中国环境污染到了致命的边缘

没有任何国家在历史上因为发展工业而造成对环境的如此伤害，这将耗费几十年的时间和巨大的财力来恢复。

中国经济实力的上升速度和标度在历史上没有明确的比较, 因此它的污染问题打破了所有先例。目前环境退化非常严峻, 从国内和国际反映来看, 环境污染不仅给中国公众的带来沉重负担，而且对中共是一个深刻政治挑战。中国可能毁在它自己的经济重型卡车里。

公共健康日驱严重

污染导致癌症成了中国的第一死亡因素。中共卫生部认为，单单空气污染就造成每年成千上万的人死亡。几乎5亿中国人没有安全饮用水。

中国城市好象被包裹在一件毒性灰色寿衣。560个百万城市中，只有1%的城市的居民呼吸的空气被欧共体认为安全。北京拼命希望寻找一个奇迹, 使北京的奥运会有一个晴朗的天空。

在一些国家被认为的灾难似乎普遍在中国存在:工业城市里 人们很少看见太阳; 孩子们因铅中毒或其它类型地方污染死亡或得病; 海岸线变成了藻类红色浪潮, 大部分海洋不再生长海洋生物。

中国的经济成功导致自我扼杀

经济在历史性的两位数增长。但增长使现在比过去任何时候需要更巨大的能量, 重工业和都市化的摇摆般的扩展，几乎全使用最肮脏的煤炭。

中国的最前沿的环境研究员的Wang Jinnan说，"这使国家处于一个非常愚笨的处境：因为我们的最大的成就也是我们的最大的负担 。"在这种压力下需要改变, 但许多人拒绝接受新的方法来改变这种局面。"

中国的问题成为了世界的问题。

由中国的燃煤电厂吐出的二氧化硫和氧化氮成为酸雨在汉城、南韩, 和东京降落。 根据地球物理的研究学报指出，许多颗粒性的污染漂落在洛杉矶都源于中国,

在许多外部世界对全球性变暖关注之时，中国继续进入它的工业革命最健壮的阶段。

专家们曾指出，中国也许在2010 年以前，追上美国成为世界温室气体的主要排放国, 也许更早。国际能源组织现在认为中国在今年以前成为世界温室气体的第一排放国。 荷兰环境评估代办处认为中国已经超过了那个水平。

中共的政治算盘很可怕

勒住经济增长以缓和污染也许符合逻辑, 但整个国家的机器是却象着了魔。用经济繁荣安抚公众, 宠信拉关系的官员和阻止政治变革。大的经济减缓将会造成社会动荡, 商业利益受损和威胁中共的统治。

但污染已经威胁到了自己头上。官员们归吝于腐臭的空气和水造成数以万计社会动荡事件。医疗保健费用直线上升。严重缺水使更多农田变成沙漠。没有节制的工业扩展造成对进口石油和肮脏的煤炭的更加巨大的依赖性, 意味着环境问题拖的越长越难以解决，耗费更大。

中国的领导人承认 他们必须改换做法，发誓停止邓小平时代的成长第一哲学和接受一个可平稳的成长和保护环境的新模型。在温家宝的国情咨文里，他提到48次关于 "污染" 或"环境保护。"

当局制订了许多目标为减少废气排放和节约能源。为污染产业出口补贴被逐步淘汰了。不同的活动开始关闭非法煤矿和快门一些沉重污染工厂。将开发干净的能源象太阳和风力。在2008 奥林匹克之前，加强了在北京、上海和其它主要的城市的环境规定。

As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes

BEIJING, Aug. 25 ─ No country in history has emerged as a major industrial power without creating a legacy of environmental damage that can take decades and big dollops of public wealth to undo.

But just as the speed and scale of China’s rise as an economic power have no clear parallel in history, so its pollution problem has shattered all precedents. Environmental degradation is now so severe, with such stark domestic and international repercussions, that pollution poses not only a major long-term burden on the Chinese public but also an acute political challenge to the ruling Communist Party. And it is not clear that China can rein in its own economic juggernaut.

Public health is reeling. Pollution has made cancer China’s leading cause of death, the Ministry of Health says. Ambient air pollution alone is blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. Nearly 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water.

Chinese cities often seem wrapped in a toxic gray shroud. Only 1 percent of the country’s 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the European Union. Beijing is frantically searching for a magic formula, a meteorological deus ex machina, to clear its skies for the 2008 Olympics.

Environmental woes that might be considered catastrophic in some countries can seem commonplace in China: industrial cities where people rarely see the sun; children killed or sickened by lead poisoning or other types of local pollution; a coastline so swamped by algal red tides that large sections of the ocean no longer sustain marine life.

China is choking on its own success. The economy is on a historic run, posting a succession of double-digit growth rates. But the growth derives, now more than at any time in the recent past, from a staggering expansion of heavy industry and urbanization that requires colossal inputs of energy, almost all from coal, the most readily available, and dirtiest, source.

“It is a very awkward situation for the country because our greatest achievement is also our biggest burden,” says Wang Jinnan, one of China’s leading environmental researchers. “There is pressure for change, but many people refuse to accept that we need a new approach so soon.”

China’s problem has become the world’s problem. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides spewed by China’s coal-fired power plants fall as acid rain on Seoul, South Korea, and Tokyo. Much of the particulate pollution over Los Angeles originates in China, according to the Journal of Geophysical Research.

More pressing still, China has entered the most robust stage of its industrial revolution, even as much of the outside world has become preoccupied with global warming.

Experts once thought China might overtake the United States as the world’s leading producer of greenhouse gases by 2010, possibly later. Now, the International Energy Agency has said China could become the emissions leader by the end of this year, and the Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency said China had already passed that level.

For the Communist Party, the political calculus is daunting. Reining in economic growth to alleviate pollution may seem logical, but the country’s authoritarian system is addicted to fast growth. Delivering prosperity placates the public, provides spoils for well-connected officials and forestalls demands for political change. A major slowdown could incite social unrest, alienate business interests and threaten the party’s rule.

But pollution poses its own threat. Officials blame fetid air and water for thousands of episodes of social unrest. Health care costs have climbed sharply. Severe water shortages could turn more farmland into desert. And the unconstrained expansion of energy-intensive industries creates greater dependence on imported oil and dirty coal, meaning that environmental problems get harder and more expensive to address the longer they are unresolved.

China’s leaders recognize that they must change course. They are vowing to overhaul the growth-first philosophy of the Deng Xiaoping era and embrace a new model that allows for steady growth while protecting the environment. In his equivalent of a State of the Union address this year, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao made 48 references to “environment,” “pollution” or “environmental protection.”

The government has numerical targets for reducing emissions and conserving energy. Export subsidies for polluting industries have been phased out. Different campaigns have been started to close illegal coal mines and shutter some heavily polluting factories. Major initiatives are under way to develop clean energy sources like solar and wind power. And environmental regulation in Beijing, Shanghai and other leading cities has been tightened ahead of the 2008 Olympics. 看中国网站 禁止建立鏡像網站。返回正版看中国网站。

来源:纽约时报 北京, 8月25 日

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