China has approximately 20% of the world’s population, which is around 1.3 billion people (Morris, 2009, p. 111). Also, China has become one of the worlds biggest manufacturing countries within 30 years (Fawssett, 2009, p. 27). However, such rapid development has come at a cost, which has created various environmental problems. Coincidentally, China has 16 cities on a list of the 20 worst polluted cities in the world (Fawssett, 2009, p. 15). Therefore, this essay will explain the reasons for China’s environmental problems, then evaluate the claim that the Chinese government and people, are tackling these environmental problems. First, crop farming techniques over the last hundred years, and their consequences will be explained. Followed by, how peoples choice in food has changed over the last hundred years, and how this indirectly affects the environment. Then, how a capitalist economy is linked to agriculture, and finally what the Chinese government and people are doing to tackle these problems.
In Zhang Zhimin video diary it stated that, in the last hundred years, agriculture has become the biggest source of pollution. For example, in the early twentieth century farmers used terracing, irrigation and multi cropping techniques, plus a large amount people to tend the crops (Morris, 2009, p. 76). Also, animals were used as food and to maintain the nutrient cycle, which was beneficial to the farmers crops (Morris, 2009, pp. 80-82). Tools such as the iron mouldboard plough was also used for dry-land cultivation, which is believed to have been used for centuries (Morris, 2009, p. 84). Techniques such as these were said be a sustainable method of farming, although some people may have been suffering from malnutrition (Morris, 2009, p...
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... This has resulted in increased pollution due to livestock releasing methane gas into the air. And due to demand for electrical goods from western countries, it has helped China to produce a capitalist economy. This has enabled China’s citizens to have a prosperous lifestyle, which has increased pollution due to the increase in energy use and waste production. Furthermore, although the Chinese government and its citizens are trying to tackle their environmental problems, it seems to be too little too late.
Works Cited
Fawssett, S., 2009. On the move. In: T. O. University, ed. U116 Environment: journeys through a changing world, Block 5, 'Changing China'. Milton Keynes: The Open University.
Morris, D., 2009. Feeding China. In: T. O. University, ed. U116 Environment: journeys through a changing world, Block 5, 'Changing China'. Milton Keynes: The Open University.
China’s economy is one very large indicator of its role in globalization. “In 2010 China became the world’s largest exporter” (CIA World Factbook). Without China many places such as the United States of America would be without billions of goods imported from China annually. An influx of companies moving their manufacturing to China has allowed people to flock to cities and find jobs. China’s economy has grown exponentially over the last few decades. In the last three years China’s economy has grown by nearly ten percent every year. Despite this influx of money to China it has also resulted in many drawbacks. For example, China’s environment has been obliterated. China burns more coal than every country in the world combined. Beijing has been so badly polluted that there are actually companies that sell cans of fresh air to people, and gas masks are a common sight. On January 12th 2013 Beijing’s air pollution reached a record setting 775 PPM. To put that into perspective, the scale for measuring pollution is 0-500 PPM. This set an all-time recorded high. In Los Angeles a high ...
America’s demand for cheap clothes and China’s demand for cheap cotton are a match made in heaven. After China reopened its doors to the world after the transition to Communism, factories were state-owned. The Chinese state exploits the powerless, through the hukou system. Each citizen is registered to specify where they live, and what jobs they have. People with a rural hukou are ‘second-class’, and often migrate to the city to try and work in factories (Rivoli 106-107). Workers in the he yarn and fabric factories work long hours doing dull, repetitive jobs in dangerous conditions. The crushing central planning and human labor left no room for innovation, so the private sector, where innovation is valued, has nearly quadrupled in size (Rivoli 85). Widespread cheating and deception, are becoming common in order to keep costs low, creating a ‘race to the bottom.’ While trying to get on top, factories have destroyed many basic human rights, as well as the environment. It has become commonplace to read news articles about dumping waste into rivers, clear-cutting forests for industrial sites, and heavily polluted air. The humans have hurt the environment, and it may seem as though Mother Nature is trying to bite back. Respiratory diseases from smog and toxic chemicals contaminating drinking water are examples of the environment affecting
Just like Klein states, “Protecting and valuing the earth’s ingenious systems of reproducing life and the fertility of all of its inhabitants, may lie at the center of the shift in worldview that must take place if we are to move beyond extractivism” (424). Indeed to build a better world, we must go beyond the capitalism, however, unlike the divestment movement around other countries, it is challenging for people in China to take action to against the air pollution due to the fact that those heavy industries and businesses have Chinese government in their back to support
China has overtaken Germany as the world’s top exporter of goods, which marks another breakthrough in China’s rise to the top and its ever growing economic influence. As China’s export rates rise to the highest in the world, so does its pollution. Judith Shapiro, the director of the Masters in Natural Resources and Sustainable Development for the School of International Service at American University, states that with “20 of the World’s 30 most polluted cities [residing] in China” it is an easy task to see the severity of pollution (Sharpiro). In order to rise to its high economic position China’s government ignores pollution regulations, allowing the release of waste into the air and water to skyrocket. Lee Liu, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Central Missouri, discusses that pollution has increased to the point where it has caused “459 cancer villages across 29 of China’s 31 provincial units” (9). Cancer villages are small communities near pollution creating factories where cancer rates have soared far above the national average. Most one the 459 cancer villages remain unofficially reported, due to the Chinese government not wanting to own up to its own pollution issues. China’s lack of environmental law enforcement is the reason for its large increase of water and air pollution, which is the cause of the cancer villages.
Gittings, John. The Changing Face of China: From Mao to market. Oxford University Press, 2005.
(2009) illustrated China’s economic growth is shifting from a predominantly agriculture to a growing share of industrial and service sector. For example, in Beijing; China’s capital city has proved that many urban dwellers achieved a good quality of life. Consequently, the authors believe that the ability to construct sustainable social development in the communities is a key challenge for China. Likewise, Mittleman (2000) explains that globalization is not a single and unified phenomenon, but a syndrome of process and activities. In addition, globalization offers major benefits, including gains in productivity, technological advances, higher standards of living, more jobs, access to broader consumer products, low cost, dissemination of information and knowledge and reduction from poverty etc. Adversely, globalization has downside implications such as various cultural losses, rise of new hybrid forms of traditions, and additional socioeconomic shortcomings.
Economic growth and industrialization usually comes at a large cost, namely in the form of pollution. China has recently been feeling that cost after decades of growth with little restrictions. Because of this, China has become the world's largest polluter and surpassed the United States in CO2 emissions in 2007. Thus far China has only started to implement regulations due to the outrage of the people and many are not followed. China’s environment shall definitely turn farther from green and decline as government regulations are ignored.
However, China accounts for 33% of the worlds Greenhouse gas emissions, mainly arising as a result of rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, and the deforestation that occurs in its wake. China is also suffering from desertification, coastal reclamation and severe climate change as are result of their long time blasé attitude towards environmental issues. While the Chinese Government now do acknowledge that environmental oversight has occurred, strict censorship within China deprives outsiders of receiving the full story of the environmental calamity that is occurring within China. Citizens within China are becoming increasingly concerned with governmental policy that regards further unnecessary degradation of the environment. A retired party official revealed that there had been 50,000 environmental protests within China in 2012 alone. China has amended numerous government acts and implemented strict new regulations in an attempt to curb pollution and Greenhouse gas production. However, the problem China faces cannot be swept under the 'bureaucratic rug' so to speak. The problem rests with the lack of an alternative clean energy to the fossil fuels currently used to fuel China's resource hungry industry. China has implemented numerous 'real world' measures to reduce environmental impact. Perhaps the most well known of these projects is 'Green Wall of China', which is a 4,500 km green strip of
It’s become a common sight to behold. In other cities, popular must have fashion items include scarves, sunglasses and perhaps a striking pair of shoes. In Beijing however, surgeon masks have been “in style” for years and more recently more people have been sporting a can of fresh air; from Canada. The pollution has gotten so bad that people are willing to pay as much as 22.95 U.S dollars for a 10-liter bottle of “Pure Premium Oxygen’. “[The] first shipment of 500 bottles of fresh air were sold in four days,” said co-founder Moses Lam to the Telegraph. The government has faced increased domestic and international pressure to address the situation. Throughout the years, China’s industrialization and economic boom has brought millions of people out of poverty and skyrocketed their economy to first place, but in doing so, their environment has been seriously damaged. A new poll done by Gallup shows that 57% of Chinese adults believed that protection of the environment should be given top priority even at risk of slowing economic growth.
Liu. The focus of the film is on the Loess Plateau in China, before, it was renowned for flood, mudslide and famine. It was the poorest region in the country where overgrazing has devastated the local environment by causing desertification, air and water pollution, and a cycle of unproductive subsistence agriculture. But over the span of 15 years, a government program of tree planting and economic incentives for farmers to preserve the land has returned nutrients to the soil and transformed the region back to its historical ecological balance. At the same time, this program tripled farmers’
Hoobler, Dorothy, Thomas Hoobler, and Michael Kort, comps. China: Regional Studies Series. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Globe Fearon, 1993. 174-177.
China has been the most populated country in the world for centuries, but ever since their unprecedented economic boom it has become the largest energy consumer and producer in the world. This is having a colossal effect on the environment, it’s even noticeable in the most remote areas of China. Although China suffers from many issues, its environmental problems are causing a far greater negative effect on the globe. Even though the Chinese individual use of resources are low, the impact on resources of the Chinese as a collective are mammoth. China’s environmental problem is so hard to fix because China is still prioritising their countries economic growth and prosperity which requires a lot of production and consumption; thus producing a
As agriculture has become more intensive, farmers have become capable of producing higher yields using less labour and less land. Growth of the agriculture has not, however, been an unmixed blessing. It, like every other thing, has its pros and cons. Topsoil depletion, groundwater contamination, the decline of family farms, continued neglect of the living and working conditions for farm labourers, increasing costs of production, and the disintegration of economic and social conditions in rural communities. These are the cons of the new improved agriculture.
...l. Economically the Textile industry has helped China boost its growth over the last decade. Earlier mentioned about the TRF government plan to increase number of people employed to 1million, this is an objective that is seen to help China grow out from poverty. This mentality of Xiniangs textile industry may be a starting point to improve the economic growth. Further down the years China will have confidence in introducing similar initiatives that will help really help the locals to be able to live satisfactory level. Social perspective of China water pollution is that local’s voice is not being heard until the large MNC’s are in the media negatively. This way these MNC’s make a change if organisations like Greenpeace did not step in and investigate deeply into this crisis, Nike, Puma , H&M other similar organisations would have continued this disgusting behaviour.
Farming has been an occupation since 8,500 B.C. On that year in the Fertile Crescent farming first began when people grew plants instead of picking them in the wild. Then nearly 5,000 years later oxen, horses, pigs, and dogs were domesticated. During the middle ages, the nobles divide their land into three fields. The reasoning for this was to plant two and leave one to recover. This was the start of crop rotation which is a big part of farming today. Burning down forest and then moving to another area is a farming technique used by the Mayans called Slash and burn. Mayan farmers also were able to drain swampy areas to farm them buy building canals. In 1701 Jethro Tull invented the seed drill and a horse drawn how that tilled the land. In Denmark they would plant turnips in the previously unplanted field. The turnips help restore the nutrients in the ground thus crop rotation is born. In England people began moving there fields closer to each other for a more efficient way of planting. Later in the 18th century selective breeding was introduce which made bigger, stronger, and more milk producing livestock. In the mid 1800’s a steam plough was invented. By the 1950 tractors, milking machines, and combines were used by almost farmers. The latest f...