Pollution is a very serious global issue that needs to be fixed for our environment to sustain for future generations to come. The pollution that we see in our society today is unhealthy and in some extreme cases, it could be dangerous to people. Even after many attempts by our world leaders, pollution is still growing in our world and continues to be an issue. Many people see pollution as just bad air quality and they would be right, but a lot of people don’t realize how life-threatening pollution can be. In 2015, 16% of all deaths worldwide were linked to pollution or even directly from air pollution. And to go along with that, there are around 7 million deaths annually each year. Because we live in Iowa, we aren’t used to seeing any type of pollution, but in other countries such as China, it is very common and a daily thing that people of this country have to deal with.
When discussing pollution that is in our world today, it is easy to think of a few places that come to mind. Some places I think of would be New York City, India, and China. China is a particular country that struggles with air pollution. In China, smog is very common and it covers the sky and fills the city. According to an article by USA Today, it shows that there are 1.8 million pollution-related deaths, which is second in the world behind only India, which has 2.5 million deaths. Pollution is also supposed to be one of the biggest killers in the world today. Throughout the entire country, it is not uncommon for almost every city in China to be polluted to some extent. Also, 9 out of 10 people in our world today are breathing air that is polluted. In an article by James Haplin, he talks about how serious the pollution is in China. In the article, it says, “The country’s Ministry Of Environmental Protection measured air quality in 70 different cities, and found that only 8 of them met the proper standards.” This shows how bad it is in China since only 11% of cities meet proper requirements. As I said before, smog fills the streets and sky every day and it can result in people breathing in these particles that can be hurtful. The sky is so full of smog that pilots who will be landing in China will have to learn some new forms of auto-landing because the visibility can be so terrible and this smog can even be picked up by satellites in space. The main reason this is so bad is because of the crazy amount of industrialization that goes on, the number of cars, and the country’s need for coal energy. With all these things that are known to increase pollution, it is not surprising to see that China is really in trouble when it comes to pollution and it seems this may only be the beginning. In the article I read by James Haplin, he says that there will be even more coal plants within the next decade which will make the pollution even worse. Along with all of this dangerous pollution, comes a lot of dangerous health complications that affect people daily. Many people who travel to China for the first time have trouble getting used to the terrible air quality. The sickness that people get has been called the “Beijing cough” and people can suffer from throat irritation, headaches, and a cough. Not only is this outrageous amount of pollution dangerous to people, but it is also dangerous to the water in China. Chinese government officials recently tested thousands of water sites across the country and they found that almost 60% of all samples seemed to be polluted in some way. At this rate, eventually, all of China’s clean water could be contaminated in some way from all of this pollution that goes on every day. On top of all of that, many fish are being killed in the Yellow River. The pollution has caused this river, which was once clean and healthy, to turn very polluted and dirty, which has resulted in killing well over a third of all the fish population in the river. If wiping out all of the fish was not bad enough, the pollution is also killing over 4,000 people every day. This is an insane statistic that does not seem like it could be even possible, but it is and it is happening daily in China. This crazy amount of pollution that we see is no joke, in Beijing, the pollution is 35 times the safe limit, and in Shenyang, it is almost 50 times the limit. These levels are incredibly high and it is no wonder why people are dying every day. Something needs to be done about the pollution in China before it’s too late to do anything.
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Even though the pollution in China is extremely bad and I mean bad, there are still ways for China to turn this around and become less polluted. In an article by Beth Gardiner, she talks about how China is creating solutions that are helping their pollution problems. Many of the leaders in China are very serious about improving the pollution in China as soon as possible. In China, they have already created a network of monitors that helps track the levels of pollution in each specific area. By doing this, they can track the air quality so people can know the type of air quality that they are breathing in. Another simple way that they are limiting the pollution in their country is by having the leaders close down the factories temporarily during November and December to try and make sure they do not exceed their usual pollution limit. Doing these very simple things can help slow down pollution in China. Another way for the Chinese to help fight against pollution is to limit the number of car emissions that can produce a ton of unneeded pollution. After China had succeeded in dropping its coal emissions greatly, its next goal was to move on to lower the emissions from vehicles. One way they could do this is by limiting the cars that can be on the road each time. They also could have other means of transportation that are much cleaner than their current options. Electric cars would be one solution to the transportation that we see and I think that by doing this it would be very effective in lessening the pollution and it would be a clean alternative for China. Instead of using coal and other things that help them produce energy, they could also go to using more electricity which would cut down pollution in some way. In an article by Michael Greenstone of the New York Times, it says that in March of 2014, the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told the National People’s Congress that they would be officially declaring war on pollution in China. This was a big step for China since this is a very dangerous problem in the country. In the article, it says that most cities in China have cut pollution by over 30% in only four years. This means that eventually, people will begin feeling better since the pollution is not as high as it once was, which will help everything. To cut the pollution down by over 30%, China had to stop the coal plants in places where pollution was the worst and in some places, they had to reduce their emissions. They also have invested over 50 billion dollars in clean energy, which leads the entire world. Something that would also be able to help them would be the involvement of the citizens of China. If they can get on board with helping the country reduce its number then I think that would help in a great way. Simple things like driving your car less, not burning things, and just trying to be more eco-friendly will all help in the long run against pollution. One last thing that could help fight against is something called switchgrass, which can help the country’s soil, it even can be burned for energy and it is a cleaner source of energy than coal. Even though China’s pollution numbers are still astronomically high they are making good progress to help try and eliminate their terrible pollution.
In conclusion, pollution is a very serious problem that goes on in China and if it doesn’t stop, we could be facing many environmental issues. The pollution that we see in China is so severe that it is a danger to the people who live in China. The number of deaths that happen every day is crazy and I think it could eventually be corrected over time. China knows its pollution is the worst that we have ever seen and they are taking this matter very seriously. They have made a decent dent into this problem and it shows that our world does have hope if we have to fix pollution on a worldwide scale.