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The World's 10 Dirtiest Cities
neever writes "You may already know about the pollution plight of Linfen, China. But how about the heavy metals Pittsburghers breathe in on a daily basis? Or the incomparable smog Milanesi put up with? PopSci has culled an eye-opening selection of some of the world's most problematic cities. From the painfully high cancer rates in Sumgayit, Azerbaijan to the acid rain destroying La Oroya, Peru, writer Jason Daley walks readers through the lowest of the low; and explains why, despite it all, there's still hope for these places."
/. seems to be turning into digg with all these 'worlds #' topics...
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
It works like this:
The main reason Coal is being used to produce electricity rather than say Nuclear, Wind Power and Solar is price. Coal is cheap. If you impose a carbon tax , however, forcing companies that emit a lot of CO2 to pay for it, then that will make electricity generation from coal more expensive, and thus hopefully cause electric utility companies to build nuclear power plants, wind turbines, and solar panels, instead.
The idea is that you integrate the environmental cost of pollution into the market system, thus forcing supliers to take environmental concerns into consideration when making business decisions. Now, while flat out taxation is one way to achieve this, it is very difficult to determine how much to charge for a given amount fo environmental damage, and this is where tradeable emission permits comes into play. Rather than taxing companies directly, what you do is you decide how much of a certain pollutant we can emit without causing major trouble, and then you auction it off to highest bidder. That way you force the market to adapt to a lower emission scenario, and the price adjusts itself according to normal market principles. With time you can then reduce the "acceptable" level of emissions as technology improves, periodically reducing the amount of pollution.
The catch is of course that this WILL have negative effects on other aspects of the economy. The important thing to realize is that this is not some new negative effect the government has created, it is a price that we were previously paying in terms of environmental damage. What tradeable permits do is to limit the extent to which manufacturers can impose that cost on everybody, and instead put it right down where it belongs , with the consumers that use goods and services that generate pollution during their production. Yes, I said consumers, not companies. Manufacturers will on pass the cost to the consumers, in the form of higher prices, and this will in turn reduce demand.
"Oh but you can tax as much as you want people still want to drive their cars... blah blah blah...". This is why you use tradeable permits rather than direct taxation. Tradeable permits outright forces the market to adapt meaning prices will increasethe UNTIL they are high enough that demand drops. When it comes to goods that people consume a lot regardless of price ( such as gasoline ) this trabnslates into a large price increase. When it comes to things you can eaisly replace with other things, the increase in price will be smaller.
The real problem is that the cost of CO2 is really really large. Emitting it causes major damage to the planet, curtailing it causes huge costs to the environment. There isn't an easy solution to this, which is why a number of peopel prefer sticking their head in the sand and deny the whole thing. I am seriously very sceptical to weather the necessary measures will be taken. People won't put up with a 3 fold increase in energy prices ( which is where wind power is relative to coal and nuclear ) so if we hope to get rid of coal it would appear that unless we get a sudden breakthrough in solar, only Nuclear has a chance to save us. Somewhat ironically, the most hardline environmentalist groups oppose it almost religiously, and thus it woudl appear we will be stuck with coal for a long time.
these will all be chinese/tibetan cities. Sadly, China has no real pollution controls on anything. They have a trillion US$, but do not want to purchase any of our's or EU's controls for their coal plants. Likewise, from the pix, their mining techniques are far worse than has been deployed. Their tailings are leaving a lot of waste to run into their streams. The sad thing is that they can see what other nations did, and have the ability to buy better equipment and processes, but insist instead that they be given the tech.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Human over population is *not* the root problem, wastefulness is! Europe is far more densely populated than the US yet it has cleaner air and water why? because they give a crap. We waste food, waste energy, waste water, etc. Thats the problem.. Give me 2 six-person households who are diligent about not wasting things and who dont need 1K sq ft each over *1* family with one kid, two SUV's a McMansion, and who have no cares about conservation..
And what do people complain about in these shit places? The environment? No! They complain about lack of money, about laws and other worthless shit.
Back few months ago, Bombay,India wanted to mandate *some* regulations that would require those shitty rickshaws to stop using kerosine mix crap for fuel. Never passed because of lobbying from the rickshaw drivers. I guess they don't give a shit if they die at 30 from lung cancer, but they do care if they have to pay *anything* to make their own environment cleaner.
This situation is the the everywhere. Kind of makes you think how shortsighted we think.