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Dirty Water, Water Everywhere
(Photo via China Digital Times)
Thank you to IP Dragon for alerting me to this…
Jamil Anderlini and Mure Dickie from the Financial Times write about China’s water problem (see: algae blooms, chemical spills, polluting companies)
“Taking the waters“
Financial Times
By Jamil Anderlini and Mure Dickie
July 24, 2007
Across large swaths of China’s rapidly industrialising countryside, polluted water is killing tens of thousands of people every year, threatening the health of millions more and cutting the crop yields of farmers who have few other economic resources to fall back on . . . .
In a toughly-worded warning this month, Pan Yue, deputy head of the State Environmental Protection Administration (Sepa), said China’s “approach of growth through industrialisation” had pushed its environment “close to breaking point”.
Mr Pan said 26 per cent of the water in China’s seven biggest river systems had been found to be so polluted that it was dangerous to come into contact with or had “lost the capacity for basic ecological function”.
China is neck deep in a two-pronged crisis. On one hand, water pollution threatens to wipe out entire ecosystems, spread disease and destroy communities. But on the other hand, the costs of fighting pollution may be too high for local governments who prioritize super-speedy economic growth over environmental health.
Related links:
- Withering away of our lifeline
By Wang Shanshan
China Daily
July 24, 2007
Glaciers are the source of 75 percent of the earth’s freshwater…China has the largest deposits of these sheets of ice after Canada, the United States and Russia. And it has felt the impact of the retreating lifelines as much as, if not more than, the rest of the world.
- Of mice and men
China Daily
July 20, 2007
[Dongting Lake] was recently disturbed by a plague of tens of billions of rats fleeing rising flood waters and biting their way through the surrounding cropland…
- Bid to stop more algae outbreaks
By Miao Xiaojuan
China Daily
July 20, 2007
In the aftermath of the algae outbreak at Taihu Lake, authorities in Zhejiang Province have announced the launch of a 120-million-yuan research project to help prevent similar problems arising in the future.
- Dust, Waste and Dirty Water: The Deadly Price of China’s Miracle
By John Vidal
The Guardian
July 18, 2007
Hundreds of millions of people are being made ill every year or dying prematurely from pollution caused by China’s breakneck economic growth, a leading economic thinktank has concluded following an 18-month investigation.
- New rules to curb “rampant” violations of pollution laws
China View
July 12, 2007
China’s environment chief on Thursday unveiled a set of tough new rules to tackle worsening lake pollution while lambasting the country’s “bumpkin policies” that encouraged local officials to turn a blind eye to environmental hazards.
[tags]China, water pollution, environment, flooding, rivers[/tags]
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