[Sleuth]

Wouldn't you say that every developing country has gone through this stage? Look at pictures of Chicago in the late 1960s, or when they set the river on fire in Cleveland (?) in the 1970s. Go back to turn of the (last)century London and the "fogs".
The shame of it is that the technology now exists to skip this heavy pollution part of development and the Chinese choose not to use it. Will this become like the west--once there are enough wealthy citizens who have the time and money to complain about things like clean air the government will react?
If the bulk of the population is worried about day-to-day survival, they won't care about the health of their lungs 20 years from now. The key is to get enough people beyond that point.

[KnowItAll]

>> If the bulk of the population is worried about day-to-day survival, they
>> won't care about the health of their lungs 20 years from now. The key is to
>> get enough people beyond that point.

Not just lungs, issues like democracy, health etc, need be dealt with, from within ... make the people rich enough where they stop worrying about day to day survival and start worrying about the future.

[nina_70]

Have you guys seen this site. Any comments/inputs?

http://www.cleartheair.org.hk/

It seems a decent watchdog group, but I have no experience with them. This could be a way to get more involved.

[z754103]

Originally Posted by Sleuth

The shame of it is that the technology now exists to skip this heavy pollution part of development and the Chinese choose not to use it. Will this become like the west--once there are enough wealthy citizens who have the time and money to complain about things like clean air the government will react?
If the bulk of the population is worried about day-to-day survival, they won't care about the health of their lungs 20 years from now. The key is to get enough people beyond that point.

China doesn't need to get richer for people to worry about what's going on in the environment. A lot of people, rich or poor, in China, are highly concerned about the environmental pollution and risks to their health. Farmers can see their crops, animals, and fellow villagers getting poisoned and falling sick. In fact, if anything, the rural poor are a lot more concerned about the enviromnent than the urban rich. However, what do you think happens to the average farmer in China who tries complain about pollution?

The central government is reacting, especially after some high profile local riots triggered by environmental problems - note all the recent clean up the environment campaigns - but they're having to fight through corruption and intransigence at provincial and local level governemnts to get changes implemented.

[KnowItAll]

>> It seems a decent watchdog group, but I have no experience with them.
>> This could be a way to get more involved.

They have created a fair bit of bad karma with the F&B trade with their policy of objecting to any restaurant / bar application. Not sure if they're still doing it, but I do recall people tell us that it was costing the various outlets several hundreds of thousands to defend the objections.

Good intentions .. piss poor execution in my opinion which stunk of "Me, the eco overlord shall do whatever I want, without any acknowledgement of the secondary and tertiary problems my actions might cause."

[Petesy]

Originally Posted by Sleuth

The shame of it is that the technology now exists to skip this heavy pollution part of development and the Chinese choose not to use it.

If Guangdong starts getting tough on environmental issues and makes the factories invest on environmental friendly equipment/production methods, there are always other provinces willing to take the business in exchange of the pollution. Many other countries will take it for even less restrictions.

Walmart, Mattel, Disney etc. didn't outsource their manufacturing to China for the sake of international friendship. As long as China needs their jobs nothing will be changed (just like Hong Kong before the property/stock market craze in the mid 80s).

[Sleuth]

Originally Posted by z754103

However, what do you think happens to the average farmer in China who tries complain about pollution?

The central government is reacting, especially after some high profile local riots triggered by environmental problems - note all the recent clean up the environment campaigns - but they're having to fight through corruption and intransigence at provincial and local level governemnts to get changes implemented.

The rural poor don't count, unless they figure out some way to mass. But they tend to be more concerned with surviving today to protest; and if they do protest they are out in the middle of nowhere so nobody notices. I doubt the Chinese government cares how many rural poor die.
I also wonder if the new campaigns are just slogans, rather than policies.

[matanica66]

Originally Posted by Sino Defender

i don't think you have anything to worry about. the population in hong kong has the second longest life expectancy in the world. for females, it's the longest (84.5) in the world. for males, it's second (78.9) to japan. overall, it's second after japan with an average life expectancy of (81.59). it is expected to overtake japan in 2030 with the world's longest life expectancy.

its population also has the highest average iq of 107 in the world.

if people can live that long with a high iq, there's nothing for u to worry about.

I understand the current severe pollution in HK is a relatively new phenomena. Like diseases such as lung cancer, it may take several decades of 'severe' exposure to pollution for the full impact to be realised, and to impact on life expectancy. To be honest I think the analysis is lacking some rigour.

Mat.

[nina_70]

Originally Posted by KnowItAll

>> It seems a decent watchdog group, but I have no experience with them.
>> This could be a way to get more involved.

They have created a fair bit of bad karma with the F&B trade with their policy of objecting to any restaurant / bar application. Not sure if they're still doing it, but I do recall people tell us that it was costing the various outlets several hundreds of thousands to defend the objections.

Good intentions .. piss poor execution in my opinion which stunk of "Me, the eco overlord shall do whatever I want, without any acknowledgement of the secondary and tertiary problems my actions might cause."

--> Too bad. Good idea, wrong implementation I guess. Oh well, the search goes on.

[coolgirl]

So many factors come into play with life expectancy, I don't think HK pollution will kill you. I think too much drinking in LKF or smoking even has a higher probabilty...