China is destroying the environment for the economy

The high growth rate of the Chinese economy for many consecutive years has made them proud to be the leading country in many areas both in the region and internationally. But to achieve that they have to pay a huge price for the environment.

Experts say that at some point the environmental crisis will happen seriously and stop this development.

In China, ponds and lakes evaporate, rivers dry up, 75% of forests are cut down, soils on the surface lose fertile layers, turn into desert. Sand flies into the city, sometimes to neighboring countries. The country is paying a price for economic growth so fast and is worried because consumer demand cannot be controlled.

Professor Karl Hert, professor of modern Chinese History Department at Oxford University, said that the country 's economic and industrial development in the book of China goes to the following : "In 1986, The first time I went to Shanghai, there were only a few skyscrapers here, after 20 years, the number of such houses was up to 4,000, which is more than twice as much as New York. Residing in Beijing is three times bigger than Manhattan in New York. '

It is not surprising to compare China with America. They are 'catching up and overtaking' the US in demand: Meat and steel they consume twice as much as the US. Cereals and coal are equivalent. Chinese people like to live up to American standards and that trend is unstoppable.

If the number of cars in China by per capita increases to half the level of the United States, then the land must be asphalted to fit with farmland. Karl Hert argues that China's oil demand will soon exceed the world's exploitation capacity.

In his book, the author spends a chapter on ecological issues in China. This is no less impressive. For example, increased demand for meat and wool led to the emergence of huge herds of cows, goats and sheep that caused the midlands of the grasslands to be destroyed. The surface soil was plowed, turning into dust and sand. Beijing's capital gets millions of tons of sand every year and the desert has swallowed up many rural areas in recent years.

Economic development at all costs will make the Chinese environment suffer.

"It can be said that China has become a major exporter of dust in the world. Millions of tons of dust and soot annually follow air flow to South Korea and Japan, even to the west of the United States." , Karl Hert wrote.

Water is drained to dryness and left empty spaces as a result of this situation. Last March, China's Ministry of Land and Resources announced: No less than 50 cities are sinking, of which there are big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Hangzhou and Xi'an. .

That situation is not just beginning. For example, compared to 100 years ago, Shanghai has been lowered to 3 meters and the settlement rate is increasing rapidly. In the past 30 years, Jiangzhou City, Hebei Province, subsidence 2.4m. A previous local hospital with three floors is only two because a part of the building is submerged underground. Bridges and railroads were destroyed, houses were cracked.

Shanghai has spent $ 13 billion to repair cracks in the walls of houses, strengthen the foundation and repair roads.

Due to the high economic growth rate, China has been exploited too much. The lake was evaporated, the ice melted, the river dried up. Karl Hert cites a series of shocking data: In the past 20 years in Hebei province, around Beijing, from thousands of lakes to a few dozen. River water is seriously polluted. Asia's largest Yangtze River has been poured into billions of tons of untreated wastewater.

The price of Chinese goods is the cheapest in the world in part due to ignoring environmental treatment factors. The real price that people pay to expand the world market is much larger than the current price.

For example, now with $ 100 can buy some wool sweaters while in other countries more expensive. To produce a sweater such a feather of 2-3 sheep. If the area of ​​grazing in China is the same as in the US, the number of heads of large animals they raise on it will be more than 10 million and the number of sheep goats is more than 400,000.

Karl Hert remarked very correctly that, millions of sheep and goat farms here are hard to imagine how they should squeeze together, making us feel that it is not grazing grounds but cages that confine them.

The fertile lands have disappeared and the thirst for raw materials for closing export woodwork has made people 'death' 75% of the forest. The Chinese government tries to stop deforestation and it forces Chinese people to collect firewood from border areas and illegally buy timber from unexploited plantations, mainly from Russia. .

In general, the environmental disaster that China is suffering today is directly related to its neighbors. Representatives from China's Ministry of the Environment have publicly stated that in the next few decades, 150 million people will have to go to another country to 'refuge the environment'. Where will the army of Chinese people leave home? Karl Hert said, without a doubt, Siberia (Russian Federation).

In addition to adding 4,000 square kilometers of desert every year, cities in China are threatened by mountains of garbage. Around Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin produces no less than 7 thousand tons of garbage every day. 70% of computers are discarded, used plastic products and technology waste products are pouring into China. Local people - mostly children - are trying to hook from precious metals. Some cities bordering Hong Kong have become an inspiration for waste products of discarded electronics.

Finally, Karl Hert drew a very pessimistic conclusion. The world economy is waiting for China to continue to grow strongly, but few people think about where it is going. China is not isolated in the system, so their ecological problems will affect other countries anyway.