September 18, 2004
SMAUG:
Rivers Run Black, and Chinese Die of Cancer (JIM YARDLEY, 9/12/04, NY Times)
Cancer had been rare when the stream was clear, but last year cancer accounted for 13 of the 17 deaths in the village."All the water we drink around here is polluted," Mr. Wang said. "You can taste it. It's acrid and bitter. Now the victims are starting to come out, people dying of cancer and tumors and unusual causes."
The stream in Huangmengying is one tiny canal in the Huai River basin, a vast system that has become a grossly polluted waste outlet for thousands of factories in central China. There are 150 million people in the Huai basin, many of them poor farmers now threatened by water too toxic to touch, much less drink.
Pollution is pervasive in China, as anyone who has visited the smog-choked cities can attest. On the World Bank's list of 20 cities with the worst air, 16 are Chinese. But leaders are now starting to clean up major cities, partly because urbanites with rising incomes are demanding better air and water. In Beijing and Shanghai, officials are forcing out the dirtiest polluters to prepare for the 2008 Olympics.
By contrast, the countryside, home to two-thirds of China's population, is increasingly becoming a dumping ground. Local officials, desperate to generate jobs and tax revenues, protect factories that have polluted for years. Refineries and smelters forced out of cities have moved to rural areas. So have some foreign companies, to escape regulation at home.
The losers are hundreds of millions of peasants already at the bottom of a society now sharply divided between rich and poor. They are farmers and fishermen who depend on land and water for their basic existence.
And people wonder why they buy our bonds, not their own? Posted by Orrin Judd at September 18, 2004 7:29 PM
don't be so optimistic, there's plenty where that came from.....
:):):):):):):)
I don't believe that they do.
They are reinvesting in their own country, though, as they are driven by market forces, only in productive equipment, not in socially beneficial projects.
This is what you get when you trust the market
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 18, 2004 8:41 PMChina hardly has market forces.
Posted by: oj at September 18, 2004 8:44 PMYou can't drink the tapwater even in Beijing.
Posted by: Fred Jacobsen (San Fran) at September 18, 2004 9:19 PMRemember that this is "The People's Republic of China." They just have a very restricted definition of "people."
Posted by: Henry IX at September 18, 2004 9:31 PMFred:
True enough on the tapwater. We were even warned about brushing our teeth in 4-star hotels.
And we always checked the bottled water to make sure the lids were freshly sealed, not re-used.
In villages outside of the big cities, it was much worse. We took the train from Beijing to Guangzhou, with stops every 2 or 3 hours. In the countryside, you drank Pepsi, not water. And we ate the freeze-dried noodles whenever we could.
It took the US probably 80 or 90 years (1850 to 1930/1940) to achieve levels of pollution that the Chinese have reached in just 25 or 30 years. They won't stop on a dime.
Posted by: jim hamlen at September 18, 2004 10:25 PMOf course China has market forces.
And its water is no worse than Russia's.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 18, 2004 11:11 PMOf course this is what you get when you trust the market.
A bit later, you get clean air and water.
First, people want some income; when they have enough to survive on, plus some, then they want a clean environment.
Without market forces, it's often worse. In Russia, they just dumped unprocessed nuclear waste straight into Lake Karachay, for fifty years. It's now more polluted than Chernobyl.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at September 18, 2004 11:51 PMQuite a bit later, in some cases.
Why, however, cannot someone say, gee, the market wants me to run a coal-fired power plant in the middle of a city of 8 million people, killing probably tens of thousands of them; but my rational consideration says I could do a bit better than that.
Accepting the market is like accepting God. It makes things easier, but not necessarily better
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 19, 2004 2:00 AMHarry:
Nope, it's a kleptocracy run by corrupt government functionaries.
Posted by: oj at September 19, 2004 8:21 AMA person who lives in the US should be carefull of the water, ice cubes and uncooked food in Mexico and Japan or perhaps nearly anywhere outside the US.
As far as the polution goes, send Al Gore. He cleaned up Love Canal did he not? Single handedly if I recall.
Posted by: Uncle Bill at September 19, 2004 8:48 AMHarry:
The conmditions that create the market stop you from doing that--the voice of most in that market prevailing over you.
Posted by: oj at September 19, 2004 8:54 AMI understand that, Orrin.
What I don't get is why you admire it.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 21, 2004 2:40 AMWhat's not to admire?
Posted by: oj at September 21, 2004 7:09 AM