Journal of Environment Economics and Management next month, claims that China has already overtaken the United States as the world’s “biggest polluter.”
Americans are Reportedly Inhaling 10 billion Pounds of Chinese Toxic Fumes Annually
It was reported a few days ago that some 10 billion pounds of airborne pollutants from Asia — ranging from soot to mercury to carbon dioxide to ozone — reach within the borders of the US annually, quoting numerous scientific estimates.
But the pollution figures that scientists studying the impact of Asian, and mostly Chinese, environmental waste in the atmosphere have suggested are more than alarming.
The real impact of the Asian Tigers, helped by their giant brother, China, which is now thought to have overtaken the US in emissions of greenhouse gases, may amount to a kind of colonization of the United States, and by extension, North America, potentially destabilizing weather patterns across the North Pacific and masking the effects of global warming.
Sweatshops are still an issue in China but with concerned citizens both here and there, things are changing. For example, Eco Fashion World reports:
leading sports brands have responded to repeated pressure on supplier factory conditions from the PlayFair 2008 campaign. Together with trade unions and NGO’s they will explore how to promote trade unionism and collective bargaining as well as improving wages across the sector. Only last year, scandal erupted when four Chinese factories that were producing clothing and gadgets with the Olympic logo, were accused of underpaying and mistreating their workers. The joint effort for which PlayFair has been fighting for over five years is an important step in the right direction.
Campaigns like this that promote awareness are essential educational tools for change.
By Lester R. Brown
With water shortages emerging as a constraint on food production growth, the world needs an effort to raise water productivity similar to the one that nearly tripled land productivity during the last half of the twentieth century.
Worldwide, average irrigation water productivity is now roughly 1 kilogram of grain per ton of water used. Since it takes 1,000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of
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This week on ZapRoot: KFC Canada tries to do chickens right with their new animal welfare plan. China’s air control results. Check out new Alternative Autos: Chevy Volt, Shelby Supercars, Prius, and more.
By Lester R. Brown
With water shortages emerging as a constraint on food production growth, the world needs an effort to raise water productivity similar to the one that nearly tripled land productivity during the last half of the twentieth century. Worldwide, average irrigation water productivity is now roughly 1 kilogram of grain per ton of water used. Since it takes 1,000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of grain, it is not surprising that 70 percent of world water use is devoted to irrigation. Thus, raising irrigation efficiency is central to raising water productivity overall.
In surface water projects—that is, dams that deliver water to farmers through a network of canals—crop usage of irrigation water never reaches 100 percent simply because some irrigation water evaporates, some percolates downward, and some runs off. Water policy analysts Sandra Postel and Amy Vickers found that “surface water irrigation efficiency ranges between 25 and 40 percent in India, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand; between 40 and 45 percent in Malaysia and Morocco; and between 50 and 60 percent in Israel, Japan, and Taiwan.” Irrigation water efficiency is affected not only by the type and condition of irrigation systems but also by soil type, temperature, and humidity. In hot arid regions, the evaporation of irrigation water is far higher than in cooler humid regions.
In 2004, China’s Minister of Water Resources Wang Shucheng outlined for me plans to raise China’s irrigation efficiency from 43 percent in 2000 to 51 percent in 2010 and then to 55 percent in 2030. The steps he described included raising the price of water, providing incentives for adopting more irrigation-efficient technologies, and developing the local institutions to manage this process. Reaching these goals, he felt, would assure China’s future food security.
At the same time that it is playing host to the international sporting community, China has been included in the top five attractive countries for investment in renewable energy. This is according to the latest Ernst & Young renewable energy country attractiveness indices, which was published on August 19.
The report (PDF) tracks and scores global investment in renewable energy for six months. The list saw the UK drop from fourth to sixth spot, allowing China to take joint fourth spot, along with Spain. The United States, Germany took out the top three spots.
As many as 80% of Chinese think protecting the environment should be made a priority, even if this results in slower growth and a potential loss of jobs. The new data suggest the Chinese people may be struggling with some of the consequences of economic growth.
Michael Phelps’ seven eight gold medals are impressive. But with an Olympic gold medal’s actual value at around $220, he would have to win 1,204,545,448 (7) more of them to raise the money China will need to meet its aggressive alternative energy goals of 137 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2020. Or, put another way, if China were to pay for clean energy with Olympic gold medals, they’d need another 172,077,922 Michael Phelps on their side.By 2020, China’s bill for ramping up renewables to 16% of the nation’s total energy will come to $265 billion USD (2 trillion yuan). Then again, with the second largest economy in the world, China should have little trouble funding this investment — even without the mighty efforts of Phelps.
No, not that… rather, the Chinese are experiencing American-style SUV mania with their low gas prices. Also in this edition:Find out how walk-able your neighborhood is, and People Cube helps offices become sustainable.
Links for this week’s ZapRoot:
Walk Score (Also see the “Walk this Way” series at Ecolocalizer)
In the race to implement new energy sources, farms have an advantage: lots of manure. A large chicken farm north of Beijing is taking advantage of this fact by using its chicken manure to generate power and heat. And this isn’t just a small-time farm—the 3 million chickens on the farm produce 220 tons of manure and 170 tons of wastewater each day.
The Deqingyuan Chicken Farm Waste Utilization Plant, which is replacing a coal-fired plant, will reduce CO2 emissions by 95,000 tons a year. It will also provide 14,600 MWh of electricity each year.
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