Is It Too Late To Save The World From Pollution?

China is the world’s leading manufacturer of chemical fertilization, cement, and steel. After China’s eighth Five Year Plan from 1991 to 1995, in hopes to slow the economy to a manageable level, the nation had begun to show signs of stagnation and the Chinese government was forced to back off on their attempts to control the economy. Since this, the rate of output by industry skyrocketed. The Chinese government had declared a war on poverty, hoping to increase the amount of jobs available to the people. Essentially, the more people employed the more industrial facilities and vehicles are in use. Why does this matter? It matters because the more that China increases their industry, the more they are destroying our planet.

Of course, China isn’t the only country who has an issue with pollution. But to give an idea of how bad it is, the World Health Organization recommends a level of 25 micrograms per cubic meter of PM2.5, fine particles that pose a risk to human health, to be the the ceiling of safety. Beijing’s levels of concentration hit 505 micrograms per cubic meter just recently. Earlier this month, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences put out a report that Beijing’s considerable amounts of pollution deemed the city as almost “uninhabitable for human beings”. Chinese scientists have compared the country’s toxic air pollution to that of a nuclear winter. It is so bad that it is slowing photosynthesis in plants, destroying most of the country’s food supply.

This new declaration of “war on pollution” could turn out to be just as disastrous as the Great Leap Forward of 1950s when the government pushed to industrialize and collectivize, causing a famine that killed millions of people. Now that China has industrialized, it is killing even more of their citizens with its pollution. Studies show that 750,000 Chinese people die prematurely every year due to high pollution levels in big cities. In the past, Beijing was known as China’s capital of smog. Now, China has high levels of smog that extend all the way from Beijing to Shanghai and the levels are still increasing.

The pollution levels are so daunting that in larger cities, corporations are being called to limit production. A ban on fireworks and outdoor barbeques is even in effect. Schools and highways are being shut down and many flights to and from large cities in China have been canceled due to the putrid layer of smog that covers the cities.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang declared that China will fight the smog with the same intensity that they fought the war on poverty and he is encouraging the Chinese people to be more vigorous in protecting the land on which they live. This is all well and great, but studies from the National Academy of Sciences found that China’s pollution is starting to affect the western coast of the United States. These studies show that Chinese pollution related to exports contributes up to 12% to 24% of daily sulfate concentrations. Sulfate concentrations went up by 2%, and the ozone and carbon monoxide levels saw definite increases on the west coast.

So the question is, is it too late to fight the war on pollution now that China’s pollution is starting to spread to other nations? China’s government undoubtedly deserves recognition for increasing material welfare of the Chinese people over the past years, but they also deserve recognition for polluting the planet. China’s attempts to modernize and industrialize are making it sick rather than improving the country, and they are bringing the rest of the world down with them.