Amazing Pictures! Pollution in China

WTF?????

This opens another eye...

those pictures are truely disgusting. The problem is, we in the US at least try to have some responsibility (ie: we shut down love canal) but China does this with no recourse. They just don't care. Sure we have Cancer Clusters in the US, more to do with the fact that at one time WE had no responsibility either.
That Superfund site map is really interesting.

During the Beijing Olympics, they HAD to clean up the air for the cameras, media and the world. I heard they had to shut factories down in a three to four county radius to reduce the air pollution to an acceptable level. (and of course afterwards, went right back at it)

I should move to "Cancer City" and sit in a rocking chair, smoking cigarettes all day, taking a polaroid of every cigarette i smoke and write the name of each villager on every photograph, and toss it to the wind.

Wow! Those photographs make China look like one big chemistry experiment. There's no telling what kind of mutated freaks of nature might come crawling out of the ooze. I feel sorry for the people that live in those conditions.

Originally posted by Zosynspiracy
reply to post by aspx

 

Why is everybody bitching? There have been MILLIONS of Chinese pulled out of poverty BECAUSE of us buying all their cheap crap. It's a paradox or a catch 22 if you will. I mean my god this is a country of over a billion people. I hate the Chinese. They are a disgusting group of people that will do anything to make money and supress their people. I hate them even more because they are the world's biggest polluters. Don't feel sorry for them.....that's ridiculous. And sure as hell don't blame the American consumer for all of the problems in China. We are not the only country buying their crap. And we have some of the best environmental regulations in the world. A couple hundred million chinese need to die off. That's the stark reality of the direction the planet is heading in. Millions upon millions of human beings need to die. Can you stomach that? That's real life despite what all the liberal morons want us to believe.

So let companies handle the depopulation agenda? What a sick point of view man!! Have you ever stopped a minute to think that a polluted river and polluted soil will kill ALL OF US, not just a few million......

Aside from all the pollution pics, they really reminded me of how I grew up.

I grew up in poverty, in northern part of China.

On the web link, I think it was image # 38, where that boy is being bathed in a huge aluminum bowl. I used to bathe in the same friggin' aluminum bowl when I was young.

I remembered as clearly as yesterday. It's some time in the late 80's early 90's. I was about maybe 6 to 8 years old. Our family did not have shower, nor hot water. We had to boil drinking or bath water then pour it in the big aluminum "bowl" and mix in cold water to bathe in. Those things are pretty big, a grown adult can sit in if crossing the legs.

We had no telephone, one very old black&white TV, no heating system so we survive the winter by burning coals. We eat meat products once a year, during Chinese New Year. There would be fish, beef, pork and etc. Other 364 days, it's cheap veggies and grain, drank milk on rare occasions because it was very expensive.

I remembered very vividly, that I felt like the richest kid on the block when my parents gave me 1 RMB ($0.15 USD now) of allowance money.

Pollution was bad. You can walk around for half an hour then go home to find out the boogers in your nose are all black. Recent years it's even worse with the Sand Storms, literally going to bury the capital if they don't do something about it soon.

Only thing that keeps people sane is that almost everyone is living in the same conditions at least in a 25mile radius. So if I didn't have something, Mr. Wang next door won't have it either.

reply to post by truthseeker84


Oh please, spare us the bs! Even people in somalia eat meat more than once a year! And no heating system, black and white tv, no telephone..right!!

I remember discussing communism with a self-declared cuban national here on ATS a few weeks ago and he didn't have one good thing to say about "his country". I wonder why..

Some of the bs propaganda here on ATS is really getting annoying because gullible people believe anything you tell them. If communism was really as bad as westerners think then why did last almost a century?? Why north koreans never complain but mainstream media makes them out to be "poor, starving souls"?

If you think socialism and communism is/was bad wait untill you start drinking polluted water and breath carbon monoxide from the so-called capitalist revolution happening in china and russia.

reply to post by Zosynspiracy


Are you crazy?

So, you want these innocent children to die off?

It is not their direct fault is it?

Get a life or better still get some humanity!

Originally posted by cra114
reply to post by Zosynspiracy

 

Are you crazy?

So, you want these innocent children to die off?

It is not their direct fault is it?

Get a life or better still get some humanity!

Yeah, tell me about it. Its idiots like him that make this world such a fu**ed up place.

[edit on 15-1-2010 by Jay-morris]

reply to post by EarthCitizen07


I hope you are being sarcastic...

China is a socialistic/communistic country only on paper. In reality, it combines authoritarian government and censorship of communism with social inequiality and exploitation of ruthless capitalism.

On the other hand, China is advancing very quickly in many areas, and I sincerely hope that things will get better in the future.

But censorship, pollution and corruption are still major problems in China, without a doubt...

reply to post by Maslo


That was extremely disturbing! Stating the obvious something needs to be done about this.I feel worse for the children though having to grow up that way.I suppose when you have that many people around making a lot of trash and no where to go with it plus the amount of pollution that's being put in the air from the factories it makes that.

Zosynspiracy, I certainly can relate the criticisms toward the Chinese government. But some of your posts above are pure hate speech and illogical garbage. Please refrain from posting before you clean up the excrement in your own skull.

Originally posted by EarthCitizen07
reply to post by truthseeker84

 

Oh please, spare us the bs! Even people in somalia eat meat more than once a year! And no heating system, black and white tv, no telephone..right!!

I'm Chinese and I can confirm these. Up until late 80's a great majority of households still had mono-TVs, and many of the remote villages were still in poverty. Some provinces developed better than other but at least that was the case in my province.

If you are not brought up in that environment, you can't relate to the sentiment we have towards China's rapid development, the good and ugly side of it, the whole picture etc. These first hand experiences can give you lessons no NGO's can.

For example during the 70's the lake near my home city was a popular place families go swimming in. The water was crystal clear. And shortly after economical reform, the pollution kicked in and it started to get worse. Swimmer started getting itchy skin rashes over their body, and that was when they knew the 'tradition' had to go.

The local government started enforcing strict policies and regulations during the 90's, pulling tons of money in to fight the pollution, banning everything even slightly pollutes. Almost 20 years of battling the conditions, the water is still not as clear as it was in the 70's.

Other cases of government policies can be debated on, but when it comes to state environmental regulations, I support 100%.

[edit on 15-1-2010 by nighinfinite]

reply to post by truthseeker84


I've been to India and filled a few tissues each night with black soot. Wonder what the residents lungs ook like

One of the serious negative consequences of China's rapid industrial development has been increased pollution, smog, and degradation of natural resources. Much solid waste is not properly disposed of. Water pollution is a source of health problems across the country, and air pollution causes up to 1,750,000 premature deaths each year.

I don't believe that the Chinese government really care what happens to their people as there are too many of them in the first place so what if a few hundred million die within 10 years. They want to be the producers of the world and this is what happens. The only problem I see that will make the rest of the world suffer is the pollution of the waters and foods that people around consume that is imported from China. I have stopped buying Chinese food products a long time ago. Shame tho. I like Chinese food.

reply to post by Maslo


So sad. Killing the planet. Killing everything for a cheap buck. Reminds me of that movie The Road.

These are very sad pictures.

I think the style of them are made to look even more bad on purpose, focusing on just the negative and creating a dark mood. With the right style you can make even bad things look beatuiful too, strangely.

BUT these are truly sad thou, even if the style is a bit on purpose.

Peace.

Edit: reading up on the photographer I can see why now, his work focuses on the bad stuff, which is great! because it brings it to the spotlight, raising awareness, which is very good.



[edit on 16-1-2010 by _Phoenix_]

S + F

Very humbling pictures.

Now if all of us consuming humans can get over our crack-like addiction to money and doodads, this could be fixed.

Originally posted by die_another_day
Westerners are generally ungrateful for all the cheap products that the Chinese produce. Without them, we would be living just like them. Spending most of our salaries on food and basic necessities.
We export these dirty industries to third world nations so that we won't suffer the consequences.

In the West, we simply had our governments regulate, and our engineers eradicate, the onerous pollution and other side effects. Then, since it involved some trouble and some cash, the leftists encouraged our businesses to 'go global' and 'one world', in other words export the manufacturing to third world countries who didn't regulate or care about such troublesome things. Therefore, countries such as China begin massively polluting both at home, and in the air going to California.
All is not as it seems, though. For every dollar we spend on overseas commodities or goods, we earn TEN in brain products, such as engineering, creation, invention, management, marketing, etc, from them. Which would be all nice and everything, but many of us are only able to do the hand work, the manufacturing and such. So now the wealthy are getting richer, and the rest of us are out of work.
Oh, and when we did not have the Communists making all that 'stuff' for us, how did we live? Just fine, thank you. So if they were not makeing all that stuff and polluting, how would we be doing? We would have jobs, and almost zero pollution. We were NOT spending alot on food and other basics. There are a bunch of crooks selling off hazardous wastes as fertilizer, but they need to be stopped by a REPRESENTATIVE govt, not the tyrants pretending to 'represent' as is currently the insidious fact. If those same tyrants serve even ONE term, they will continue to receive their congressional salary, en toto, for life. PLUS, now they can collect on the bribes from business to allow such flagrant and malicious acts with their full blessing. I only know of banksters MO; they 'support' both sides in an election, therefore the winner is in their pocket. I assume some business as well.
The despotism in China is not nearly as advanced as our own form of despotism. Here, very few of us realize that we are not free. Here, people actually think the govt, including the legal system, is adhering to law. There, they don't even try to pretend. We are so much more advanced...

Originally posted by Badgered1
Next time you screw in one of those horrible Chinese spiral compact fluorescent light bulbs please think of these pictures.
That's how "GREEN" you are being by using those things.
You're really not saving the planet. You're helping to destroy it. At best you're helping out the local utility company who will be peak metering you soon anyway to make their profits.

They're mandated by the stupid government where I live.

Short-sighted fools.