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China Using 'State Secrets' Label To Hide Pollution
eldavojohn writes "More problems have surfaced as people attempt to bring soil pollution problems to light in China. From the article: 'When Pan sued the Hebei Department of Environmental Protection in 2011, he was given access to the environmental impact assessment that the environment ministry claimed it had done in the village. Pan discovered that the assessment, carried out by the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, had names of people who had left the village two decades previously and even a person who had been dead for two years — all "expressing favor" for the project. Pan surveyed 100 people in his village, showing them the purported environmental impact study. The majority of them gave him written statements that declared: "I've never seen this form," according to documents seen by Reuters.' Reuters has also discovered that China uses 'state secrets' labels to hide environmental studies and pollution numbers as well as using strong arm tactics to silence residents attempting to do their own studies."
Gee, welcome to the club.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
When haven't western governments labeled reports and studies as secret to avoid embarassing or otherwise harmful information to reach the public
Come on, the issue here isn't abuse of a state secrets process.
The issue is the Chinese government (national level) is not based upon any principles of openness. They hide anything and everything that might threaten their place in power. The only time it comes out is when trying to keep it secret would hurt even more (i.e when a coverup is exposed).
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I can't imagine living in REDACTED country where REDACTED was allowed to REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED. You'd think in the US, the REDACTED of Information Act would REDACTED this sort of thing but instead we find REDACTED REDACTED.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It's sad, but burying these sorts of reports rather than responding to them with higher pollution standards is their loss. And, when it comes to air pollution, ours as well.
up next high speed rail issues and crashes
At first I was surprised that they even cared about public opinion at all. Then I remembered that this is SE Asia, where the importance of "saving face" is taught along with potty training. Remember the 1996 rocket crash in China? A small village was razed, they detained journalists for hours, and days later Xinhua only admitted to six deaths, blaming failure on a "sudden gust of wind". Then you have the tragically comical DPRK.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
Until China starts experiencing a massive die off due to the pollution. Eventually they'll probably wake up to the fact and require manufacturing to install preventive measure. By that point manufacturing in China will be as expensive as it is in the United States. I wonder what big business will do then?
Expected replies for China article on /.
1. "It's not like ______ didn't do it before/isn't doing it too."
2. "Why is this news, we expect this from China."
3. "So what, it's their country. We have no right to judge."
Let us embrace such wisdom and apply it consistently, for US/Europe articles too!
No country should bear criticism on Slashdot!
Join me in extending these fallacies EVERYWHERE my brothers and sisters!
Nice spin, Mr - what does your reply have to do with the text you replied to? Nothing of course. You opened a completely different topic merely to distract, or what does not being able to get the information @Shavano asked about have to do with oil in the mid east?
It's not like the government is going to run out of cheap labor any time soon.
that outlaws the use of secret footage taped at large agricultural companies, e.g. for animal mistreatment.
There's about 10 states passing such bills in the US right now.
So please, stop whining about china doing this.... clean up our own mess first.
Yeah, burying waste and information will never, ever come back to haunt them.
It is an environmental time bomb. And there is plenty of blame to be spread around.
We, the Pots, are calling the Kettle black.
The crap we have going on in the US pales in comparison. We've got far more serious corruption at every turn and we've got problems which even exceed that.
In Canada our Conservative government has very similar policies. Using legislative process that suppressed scrutiny and debate it scrapped many environmental protection laws and regulations, eviscerated government science and oversight programs. It muzzles what scientists still remain buy requiring anyone in the civil service or or on contract with the government to receive approval from the Prime Minister's office before making any statement to the public. It even imposes these restrictions on non-Canadian agencies that need government approval to do research in Canada. That's what happens when ideologues get in control. - Erny
The issue is the Chinese government (national level) is not based upon any principles of openness. They hide anything and everything that might threaten their place in power. The only time it comes out is when trying to keep it secret would hurt even more (i.e when a coverup is exposed).
Yeah, and you'd think they'd be honest enough to simply say "None of your business". That's the interesting thing - The general thought is that the chinese government does not usually go out of it's way to actively deceive citizens, it just denies.
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
Not exactly "States Secrets" labeling, rather an "obsessive information control" about environmental issues.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/canadian-scientists-continue-muzzled-harper-government-234902614.html
Try getting any info about the tar sands and pollution in the province of Alberta, Canada. That is some of the dirtiest oil in the world to extract and the effects are very damaging to the ecosystem. But, if you listened to the government of Alberta or even the government of Canada, it is all fresh and flowery.
If the Tiananmen Square massacre didn't bother them I don't think some toxic waste will concern them either.
Right back at you though... tomorrow, in remedial English, you and the other kids will have a pop quiz. The answers will all be A, B, C, and D.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
It's just one village.
No, it isn't just one village.
If someone reports corruption in China, they go to jail for revealing state secrets. The 'People's Republic' my arse! It should be called 'The Ruling Elite's Republic of Oppression of the People of China'. That would be a far more accurate name than the patriotism they attempt to wrap their misdeeds in today.
China has the totalitarian control many in government and other positions of influence are looking for. Your reasonable expectation of truth and honor in your overlord's conduct hinders his ability to serve you properly. The bright, shining light in all this seems to be that the Chinese are going to the trouble to cover it up... this at least implies they care what their indentured populace thinks of them. I, for one, welcome the day when their malfeasance is their undoing.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Tiananmen Square is bothering them. If it did not, they would not be trying to keep it quiet.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
[from an academic paper I wrote in 2010]
During the 1990's, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization stated fish catches were increasing yearly. In 2001, two researchers revealed catches actually declined since the 80s. Chinese officials had overstated their national statistic, their operations of government subverted beneath operations of industry: the officials were promoted only if statistics reflected increased production. The Chinese officials had recorded "by-catch" (a term for unsalable fish) as productive (Clover; Cousteau, 149). As a direct result of their inventiveness, fishing was not done as if a scarcity were underway, which it was. Jacque Cousteau (page 94) explains the cause of overfishing between 1950 and 1985, "by including vast tonnages of 'trash fish', authorities camouflaged collapses of the major commercial fish stock." ...
Cousteau gasps that "such lapses by those who lead nations bewilder explorers who have led a team", and illuminates that the world catch statistics are misleading in another way: they did not reflect that the number of fishermen needed to catch each next year's harvest have had to grow significantly (between 1971-83, growing from 136,500 to 223,000 fishermen in America alone, aboard over 8,000 more vessels managing to catch statistically less fish than were caught in the 1950's), nor did they account for increasing technological prowess.
[/paper]
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
oops, sorry:
Clover, Charles. "The End of the Line." New York: The New Press. 2006. Print.
Cousteau, Jacques and Susan Schiefelbein. "The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus." New York: Bloomsbury. 2007. Print.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Where the instinctual drive in humans of "caring for others" is overwritten by some other neural plugin, downloadable on many places and then run as religious. illusion, political doctrine, corporate capialistic ideology and alike.
But a 2000 year old Jewish heretic argued for fixing your own shortcomings before condemning your neighbor's
Why do we have rules and punishments for breaking those rules, if the solution is as you indicate to completely fix our own problems first?
It's all about the luxury of trust, and of faith. If the governed trust the governors, then the governors will have the necessary freedom of action to pursue the right course, and not be constantly interrupted by whiney peasants who haven't the slightest idea of how hard it is to guide a nation into a new millennium of blessed prosperity.
Contrast this with democracy, where the voters are expected to use their best judgement based on the limited local information they have at hand, and then watch, aghast as their judgement is diluted by unthinking, uncaring, and downright traitorous elements who have different ideas.
come on,
it's obvious why the report was what it was. the guys who did it had skimmed through university by cheating and making up reports from made up facts.
so.. when they get to work, what do you expect of them? that they travel 20 hours in a stinky train to the site to do the study? no fucking way!
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I forget if we (the United States) are currently the number one or number two polluter in the world? Considering it's a close race between us and a country with... 3 or 4x our population??? Ehhh Not so good for the US when the history books get written, unless we just nuke all the other nations first so they can't contradict us. In fact, the US getting in anybody's business about pollution is about as comedically hypocritical as if, say, the nation that 1) Invented weapons of mass destruction, 2) Is the only nation to have ever deployed weapons of mass destruction and 3) Comes pretty damn close to having more weapons of mass destruction than the rest of the world combined - Were to, oh say, get up in the rest of the world's back yards because they chose to follow our example?? Oh Jesus - That'd be freaking hilarious! 8 ) Why would we ever focus on cleaning up our own back yard or, say "Leading by example" on any of the important issues of our time? That'd be boring : ( Let's just keep calling other people names - Much more fun! : )
They still state no one died there. That's why the US government loves them. They make the lying SOB's in Washington look like honest people.
About 1-2 years ago, I spoke about what my ex-gf had told me. And when I did, I had all sorts of ppl speaking about how I was wrong and that the UN and Europeans scientists would nullify what I wrote. Basically, my ex-gf and her team were allowed into China to do air-pollution measurements all over the nation. However, it was with the proviso that it would not be published, but would be reported to the Chinese gov. They were then allowed to run around from place to place relatively freely without telling the polluters that they were coming (they DID have a soldier with him, but he was not phoning ahead; his job was to keep them out of certain restricted areas where no outsiders are allowed). Sadly, when the UN and other groups go there to measure, they tell the gov. and the gov. shuts down their top polluting plants. In addition, they force all of their power plants that have pollution control to turn them on. Otherwise, all pollution control is turned off.
So, what did they find? Basically, that the CO2 and other pollution levels are MUCH higher than anybody could ever believe. In fact, not just CO2 but many other pollution levels are so far off the chart as to be terrifying. They make lake erie, chicago, detroit, and pitsburgh in the 70's to look positively alive and clean. Once OCO2 is up in space and doing accurate measurements, real CO2 numbers will be shown. The fact is, that China is already way over Europes average CO2 emissions on a per capita basis. And pretty close to what America is. So, what it amounts to, is that all of the work that West has done over the last 10 years to lower their emissions is a fraction of what the Chinese goes up YEARLY.
And the pollution is all over. Anybody that eats chinese food is absolutely crazy. While the group was not allowed to sample other pollutants such as Mercury and Lead, it was obvious that with all of the pollution control turned off on cement and coal plants that China emits many times the amount that the west has ever done.
Windbourne (moderating).
You're quoting American media and website to support your points, good luck finding similar information on China in Chinese media. If you even try to publish these stuff on Chinese media, you risk being sent to labor camps.
No matter how you try to drag the United States down to China's level, it just won't work, democracy is not at the same level at dictatorship, no matter how corrupt it is.
You have a chance to elect this Conservative government of yours out of office in the next election, no such chance for the Chinese.
Thanks. I'm sure I was just one of many Slashdot readers who was really interested in manually looking up those references. I mean, reading TFA may not be common on Slashdot, but we all enjoy a good trip to the library to sift through aisle after aisle of dead paper books. I'm on my way there now!