Gray Smog Conceals a Greening China

Green innovator gets unfair rap as environmental offender

By Ambreen Ali, Newser User

Posted Nov 11, 2008 4:26 PM CST

(Newser) – The world's attitude toward China's environmentalism is "hypocritical and decidedly unfair," writes Fred Pearce in Yale Environment 360—this coming from someone who has "literally held my nose at the foul air." Yes, China's "development zeal" has it doing "the bad things that most of the world does," but it's also the world's leader in green innovation, waste recycling, and alternative energy sources.

The nation famed for black rivers and uninhibited industrial growth is going green "out of necessity," Pearce says. China is "so desperate for raw materials" it "finds uses for almost any waste it can get its hands on." And let's not forget that the people of the world's most populous country "don’t have lesser rights because there are so many of them." Its carbon footprint may be the largest, "but its per-capita emissions are only a quarter those of the US."

[Images (4)]

[Quotes (2)]

A Chinese tricycle passes by plastic bags littered among other trash at a market in Beijing. China has banned free plastic bags since this photo was taken. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

Chinese workers labor at a construction site for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games with the background covered with smog in Beijing. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

A Chinese with his cart baring the words "Improve environment, Enjoy your life" rides past the billboard displaying greens near the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Yusef Robb, Live Earth Global Coordinator delivers a speech during a press conference of Live Earth in Shanghai, China. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

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China consumes 15% of the world’s resources. But with 20 % of the world’s population, is that really surprising? If China were instead a series of smaller countries each reporting their statistics separately, we probably wouldn’t turn a hair. -

A study recently concluded that 23% of China’s carbon emissions were produced in manufacturing goods for export. Just as we have off-shored our manufacturing to China, so we have off-shored our carbon emissions.
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Gray Smog Conceals a Greening China