Latest comments posted about A gift for the Games on ChinaDialogue en-gb http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/1277-A-gift-for-the-Games http://staging.chinadialogue.net/images/cdlogo.gif http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/1277-A-gift-for-the-Games I visited a landfill in my county with a famous environmentalist Ye Lan today. The huge landfill, which covers over one hundred acres, shocked me a lot – it cannot be imagined that there is such a vast amount of household waste in my county. Ye Lan told me during the visiting that the bottom of the landfill was paved by leakage-proof plastic material and there were pipes underneath the pit linking to the nearby sewage plant, a standard treatment adopted by landfills in most Chinese cities. This method cannot eliminate the waste, it can only move it from one place to another – it is the simplest measure. Ye Lan said that the town was clean at the price of all the waste here, which turned the place into the whole of Huang Chuan county's “public lavatory”. It is actually a time bomb embedded in the suburban area because the leakage-plastic will be broken eventually. It could happen anytime and discharge toxic fluids. Dealing with the source of the whole chain would be the best, such as reducing the use of one-time products and packing, classifying and recycling. However, China does not do very well in this respect. It could be seen during the visit that some poor people were picking recyclable wastes from the bottom, and reducing the amount of waste. Their work, however, does not get any support from the government, and they are acutally being looked down upon by the society. How pathetic this situation is! Ye Lan made a jingle casually: society is developing, economy is making progress but the environment goes backwards and the ecology deteriorates. I felt the same way: the more the economy dvelops and society consumes, the worse the state of the environment and ecology. What on earth do we need? The question is, whether the activities of human beings bring progress or whether they just amount to the insane grabbing and destroying of our homeland that we rely on to live. It has already become a tumour of production, consumption and reckless wastage for both my country and the whole world. I also remember a jingle made by myself five years ago: plastic bags fly and sewage flows, motors are produced then traffic accidents increase, buildings are constructed, minerals are excavated, the earth is wounded. No one understands environmental consumption, superficial prosperity makes people's lives more bitter. Crowding market and tall buildings are the government's achievements, but who can hear the cry of the land? Blue grass, 24/04/2009, http://yecao1959.blog.sohu.com/115056059.html Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:41:25 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-8800 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-8800 Hi Ji Zhong, Your article about sewage treatment is being published next week. Best, Sam (chinadialogue) Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:39:25 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4513 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4513 The problem raised by comment 21 is very much to the point. I have written an article analyzing reclamation of excretion and sent it to Chinadialogue for publication.Although they agreed to publish it, still I haven't received further news. I hope Chinadialogue will publish this article as soon as possible so that we can have an in-depth discussion of this topic. Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:34:05 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4505 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4505 On one hand there is plenty of vacant land within towns, on the other hand urban outskirts are increasingly explored for construction and development. This results from 50 years of urbanization in China. Urban expansion in China is faster than populuation growth. As a result, increasing farmland has been used for construction. Instead of saving land resources and already having a clear idea about the purpose of land use, developers in China first occupy land before deciding what to do with it. Also instead of finishing projects which are under construction, China starts new projects in other areas. As a result, much farmland has been destroyed and wasted, with many peasants forced to go to cities for temporary work. The development zone near the railway station in Hengchuan County, Henan Province, is a typical example of how development projects are damaging the local eco-environment. by Youchouchao my blog: http://yecao1959.blog.sohu.com/ Sat, 13 Oct 2007 13:52:34 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4497 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4497 From one perspective people complain and moan about polluted water and rivers and then at the same time are ignorant about environmental protection and consumption. Disposable batteries and plastic bags are used in large quantities. The washing machine is filled with highly concentrated detergents in order to wash a few bits of clothing. The gleaming shirt is then put on with a contented smile without ever noticing the thick churning chemically harmful foam flowing towards our drinking water. Paying attention to the beauty of the house and not the beauty of the environment; skimping and saving to pay for the holiday decorating but not knowing whether it harms the environment and health or uses up natural resources. Paying attention to your own health but not to the health of the environment and excessively relying on medicine, qigong and mountain game for health but not knowing that polluted food, water and air are its enemy. The man in the street has low environmental awareness. From the official to the people their environmental awareness is also not high. “human congestion, cars screeching and high rise flats going up. Is this political achievement? China weeps and who is listening?” is the true depiction of their thinking. Really, today in my country the ordinary man’s concept of environmental awareness is low, no one understands about environmental protection and consumption and environmental education waits for action which at present is almost equal to nothing. How many people can understand mainland China’s cries! The ignorance of ordinary people about environmental protection, the scarcity of environmental protection technology and management systems that are defective: This all seriously restricts our countries environmental protection efforts. It seems that in solving the problem of pollution our country still has a relatively long road to travel. Sat, 13 Oct 2007 13:25:00 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4493 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4493 China's Serious Pollution Problem Are you going to China? Then I will tell you pollution in China is very serious. The Chinese environmental protection consciousness is very low. The Chinese industry economy increases quickly; pollution grows more serious more; and the great majority of Chinese are insensitive to the pollution. This is a Chinese, as well as, global disaster in the making. I request you help China. Car and motorcycle traffic is increasing greatly. The population in China is multitudinous"1300000000".is five times as the population of the US. China is short of cultivated land. in spite of this case,The Chinese government is developing the private car industry greatly, new highway construction will take up large areas of land. Traffic accidents increased greatly. In 2003 200,000 people died in traffic accidents in China. Building development is in mass confusion. Building technique is primitive and building in consuming large amounts of materials. In 2003 China poured 44% of the world's cement. Building a house will consume more amounts of cement brick and decorative colorful brick in China than The Western Nation. But these houses make little use of insulation letting heat flow out in the winter and letting the heat in during the hot summer months. House repairs are more difficult, too.chinese concerns beauty of own house very much,but chinese don't concern about environment round the house.they spend large money on their own house,but they are stingy in cost of the environment around their house. Garbage removal is primitive.chinese don't know Garbage classification.waste plastic bags is visible everywhere. The Chinese people like to use plastic bags and batteries just once and then throw them away.china government pay great attention to beauty of city.they afford large money in images structure of city.but they pay little attention to garbage classification.large amounts of garbage is made by large consumption. River is polluted by chemical fertilizer,pesticide,herbicides,chemical synthetic detergent(washing powders),industry waste water,human excrement and urine,garbage.waste water excrement and urine flow directly into river without any sanitation practices.the most river in china is unsuitable for drinking.many china people is harmed by drinking water in polluted river. Education in protecting environment is blank. People's understanding and concept of protecting the environment is quite low. China's people are poor, but they are not frugal.Chinese are concerned the beauty of house but don't concerned the beauty of environment,Chinese are concerned about their own health but don't care about environmental health. They like to inject and swallow more medicines,eat more wild animals, but they don't realize that the polluted food, water and air is threatening their health greatly. China is imitating the West's high pattern of consumerism. Chinese hope per a people owning private car and Motorcycle,living big and big house. Consuming large power source as Western nations do. The Chinese government is making effort to realize this aim. China is producing large cars and motorcycles, large cement and brick.Exploiting large coal mines and oil field, large ore mines. Building large multi-story buildings and huge highway construction patterns. Enlarging blindly more and more area of cities and towns land. Large areas of land are damaged by the exploitation of natural resources. The population in China is multitudinous, 1.3 billion(perhaps 1.4or1.5 billion)people, five times the population of the US. China is short of cultivated land. The actual situation demands that China doesn't imitate the West's high consumption. China should develop electronic information consumption. Should develop economizing energy industries. If not, the Chinese would ruin their own environment,in further more, affect the global environment. The Chinese don't realize that pollution is their most dangerous enemy. -------------------------------------- name:chenyu. ADDRESS:people hospital.huangchuan County.henan Province.china. Email:chenyu0397@yahoo.com.cn My hot post:http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/viewthread.php?tid=509645&extra=page%3D1 homepage:http://yecao1959.blog.sohu.com/ telephone:008613598583618 -------------------- I like green.like science.like internet. I adore a life which is simple but rich in spirit..oppose high consumption. Sat, 13 Oct 2007 13:10:42 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4492 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4492 China has 500 million urbanites, who produce a large volume of excrement every day. The excrement can be used as organic fertilizer for 200 million mu of farmlands. Otherwise, it will be wasteful to let the excrement be flushed into sewers and then pollute the water in the end. Therefore I suggest that urban administrations prohibit the flow of excrement into the public sewers, so they can be used as organic fertilizers. Nowadays, due to the shortage of fertilizers, farmers have to pay for droppings. This solution can not only offer some people jobs to deal with the excrement, satisfy farmers' demand for organic fertilizers, but also prevent rivers from polluting. So this can be the solution for three issues at the same time. Sat, 13 Oct 2007 13:38:28 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4494 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4494 This website is very interesting. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 07:14:31 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4377 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4377 There are a number of key points that are raised from this example of a celebrity offsetting carbon: Firstly, within the global carbon market, government, industry, financial institutions and brokers are definitely the main carbon dioxide emitters that reduce their emissions through offsetting carbon; however individual carbon offsetting is sadly an over-reaction. In particular in Europe and the US and amongst other developed nations this is not a new idea; for example climate experts, they along with the banks offsetting financial products and individual investors have different carbon consumption patterns. Consumption reduction originates from consumers own free will and consumers own behavioural motivation in order to publicise (to take advantage/ exploit their own their own influence in society) or their own sense of guilt (realise one’s own carbon neutralisation). Could individual carbon offsetting become the trend of things to come? Secondly, in China this is the authors current only knowledge of individual carbon offsetting, in a developing China, in a country with relatively weak public environmental protection awareness and climate crisis consciousness, it is worth seizing the opportunity to publicize to raise the importance of these issues. There are old fashioned thinkers lacking basic questioning that like to show off. This sets the cause backwards, if similar famous people show off. Rui Chenggang recently only seeks to publicise himself. Thirdly, regarding the issue of China's consciousness, famous people can use their influence to change the public consciousness not only in advertising climate change facts (to help curtail emissions and close the climate change awareness gap amongst developed countries and China), and also to help to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide. Carbon offsetting and the international carbon market obscures meaning and creates hard to understand concepts within the public sphere, There needs to be emphasis on interconnectedness; we need to talk of the public, even including China’s policial circles, industry to be interconnected with high society. Thu, 06 Sep 2007 10:19:05 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4341 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4341 Rui Chenggang, as someone famous, has set up a good example. But on the other hand, comment 14 is persuasive in pointing out that people will no longer feel guilty for polluting if paying money for it, which will not truly cut emission in an effective way. In fact, Rui has mentioned lots of details of green lifestyle. Hopefully he will put them into actions and also try spreading them to the public on TV screen on the job. That will be more influential than buying carbon. Fri, 07 Sep 2007 04:09:19 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4351 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1277#comment-4351