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Growing Public Unrest Leads China To Admit To 'Cancer Villages'
eldavojohn writes "A new report from China's environment ministry has resulted in long-overdue self-realizations as well as possible explanations for 'cancer villages.' The term refers to villages (anywhere from 247 to 400 known of them) that have increased cancer rates due to pollution from nearby factories and industry. The report revealed that many harmful chemicals that are prohibited and banned in developed nations are still found in China's water and air. Prior research has shown a direct correlation between industrialization/mining and levels of poisonous heavy metals in water. As a result, an air pollution app has grown in popularity and you can see the pollution from space. China has also released a twelve-year plan for environmental protection."
China has also released a twelve-year plan for environmental protection.
Should read:
China has also released their twelfth five-year plan for environmental protection.
My apologies!
after my wife returned from China, and told me about the red air, it seems like a possibility now.
I've maintained for years that China, Mexico, and similar countries going though industrial booms are simply in early stages of industrial revolution. Next we shall see environmental, wage, and health reforms, as these countries realize the need for sustainable management of their labor base.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
Lest we become hypocrites...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory
Don't worry once China has to enact those bothersome environmental and safety laws that cut into profits the corporations will move on to the next 3rd world country.
as soon as they hack the EPA.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
You can see any surface feature "from space" including the licence plate on my car with the right equipment. I'm so sick of people throwing around this meaningless term.
We are feathering our environmental nest at home and stocking our shelves from unregulated hell holes.
At some point this evacuation of our industrial base to China will emerge as a moral issue. It's already an employment issue for the working class and a fiscal issue for the nation, but neither of those seem to comfortable office people and the ruling class.
Maybe the shame of all this will.
Importing from regimes that do not have equivalent regulatory rigor is exploitation.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It says "In twelve years there will be no environment left to protect. So carry on"
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
IIRC, in the novel, the zombie outbreak began in a village in China. Looks like it may be time to head for the hills!
Where's the explanation on how the free market is going to fix this problem without the need for burdensome regulation? Anyone? Anyone?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Expect your next iPhone/Nexus/Lumia to be more expensive (and probably without visible effect on Chinese worker's quality of life).
Or may be corps will start looking for next 3rd world hole where fat cats will be glad to welcome new products into not-really-regulated factory lines.
We are feathering our environmental nest at home and stocking our shelves from unregulated hell holes.
Submitter here, this link was removed from my submission. To be fair it was a link heavy submission so it was probably smart. Obviously we're on the same planet as China and when this negatively affects the planet it also affects us.
So you already have an interest in not purchasing materials from heavily polluting companies. The problem is that the "free market" as it exists (yeah, I know it's not truly a free market) does not give a single fuck about the environment. We don't even have a way of rating products by their pollution and even if we did, China would just bribe that all away locally. Really all you can do is observe and report so more people become informed.
My work here is dung.
Put out more pollution in a day than the entire U.S. does in 6 months.
But go ahead and pay extra for that Prius and plaster your house with solar panels.
Its a drop in the bucket compared to what the 2nd world is cranking out.
I spent a year living in China. At 30 years old, the month after I left all the hair on the top of my head turned grey and fell out. It eventuelly grew back. Most likly explanation was heavy metal poisoning. It happened in one of the largest cities in China, Nanjing.
Silicon Valley. Not sure if this is the same as the Mountain View site, where problems with the soil and groundwater are ongoing.
See also, Willits, in Mendocino County where toxins were dumped in a stream that flows to the watershed to the north. There's a cancer cluster there too; with the company trying to blame it on residents tendency to smoke, drink, do drugs, etc.
California in general has a lots of sites due to mining activities extending from gold rush times well into the late 20th century.
Yeah, you'd think the Chinese would have learned from looking at what happened to us. So much for the idea that only Americans are short-sighted and/or ignorant.
Bring enough of the developed world in with its standards and you bypass this nasty and unnecessary part of "industrialization" - especially if it uses the displaced to help enforce it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
You overlooked their attempt on June 4, 1989, which resulted in the Tiananmen Massacre. People were disappeared and history revised to disappear any memory of the conscious choice of the country to choose individual freedom - instead of just being content with letting multinationals keep their workers occupied while giving the people a few economic distractions.
A few trinkets wont change the general lack of freedom that the People's Republic of China maintains. The country's face will have to be ripped clean off with a change to a more Western-friendly government that grants freedom to people of all levels of prosperity and status- much like Taiwan and British Hong Kong before each got invaded by pro-mainland sentiment.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Before worrying about China, Google "Cancer Cluster" and check out this country.
From Clyde, OH to St.Louis, MO, we have plenty!!
...that Chinese are just as delicate as Californians. Here in Texas we have oil running through our veins, we breathe ozone recreationally, and we consider lead and mercury "performance enhancing substances". It's just one reason why we can still buy all sorts of products known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, brain injury, and all sorts of ailments that we aren't concerned about much here.
Lookup Calvert City, KY and Paducah, KY sometime.
They all have cleaned up their environment a lot as citizen awareness and sensitivity towards environmental problems has increased.
One thing about Japan: while much of it is developed in the typically ugly Cement Deco way, it's all surprisingly clean and tidy.
You very really see graffiti anywhere other than the occasional underpass. There are few alleys filled with burned sofas and old shopping carts, and you practically never see abandoned cars lining streets. Even litter is scarce in the vast majority of places.
I assume it's a result of 120 million people in a place the size of Colorado understanding what will happen to it and their quality of life if they don't keep things in good order.
People will get sick and die and no longer be able to work, or people will rebel and the price will go up, exports go down, and the problem will be solved due to manufacturing dropping off.
Free Market cultists always seem to forget that people are expendable in their rape-and-ignore-the-consequences stratagems.
Smart regulation is the way humans make sure we don't devolve into stupid jungle beasts.
All problems with regulatory practices start and end with corruption. Corruption can be fought when populations are equipped with sufficient knowledge. This is why education is the mess it is today. The elite don't like smart masses; it threatens their psychopathic choke hold on reality.
To see what a totalitarian dictatorship will do (hint: Is this the future of the West?).
Just fifty miles, fifty miles down the San Ber'dino freeway
They got some dark green air and you can choke all day
-- Frank Zappa (RIP & thx)
Because nothing can take China down as effective as what's taken America down.
American skyrocketing medical costs over more than two decades have helped crush the economy here. This happening in China in a single decade could very well be a national disaster there of unprecedented proportions historically anywhere.
How much of this increase can be firmly linked to pollution and how much is linked to changing demography of villages and towns, that grow older as their young leave for industrial cities.
Older people get cancer at a much higher rate than the young. Also, there's a 10 to 30 years gap between carcinogen exposure and cancer, China's industrialisation may be too recient to explain the alleged increased cancer incidence. However, industralisation and population movement is synchronous.
China can admit to this yet Canada cannot. There is at least one such village here and yet Canada criticizes China regarding the environment and human rights.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.