Dangers to the Environment

Heiry Vesga

University of Texas at El Paso

Dangers to the environment

Beijing is one of the most polluted cities in China. People of Beijing suffer from trying to breathe

clean air, and deal with living in a populated area, but it’s not just Beijing. Those who

lives in an over populated city tend to have a high risk of pollution. They have to wear

masks and buy air filters to avoid breathing the toxic air. The government started to take

action noticing that the population has grown a lot by 1.3 billion causing increase of

disease and deadly increase of pollution. While they’re trying to solve the problem those

who lives in major polluted city has to face the environmental problem.

History of Beijing

In mid-January 2013 there was a rise of hazardous air pollution. The people of Beijing had to

stay in their homes because the air was so toxic that it didn’t matter if your lungs were

healthy or not it would’ve still killed you (NASA (2010, September 22). Beijing order

enterprise to set back their production and for the people not to do outdoor barbecues and

use fireworks. It was one of highest air pollution in history. Normal air quality index is

supposed to be 300, if it’s higher than 300 it’s consider hazardous that Beijing and other

cities hospitals had an increase of patients. Beijing air quality was 340 consider to be

dangerous for all humans, its toxin small particle spread two dozen times considering for

it to be safe. The U.S. already been trying to find solution to fix the problem but if

Beijing wants to see a difference on their air quality it comes with sacrifices. There’s

been discoveries what toxic air can do to you, it can cause lung cancer and possibly

blatter cancer (Snyderman, N. (Reporter), & Willliams, B. (Anchor). (2013, October 17).

U.S.A has already cleaned up its act by using greener energy and changing up

something’s that causes air pollution, but china is still on the same problem with over

populated areas, decrease of fresh air, less fresh water, increase of fossil fuel, and to

many chemicals that’s causing their environment to go bad and what makes it worse is

that it doesn’t stay in china, all its pollution travels down to U.S. Below is Beijing and

Tianjin before being covered by fog and the second picture is a Beijing and Tianjin

covered by white fog which is air pollution.

One of the reasons why china is dealing with huge impacts on their environment because of

they’re to overpopulated. It all started in 1949 when workers and families were paid to

have babies (http://dillhoff8.blogspot.com/2010/05/overpopulation-in-china-and-

india.html). The government realized that the birth rate was going up so they decided to

come up with Later Sparcer Fewer Policy but there were still many people even though

there was a decrease in population but it wasn’t enough so in 1979 that’s when the

government decided to come up with a new plan “The one child policy”

(http://dillhoff8.blogspot.com/2010/05/overpopulation-in-china-and-india.html). As of

today there’s 1.25 billion people, as birth rate kept rising up there was shortage of food

that resulted to 20,000,000 deaths but it wasn’t a big deal since it was a way to handle

over population growth(http://dillhoff8.blogspot.com/2010/05/overpopulation-in-china-

and-india.html). The next reason why is because of fossil fuel. Burning coal is a huge

factor of air pollution and climate change. Coal is one of dirtiest fossil fuel there could

be. Coal mining destroys the ecosystems and releases toxic particles that’s release into

gas that goes into our water and air. China launched its main source of energy in the

1980’s, the main source of energy has always been coal whether it was electrical power,

rail road transport, or as heating fuel. China was in a shortage of energy the most

important thing in china’s development. (Elspeth, Thomson, The Chinese Coal Industry:

An Economic History (2003) p.178) Leader Deng Xiaoping back in ancient country

launched a reform to economy development the first thing was to increase the energy

supplies. Coal supply started sparking up when the coal industry were under pressure for

high demand of energy, 738.54 million tons of coals were produced nationwide.

Revitalization Plans

China is in rising demands for coal because of economic growth. The government is working on

a plan for a greener energy to reduce CO2 and pollution by switching to boilers fuelled

by cleaner energy which is natural gas instead of burning coal

(www.jica.go.jp/english/publications/reports/annual/2010/pdf/15.pdf). In 2002 JICA

provided an ODA loan for Beijing environmental improvement to target on some areas

like industrialized or residential areas. There was a lot of coal burning facilities near

those areas so the Chinese government introduced Beijing the first natural gas facilities

with the participation from Japan. The best thing about using natural gas is that it can also

trap heat and be reused and while the facility provides energy it can generate hot water

for residential areas. Before Beijing had a total of 128 of burning coal industries but

thanks to natural gas 102 coal burning facilities have been removed reducing 300,000

reduction in coal use and 200,000 ton reduction in CO2 emissions.

Natural gas is not just the only green energy source, there also been discoveries on using

Hydrogen. Scientist suggested using Hydrogen because it replaces all kinds of fossil fuel

energy that’s causing the greenhouse effect (Veziroğlu, T., & Şahi˙n, S. (2008). The

greenhouse is like a shield outside of the atmosphere that’s supposed to be absorbing all

kinds of sun radiation and acid rain, that’s why fossil fuel should be removed, but it still

haven’t been removed because the government have trust issues on greener energy source

they think it won’t work.

For the overpopulation growth the Chinese government created a one child policy in 1979 and if

they break the law they would be taxed 50% of their income or be punished by loss of

employment or other benefits (Hilali, A.Z China Report 33.1 1997). The other method to

decrease the rise of population was birth control programs and economic changes.

Conclusion

The proposal for cleaner energy it’s starting to be in action and there’s been increase on greener

energy’s industries but there’s still fossil fuel out there. We have to break the fossil fuel

habits in order to live in a healthy environment and live healthy. When we smoke every

day our body starts to get unhealthy the same with our planet we can’t expect our

environment to be better the next day. There would be some sacrifices to be made but it

would be for the best. There’s been thousands of people dying because of the air we

breathe and we’re paying it because we chose modern life over a cleaner environment.

1. Elspeth, Thomson, The Chinese Coal Industry: An Economic History (2003) p.178)

2. Hilali, A.Z China Report 33.1 1997).

http://maps.unomaha.edu/Peterson/geog1000/Sidebar/ChinaPop.html

3. NASA (2010, September 22) http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=80152

4. Schmookler, A. (1997, October 6). It's time to break the fossil fuel habit. Christian Science Monitor.

p. 19.

5. Snyderman, N. (Reporter), & Willliams, B. (Anchor). (2013, October 17). Air Pollution

Causes Lung Cancer, WHO Agency Announces. [Television series episode]. NBC

Nightly News. Retrieved from

https://highered.nbclearn.com/portal/site/HigherEd/browse?cuecard=67253

6. Veziroğlu, T., & Şahi˙n, S. (2008). 21st Century’s energy: Hydrogen energy system. Energy

Conversion & Management, 49(7), 1820-1831. Doi: 10.1016/j.enconman.2007.08.015

7. JICA ANNUAL REPORT, 2010 Switching from Coal to Natural Gas, Introducing. High-Efficiency

Cogeneration Facilities (www.jica.go.jp/english/publications/reports/annual/2010/pdf/15.pdf).

8. (http://dillhoff8.blogspot.com/2010/05/overpopulation-in-china-and-india.html).