For air quality, a major culprit is coal, on which China relies for about two-thirds of its energy needs. It has abundant supplies of coal and already burns more of it than the United States, Europe and Japan combined. But even many of its newest coal-fired power plants and industrial furnaces operate inefficiently and use pollution controls considered inadequate in the West.
Expanding car ownership, heavy traffic and low-grade gasoline have made autos the leading source of air pollution in major Chinese cities. Only 1 percent of China’s urban population of 560 million now breathes air considered safe by the European Union, according to a World Bank study of Chinese pollution published this year. One major pollutant contributing to China’s bad air is particulate matter, which includes concentrations of fine dust, soot and aerosol particles less than 10 microns in diameter (known as PM 10).
The level of such particulates is measured in micrograms per cubic meter of air. The European Union stipulates that any reading above 40 micrograms is unsafe. The United States allows 50. In 2006, Beijing’s average PM 10 level was 141, according to the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics. Only Cairo, among world capitals, had worse air quality as measured by particulates, according to the World Bank.
Emissions of sulfur dioxide from coal and fuel oil, which can cause respiratory and cardiovascular diseases as well as acid rain, are increasing even faster than China’s economic growth. In 2005, China became the leading source of sulfur dioxide pollution globally, the State Environmental Protection Administration, or SEPA, reported last year.
Other major air pollutants, including ozone, an important component of smog, and smaller particulate matter, called PM 2.5, emitted when gasoline is burned, are not widely monitored in China. Medical experts in China and in the West have argued that PM 2.5 causes more chronic diseases of the lung and heart than the more widely watched PM 10.
Perhaps an even more acute challenge is water. China has only one-fifth as much water per capita as the United States. But while southern China is relatively wet, the north, home to about half of China’s population, is an immense, parched region that now threatens to become the world’s biggest desert.
Farmers in the north once used shovels to dig their wells. Now, many aquifers have been so depleted that some wells in Beijing and Hebei must extend more than half a mile before they reach fresh water. Industry and agriculture use nearly all of the flow of the Yellow River, before it reaches the Bohai Sea.
In response, Chinese leaders have undertaken one of the most ambitious engineering projects in world history, a $60 billion network of canals, rivers and lakes to transport water from the flood-prone Yangtze River to the silt-choked Yellow River. But that effort, if successful, will still leave the north chronically thirsty.
This scarcity has not yet created a culture of conservation. Water remains inexpensive by global standards, and Chinese industry uses 4 to 10 times more water per unit of production than the average in industrialized nations, according to the World Bank.
In many parts of China, factories and farms dump waste into surface water with few repercussions. China’s environmental monitors say that one-third of all river water, and vast sections of China’s great lakes, the Tai, Chao and Dianchi, have water rated Grade V, the most degraded level, rendering it unfit for industrial or agricultural use.
Grim Statistics
The toll this pollution has taken on human health remains a delicate topic in China. The leadership has banned publication of data on the subject for fear of inciting social unrest, said scholars involved in the research. But the results of some research provide alarming evidence that the environment has become one of the biggest causes of death.
An internal, unpublicized report by the Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning in 2003 estimated that 300,000 people die each year from ambient air pollution, mostly of heart disease and lung cancer. An additional 110,000 deaths could be attributed to indoor air pollution caused by poorly ventilated coal and wood stoves or toxic fumes from shoddy construction materials, said a person involved in that study.
中文:
至于空气质量,主要的“凶手“是煤,然而中国能源供应的三分之二需要煤来提供能量。煤炭的大量供给早已超过了美国,欧洲和日本三者的总和。但是国内众多的最新型的火电厂和工业用电炉在西方国家看来是低效率的利用和不能满足污染控制的要求。
在中国的中心城市里,私家车,重卡和低质量的汽油都导致了汽车(尾气)污染了空气。根据今年世界银行发布的中国污染情况研究一文中指出,当今中国的5.6亿的城市居民仅有1%的居民能呼吸到符合欧盟安全标准的空气。一个最主要的污染物质应该为中国那糟糕的空气负上责任,那就是颗粒物质,它包括细微灰尘,烟灰和那些直径小于10微米的浮质分子三个部分的集合(也就是众所周知的PM 10)。
诸如这样的分子颗粒的标准是通过在每立方米空气的微观图中测量得到的。欧盟规定任何超过40单位的微观图都是不安全的。美国允许提高到50。[这里的专业知识,笔者实在是没有文化背景,是按字面直翻的,希望高手指点,谢谢]。2006年,根据中国国家统计局指出,北京平均的PM10指标是141。另外,根据世界银行的资料,边及世界各国的首都,只有开罗的空气质量更槽糕。
从煤炭和燃油中排出的二氧化硫引起了呼吸道和心血管疾病和酸雨,它们的增加速度甚至超过了中国的经济增长速度。2005年,国家环保局(SEPA)在去年指出,中国成为了导致全球性的二氧化硫污染的领头羊。
其他的主要空气污染物质,包括臭氧,它是烟雾的一个重要组成部分并且小于颗粒物质,称为PM2.5,它在汽油燃烧后释放出来,中国并没有大范围的监控。中西方的医疗专家都认为PM2.5所引起的心脏和肺部的慢性疾病远远高于那些被广泛监控的PM10(所引起的)。
也许淡水资源才是更是迫在眉睫的问题。中国的淡水人均占有量仅是美国的五分之一。然而中国南部相对潮湿,北方,这个半数中国人口的家园,是个广阔的,炎热的地区,现在北方也受到了变成世界上最大的沙漠的严重威胁。
在北方的农民曾经用铲子挖水井。现在,许多的蓄水层已经枯竭,在北京和河北的一些水井要想取到活水,要多扩深半米才行。在黄河流入渤海以前,工农业用水几乎占去了整个黄河的流量。
做为反应,中国领导人开始着手进行一个在世界历史上都前所未有的最富有雄心的工程,一个耗资600亿美金的,联接运河,河流和湖泊的,从更易发洪水的长江引水到淤泥堵塞的黄河的工程。如果这个工程成功了,但是效果也仍旧不能缓解北方长期的缺水。
这类的缺乏也不能创造出一种保存的文化氛围。根据全球标准,淡水仍旧是便宜的,根据世界银行,中国工业每生产一个单位的产品所用的水是工业化国家平均用水的4到10倍。
在中国的众多地方,工厂和农田直接向水源表面倾倒废水,上层却几乎不管。中国环境监控人员说,全部河水的1/3和中国的几大湖泊的大部分,太湖,潮湖和滇池,那里的水已经到了V级的指标,这个指标是水资源退化的最低级的指标了,这样的水已经不能用于工农业使用。
严酷的统计数字
污染研究的学者们说,在中国,对那些造成人体健康危害的污染源征税仍是一个棘手的话题。中国领导人禁止向公众公布这类项目的数据,以免引起社会动荡。但是这些研究结果提供了警告性的证据,环境问题已经成为了造成死亡的最大的动因。
2003年,中国环境计划学会在一份内部的,未公开发表的报告中指出,估计每年有30万人死于周围的空气污染,其中大部分都死于心脏病和肺癌。一个研究人员指出,还有额外的11万人的死亡是因为那些没有合格通风条件的,烧煤炭和木材火炉或者是从假冒的建筑材料中释放的毒烟所造成的室内空气污染致死的。 |