Former Minister of Health Admits Smog Kills Half a Million People A Year in China

Half a million people a year die in China due to the smog alone. The city of Beijing has decided it needs to 'go green' and will be HEAVILY investing in 'green technologies' for the city. Want a good investment? Find out what Beijing will be doing in the area of green technology and go invest in it. This is going to be a massive project to try to turn the city around. The people there are wallowing in their own muck and dying in large numbers. I feel for them .... it's gotta' be miserable.

Asia News - Former Minister of Health Admits Smog Kills Half a Million People A Year in China

Pollution in China kills between 350 and 500 thousand people each year. This was revealed by an article in the British scientific journal The Lancet co- authored by Chen Zhu, president of the Medical Association of China, formerly the Minister for Health under President Hu Jintao. In the text, the authors admit that "despite best efforts , it will be difficult to control the phenomenon, since there are huge sources of pollution and of very different kinds ."

The main cause of the blanket of smog is PM 2.5 (particulate matter - - Airborne dust 2.5 micrometers per cubic meter) caused by industrial production and intensified by the arrival of winter. The cold causes the ignition of millions of radiators, which in turn increase the consumption of the coal burned in power plants. In Shanghai last month the levels of PM2.5 exceeded 600 micrometers per cubic meter, while in Beijing they have touched 473 : the World Health Organization limit for healthy air is 25 micrometers per meter cubed.

Side note - how the heck did they get the Olympics there with this situation?
How'd the athletes not fall over from the pollution? WOW.

reply to post by FlyersFan


Yikes. I have such mixed feelings about China.

Did you see the story about "Gutter Oil" (an illegal trade that is booming) there? People dig up muck from the sewers and 'refine' it to use for COOKING OIL. Wowza. I have to wonder how many people are killed by that sort of "pollution"!!

China's food safety problems have no better symbol than the illegal and utterly disgusting problem of gutter oil. Cooking oil is used heavily in Chinese food, so some street vendors and hole-in-the-wall restaurants buy cheap, black market oil that's been recycled from garbage. You read that correctly. Enterprising men and women will go through dumpsters, trash bins, gutters and even sewers, scooping out liquid or solid refuse that contains used oil or animal parts. Then they process that into cooking oil, which they sell at below-market rates to food vendors who use it to cook food that can make you extremely sick.

www.washingtonpost.com...
This is only one of many stories about the activity that's been on 'news outlets' lately.



Don't mean to derail; but yes, China has some exceptionally awful problems.
Wow is right.

Seeing a picture of a man wearing a mask walking through awful smog with a toddler on his back wearing one as well really gave me the heebs the other day.

Both are cause for concern, but what's to be done, really?

A nation only slightly larger in surface area than the states, with over 4x the population, all while they're attempting to raise PPP, and become more developed.

I expect that the central planners are hopefully forward thinking enough to have contingency plans ready to roll-out if need be.

Basically I expect China to invade when necessary. I keep seeing the Dragon infesting Africa in the coming decade or so.

The leaders won't allow things to boil over and potentially topple their elite status, me thinks.