Degraded Environment Becoming Major Political Force In China - ENN

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HUAXI, China — China's environmental woes are so large that they've begun to generate social instability. Choking on vile air, sickened by toxic water, citizens in some corners of this vast nation are rising up to protest the high environmental cost of China's economic boom. In one recent incident, villagers in this hilly coastal region grew so exasperated by contamination from nearby chemical plants that they overturned and smashed dozens of vehicles and beat up police officers who arrived to quell what was essentially an environmental riot. "We had to do it. We can't grow our vegetables here anymore," said Li Sanye, a 60-year-old farmer. "Young women are giving birth to stillborn babies."

Across China, entire rivers run foul or have dried up altogether. Nearly a third of cities don't treat their sewage, flushing it into waterways. Some 300 million of China's 1.3 billion people drink water that is too contaminated to be consumed safely. In rural China, sooty air depresses crop yields, and desert quickly encroaches on grasslands to the west. Filth and grime cover all but a few corners of the country.

China's central government isn't sitting still. It's enacting fuel-efficiency requirements for cars and shutting down mammoth dam-building and other projects. By some accounts, it now has world-class laws on environmental protection. Yet provincial and local officials, who feel pressure for economic growth, often shield polluters and ignore environmental laws. "The policies from the top are not carried out at the bottom," charged Niu Yuchang, a peasant organizer in Beijing who hears many environmental complaints. "The (local) officials care only about development. They don't care about water or air pollution."

Most of China's cities have a local environmental-protection bureau, but powerful city officials sometimes bully the civil servants who run them. "It is so embarrassing that some of them even have to write anonymous letters to us to denounce local environmental problems," said Wang Jirong, the vice minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration, a national watchdog that some consider toothless. China's leaders have known for years that pollution is taking a toll on public health and crimping economic development, but the notion that dirty air and water might spawn social unrest is relatively new. Environmental riots, such as the one that erupted in this village two hours' drive south of Hangzhou, underscore the severity of the pollution and that local officials can let economic goals trump concern about pollution. Some citizens felt they had their backs to the wall.

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President Hu Jintao has abandoned a decades-old approach of developing the economy first and worrying about the environment later. He's urged local officials to seek sustainable "green" development. But he's offered no acknowledgment that environmental constraints may hinder his goal of expanding China's economy fourfold by 2020. Occasionally, others have given more pessimistic assessments. "This miracle will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace," Pan Yue, a vice minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration, was quoted as saying by Germany's Der Spiegel magazine earlier this year. "Acid rain is falling on one-third of the Chinese territory (and) half the water in our seven largest rivers is completely useless," Pan went on. "One-third of the urban population is breathing polluted air. ... Finally, five of the 10 most polluted cities worldwide are in China."

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http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=8322

[skids]

1. Recommended.

A reminder of how bad it could have gotten here, if it weren't for us "tree huggers."

[aquart]

2. Aww, they wanted our industries.

And the way to undercut our prices was to sacrifice safety, air, water, and earth. Now they're powerful and prosperous and live in hell.