The pollution in China has affected the health of its people due to the industrialization in China.
- According to the Chinese Ministry of Health, industrial pollution has made cancer China’s leading cause of death.
- Every year, ambient air pollution alone killed hundreds of thousands of citizens.
- 500 million people in China are without safe and clean drinking water.
- Only 1% of the country’s 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the European Union, because all of its major cities are constantly covered in a "toxic gray shroud". Before and during the 2008 Summer Olympics, Beijing was "frantically searching for a magic formula, a meteorological deus ex machina, to clear its skies for the 2008 Olympics."
- Lead poisoning or other types of local pollution continue to kill many Chinese children.
- A large section of the ocean is without marine life because of massive algal blooms caused by the high nutrients in the water.
- The pollution has spread internationally: sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides fall as acid rain on Seoul, South Korea, and Tokyo; and according to the Journal of Geophysical Research, the pollution even reaches Los Angeles in the USA.
- The Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning in 2003 had an internal and unpublished report which estimated that 300,000 people die each year from ambient air pollution, mostly of heart disease and lung cancer.
- Chinese environmental experts in 2005 issued another report, estimating that annual premature deaths attributable to outdoor air pollution were likely to reach 380,000 in 2010 and 550,000 in 2020.
- A 2007 World Bank report conducted with China's national environmental agency found that "...outdoor air pollution was already causing 350,000 to 400,000 premature deaths a year. Indoor pollution contributed to the deaths of an additional 300,000 people, while 60,000 died from diarrhea, bladder and stomach cancer and other diseases that can be caused by water-borne pollution." World Bank officials said "China’s environmental agency insisted that the health statistics be removed from the published version of the report, citing the possible impact on 'social stability'".
- There were more than a hundred thousands of premature deaths each year in China due to its pollution.
- Rapid urbanisation brought dust from new housing and road building, while more traffic increased emissions. Slower wind speeds than usual in northern China were an additional contributing factor
In my opinion, I think that China should cut down on its industrialization due to its escalating pollution. The escalating pollution of the air, water and land has shown that the pollution caused by industrialization had caused the most harm in its people's health. From my point of view, China is sacrificing its people's health just for it's own economical growth. It is also contributing to the global warming by releasing the large amount of pollution into the air. It's people's health should have been their top priority, even if they continued pursuing higher economical growth, yet if their people are all sick or dead, there would still be a continuous downwards trend of its economical growth as the fumes of smoke would repulse tourism and due to the population decreasing at a higher rate, there would be lesser workers able to work, thus, the quality and quantity of things produced in China would decrease. Causing the economy of the country to go down. Therefore, I conclude that China should cut down on its industrialization due to its escalating pollution.
Done by: Valerie (16)
