More evidence of environmental problems in China

A while ago, I wrote on the problems of obfuscating CO2 emissions numbers from the Bush administration. That entry was motivated by reading a story about how China surpassed the US in the CO2 emissions factor.

Now, NASA has released some photos accompanying their web report of their 2006 report NASA: Supporting Earth System Science 2006. The one photo that I found really startling (and illustrative, pardon the pun) was the one toward the bottom of the page, of [gray] cloud cover over China. Go over there and check it out.

The NYTimes have written a series of pieces about air pollution and the Beijing Olympics:

• August 27, 2007: As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes
  
• December 27, 2007: Beijing's Olympic Quest: Turn Smoggy Sky Blue
  
• January 10, 2008: Consultant Questions Beijing's Claim of Cleaner Air
  
• January 24, 2008: Olympic Teams Vying to Defeat Beijing's Smog
  
• January 24, 2008: Smoggy Beijing Plans to Cut Traffic by Half for Olympics, Paper Says
  
• February 4, 2008: Empty Olympic Promises (Opinion)

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These pieces all point to a serious problem of air pollution in China (or they are all lying and have doctored several hundred/thousand photos). The photo the kite-flier in the "Beijing's Olympic Quest" really hits home for me, because it was taken outside the gates to the Forbidden City, near a location I stood at in 2000. In my photo, the red gates with Mao's painting is clearly visible over my shoulder (like the photos in the Wikipedia entry of Tiananmen Square). However, one can only barely make out the imposing outer wall and gateway to the forbidden city in photo accompanying the NYTimes story.

The scale of the impacts on China are so massive that they defy one's normal ability to comprehend it. However, the problems are there, and they are compounded by other systemic problems, by the immense number of people (all those independent degrees-of-freedom), by the perceptions of growth and development, the urgency of showcasing the country for the Olympics, the struggle of the central government to maintain power, the Westward expansion of development within China to non-Han regions, etc. One can only get a snap-shot of these major social issues taking place both within China, and outward from China.

The environmental stories (due to my own background and biases) are perhaps the most alarming, and the NYTimes can only really cover a small number of them. Combining the known changes (listed above) taking place with stories of water pollution, falling water levels, disappearing animal species, increased coal mining, and others discussing the hazardous growth of the country, I have to wonder how the future of such a large nation can be maintained, even in the short-term.

To me - right now - that photo on the NASA page is a great summary of the scale of environmental impacts on China. It is scary. It is real.