Potent Pollution

Meghan's picture of the pollution

By Meghan Waters, Class of 2014

Most everyone has heard about the pollution problem in China.  Well my skin and lungs can attest to the fact that China has a terrible pollution problem.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not hunched over gasping for breath, but I can definitely notice a difference between our air quality and China’s.

Our text for this trip (Susan Shirk’s China: Fragile Superpower) talks a little bit about this issue, and we’ve discussed it in class with Dr. Hua and students at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.  Here are a few facts that Susan Shirk shares: “According to environmental officials…

• acid rain is falling in one-third of the country,
• half of the water in its seven largest rivers is ‘completely useless,’
• a quarter of China’s citizens lack access to clean drinking water,
• one-third of the urban population is breathing polluted air, and
• less than a fifth of the rubbish in cities is treated and processed in an environmentally sustainable way.”

She continues: “Sixteen of the twenty world cities with the worst air pollution are in China, including Beijing” (the next stop on our journey). “Tests of the air quality of three hundred Chinese cities found that almost two-thirds fail to meet the standards set by the World Health Organization. . .”
This is obviously a very serious problem.  From personal experience, there are many days when you can’t even see the tops of buildings because of the pollution. My picture is a perfect example.  If the government doesn’t step up and enforce regulations, I’m afraid to see the environmental statistics a few years down the road…

Meghan Waters, of Highland Heights, Ky., is a junior McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville. She is studying political science, justice administration, and classical languages.