Reports Indicate China's Ecosystem Is Too Far Gone to Support a Growing Economy 8 comments
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Two new reports – one from the Chinese government, the other based on criteria developed by the United Nations – should be enough to scare every government, economist and investor in the world about the future of the Chinese economy, currently the one global bright spot.
The underlying question raised by these reports is this: How can a nation’s economy grow when its soil is rapidly eroding and its water is rapidly becoming so polluted that it isn’t just unsafe to drink. It’s even unsafe for fishing, farming and factory use.
In short, how can a nation’s economy grow when its ecosystems appear on the verge of collapse?
As reported late last month by Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency,
A three-year investigation reveals almost 40% of China’s territory, or 3,569,200 square kilometers of land, suffers from soil erosion.
Reuters news agency put it this way:
Over a third of China’s land is being scoured by serious erosion that is putting crops and water supply at risk, a nationwide three-year survey has found.
The survey reportedly was carried out by China’s bio-environment security research team.
Separately, Britain’s Telegraph newspaper ran a story late last month headlined, “Yellow River too polluted to drink.” Datelined Shanghai, the story began:
The Yellow River, which provides drinking water to millions of people in northern China, is now so badly polluted that 85% of it is unsafe for drinking. China’s heavy industries have tipped so much waste into the river that enormous stretches of it, amounting to over a third of its entire length, cannot be used at all anymore, either for drinking, fishing, farming or even factory use, according to criteria used by the United Nations Environmental Program.
These are stunning statistics that literally stab at the heart of the world’s biggest, most populous country and the nation whose economy is desperately being counted on by a recession-savaged world.
But as much as the credit crisis has undermined economic growth elsewhere, an environmental crisis looks increasingly likely to do the same to China’s economy. Everything you need to know about Beijing’s continuing failure to come to grips with its eco-crisis can be found in a quote deep in the Telegraph story from a spokesman for the Yellow River Conservation Committee.
I wish that a harmony could be achieved between development, utilization and protection of the river someday.
China’s water and soil woes appear to have now reached the point at which food and water shortages leading to a health crisis could be possible at any moment, leading in turn to a reduction in GDP at the exact wrong time.
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This article has 8 comments:
- this is already occuring in many areas of China. SEPA published a stuning report last year showing that China's GDP suffers greatly from environmental issues, there are regular water shortages/ outages in China, and with 70% of water unfit for INDUSTRIAL use, it is clearly impacting investment.
I am covering all this and more at Cleaner Greener China (cleanergreenerchina.co...) and All Roads Lead to China (allroadsleadtochina.co...)
r
Perhaps a look in the rear view mirror of history might help answer this question.
As a child, during the late 1940's and throughout the 1950's, I was constantly told by school teachers (and later by college professors) that the U.S. was soon coming to an end because of soil erosion, air and water pollution, population explosion, lack of available land (they don't make it any more) and the inability of the third world to provide its own food supply.
Since that time it has become clear that there is a whole lot of land available. Been in an airplane lately? Also, modern farming has reduced soil erosion, new industries have popped up to provide help in the realm of water and air pollution, population growth has not stopped but has been controlled in various parts of the world by individual choice and in other parts by government control.
This is not to say that there are no continuing problems in these areas. But looking at history shows that mankind has a great propensity to deal with problems and to continue to successfully march toward the future. Indeed, it often appears that many of the problems might be better viewed as opportunities.
Bottom line is, that during the 50 years since I was a child, the U.S. and the world has increased GDP, increased the standard of living, increased life expectancy, increased education and in general moved toward a more comfortable future for all. And all of this motion and growth has occured in the context of inevetable economic cycles of boom and bust.
China will do the same.
And you say that "China will do the same?" Try explaining your logic to China's leaders today. They are not cool about the situation.
Get real.
Went to your web site. It has some interest being that you are there.
But let's be sure to point out that China and the U.S. are very close to being the same land size. And interestingly, according to the CIA World Book, China has about 14.86% airable land and the U.S. about 18%. China has permanent crops on about 1.27% of its airable land and the U.S. on about .27%. Note that China's use is about 5 times that of the U.S. That nicely matches the the four fold population difference given that China's agricultural efficiencies are not up to U.S. standards.
I have not yet been to China, but I have flown the length and breadth of the U.S. many times. Each time I do so, I am amazed at the massive areas of undeveloped and unfarmed arid land in the U.S. I suspect the same can be said of China given the World Book stats I have cited here. If I am correct, this means that there is an extraordinary potential for growth in the use of airable land in both countries.
In a sense, China has the some of same problems they had in the 1950's. In those days China was on a massive infrastructure building spree. People were building roads with their bare hands. Developed nations offered modern road building equipment on the cheap to help out all those labouring Chinese. The Chinese Gov declined. Their reason ... The added efficiency would put many people out of work!
At this time in the world economic cycle, there are people being laid off in China as in the rest of the world. Many will be going back home to the farm. And the Gov is doing what it can with infrastructure and other spending to give people jobs. Eventually the world economy and China's economy will rebound. Eventually the peasant farmers will die out and more productive farming will become the norm. Eventually the one child policy will be formally modified (informally it is already happening). Eventually the pollution problems will be resolved. Eventually the water scarcity will be resolved. Things will improve. China will become the world's economic superpower.
In the meantime there will be stumbles and bumps. There will be shortages of commodities. There will be corporate profits made and lost. There will be gains and shrinkages in GDP growth. There will be opportunities for investors and speculators in all of these cases. But to suggest that all in the long run is lost, is way too shortsighted for me. But then again I am just oneoldude that has watched the passing parade for more than a few years and have been impressed at the determination and inventiveness of the Chinese people. I expect them to continue their successes over time.
Emperor Yan is also called Emperor of fire, burning, red....etc for his large scale use of fire and burning to clear the land for farming. Blush burning is an old method of clearing land in Europe and North America. Even nowadays, aborigines in Borneo Indonesia and Amazon natives are using it. Chinese could have over done it because of population pressure. Before long, the trees and greenery covering earth are all gone and revealed wide expanse of desert-like yellow colored land. Emperor of red burning fire was succeeded by Emperor Huang (yellow colored land, Huang-Di). Therefore, by 3,000 BC the habitat of old Chinese ethnic group Han (Hua-Xia ethnic group) was more or less destroyed. They started to abandon Yellow river valleys and migrate east and south into Yangtze river valleys. Nowadays, the old Chinese heart land is mostly occupied by the minority groups, including many Tibetans. When Dalai Lama intended to expand his sphere of influence to the "greater Tibetan region" including old Chinese heart land, Chinese are having a heart attack.