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China Shuts Down Tens Of Thousands Of Factories In Widespread Pollution Crackdown (msn.com)
Buildings in China are shrouded in smog. From a report: China has implemented an unprecedented pollution crackdown in recent months as the country shuts down tens of thousands of factories. The effort is part of a national effort to address China's infamous pollution and has affected wide swaths of China's manufacturing sector. In total, it is estimated that 40 percent of all China's factories have been shut down at some point in order to be inspected by environmental bureau officials. As a result of these inspections over 80,000 factories have been hit with fines and criminal offenses as a result of their emissions. Safety officials have been moving from province to province (30 in total so far) shutting down factories as well as electricity and gas as they inspect the factories for meeting emissions requirements. This has resulted in late and missed orders, increased costs, and could ultimately result in higher prices on US shelves.
Who knew that cleanliness was a resource and you could use it up and run out?
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
sooner or later this had to happen...
40 percent of all China's factories have been shut down at some point in order to be inspected by environmental bureau officials.
Wouldn't you want to inspect them before you shut them down? I mean how bad can the emissions of a shut-down factory be?
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
This happened to me. Anyone have a $50,000 a year job in IT in Beijing?
They really aren't.
https://www.google.com/search?...
You look at those pictures and think that it's amazing it was that bad, one day. It wasn't. It is that bad nearly all the time. It is a hellscape and it is killing them by the millions.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com...
But they have acknowledged there is a problem and that steps need to be taken.
Once they pay their "fines" they can go back to polluting. Unless they complain and a firing squad is needed. Happened before, will happen again. I have stories from the eighties of execs being executed for "bad business practices and polluting". Didn't stop then, will not stop now.
Seriously, the author is worried about spending a tiny bit more at Walmart because school kids in China now get cleaner air?
The chinese overlords have started to figure out that they a pissing in their own cereals.
Putting America First, means being last globally.
China putting these investments in may cause higher prices for their goods in the short term. However showing environmental consciousness could pay off in the long run. With Many EU countries also getting concerned about the environmental impact of its whole supply chain, China may be a better choice. Causing America to Sadly be left behind, having to change only after it is too late, and would be difficult to gain a food hold in the market they have loss.
The US economy needs more customers not lower costs to grow. Having Trump in the office only means other leaders will be able to be the grownup in the room and push their agenda.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You can have cheap products, be the industrial center of the world, or have clean air. Pick any two.
It will be interesting to see how serious they are about this.
ZOMG, higher prices!
And we still are arguing over whether corporate taxes have nay impact on prices.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
In capitalist america they suffocate you with exhaust on every corner and you are paying for it.
what excuses America will take to now, to get to point fingers at the Chinese and pollution.
Trump 2020!
The funny thing about China is that when they want to solve the right problem they can do so effectively. I was in Tianjin during National Day Golden Week when much of China was shut down and the sky was nearly perfect and it seemed everyone was outside enjoying the week. If they solve this problem like their mass transit problems they'll be fine (granted, the taxis will probably have to be electric at some point). Their leaders have to breathe the same air (usually), so I'm amazed this wasn't done years ago.
Until the current fad passes and America is still able to produce.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Is this why Dell keeps delaying my order?
I really respected the Chinese policy of not bending over for bullshit environmentalist ideals. Sad day. Trump will fix this though.
Colloquially and rhetorically, what sort of father gives his son a computer that is locked in software by such things as licenses, be they GPL or otherwise, and does not have nor come with free FULL hardware documentation! No wonder the planet is becoming polluted with computers, while the big computer companies whom use the assimilate small companies mantra, scream to the political left wing "what about the small businesses?" to keep the Royalty etcetera amused.
Strategy (that has worked flawlessly so far)
1. Offer goods at a fraction of real cost. (use slave labour, etc as needed)
2. Ensure all competition (factories outside of China) go out of business.
3. Slowly raise prices and therefore profits.
4. Expand stranglehold to manufacturing equipment and anything to do with manufacturing or production of anything and everything.
5. Raise prices, by masquerading "shortages", "cleanup", "regulation"., etc. Profit massively, dominate the planet.
With all of the rumors related to issues sourcing the parts necessary for Apple's forthcoming iPhone X and the anticipated short supply at launch, this causes me to wonder: where does Apple assemble their iDevices, again?
(Spoiler... it's predominantly Foxconn, in China.)
The thing is, those who have little knowledge of how China works fail to understand how patronage has allowed very inefficient factories to continue to exist.
Starting with the replacement of old WW I style mills and power systems based on coal, China has literally either forced them to be replaced with cogeneration coal plants that capture excess heat, allowing an old style to produce twice the power output with the same raw inputs. They closed down those which could not be retrofitted.
Now they are doing the same with many of the factories. New factory designs are far more efficient, and cheaper to operate, allowing far fewer raw inputs to produce valuable goods, and requiring far less power.
Which makes them more competitive, dropping prices, not raising them.
This is part of why the Western US, with high investment in renewable power and modern fabrication techniques, outcompetes the old style factories in other regions.
Does it cost? For a 2-5 year cycle, sure. But it drops your operating expenses and maintenance, and it lets you outcompete the fossil factories kept up with wire and tape.
Stop focusing on the short term quarterly results, and look to the operational cradle-to-grave results. Adapt or die.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Los Angeles used to be like this... then we had the Clean Air Act and cleaned it up. (Of course, now Trump is dismantling the Clean Air Act so we'll be like China soon).
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
China's main political push right now is preventing societal instability... the government is doing so with quite a heavy hand when it comes to politics with severe harassment of journalists, lawyers, and activists. One thing that has been a major source of unrest in the past is riots due to insufferable environmental conditions, so this would logically fit on the list of things to do towards quelling unrest. So it's part of a mixed bag from a moral perspective.
Despite a better commitment to renewables than the U.S has, China is playing catch-up and has a long way to close the gap in environmental protections... but hey, since we are currently backsliding at the federal level that makes catching up easier for them at least, I guess...
Someone had to do it.
... produce imbeciles, sand monkeys, and n1ggers - yes.
Who will make my knock-off Sponge Bob keychain that I sell on Teh Internets for a 20X markup?
It's so we can bring the US back to a state where the pollution will be so bad that we'll be forced to band together and clean it up so we can say, "We got the bestest environment, better than China!"
When you have absolute dictatorial power you can accomplish many things. At a price.
China's main political push right now is preventing societal instability...
In contrast to the US, where identity politics are the norm and people are constantly barraged with how someone is keeping someone else down. China prospers while the US courts a second civil war.
Labor costs in China are rising so they are moving polluting production to low cost countries like Nigeria and Ethiopia.
Although I visited China frequently, I'm still just a tourist, so I've had no negative contacts with anyone and I've felt more at home there than many places in America. Like any American, I hope that the good parts of our culture will eventually bleed over into their equivalent Chinese realities. It's also possible that the collective weight of more than a billion people communicating with each other and the rest of the world created a new reality already and hopefully that progress will continue to evolve China at a pace that doesn't produce panic and bloodshed. China almost becomes a new country every ten years - hopefully they never go backwards. Also, I'm puzzled by the moral perspective comment. Cleaner air is cleaner air. The reason why it's cleaner won't matter to the people that can breathe again - as long as the path to cleaning the air is taken.
Great. Now where will all the cheap Christmas junk come from? Automakers are salivating over the Chinese market, their consumer economy is booming and western companies are eager to get a piece of the action.
The funny thing about China is that when they want to solve the right problem they can do so effectively.
I've been reading elsewhere from people in China that the part that is really different now and shows their seriousness is turning off the gas and electricity. This prevents them hiding violations in places that are normally unsafe to inspect.
That would be basically impossible for western governments to achieve just for routine inspections.
Causing America to Sadly be left behind, having to change only after it is too late
You are fucking delusional. In China pollution is real and it is everywhere and obvious.
In America it is rare and almost unseen.
But go ahead, stick to your delusional agenda.
Yeah, some people might get the idea that China is doing more than we are because of this. The thing is, the USA doesn't need to "shut down factories" because the EPA has been a thing since the 1970s and *most* of the regulations are followed. It's less dramatic, but it's more effective.
I'm near the recent NorCal fires, and for just a few days we had air quality similar to Beijing. It's unfathomable to me that people live like that for a significant fraction of an entire year.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
(Of course, now Trump is dismantling the Clean Air Act so we'll be like China soon).
Right -- rolling back rules that have been in place for about 2 years is going to take us back to the air quality of the 50s.
If you weren't just tossing around baseless partisan rhetoric, I'd be really curious to hear the details of how you genuinely believe that's going to happen.
Try 1963 and 1970... a little more than 2 years.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
> When you have absolute dictatorial power you can accomplish many things. At a price.
And when you have two parties forever dominating elections, you don't need to accomplish anything -- you can even dismantle what the previous government has accomplished.
And, of course, charge a much steeper price for it...
Los Angeles used to be like this... then we had the Clean Air Act and cleaned it up. (Of course, now Trump is dismantling the Clean Air Act so we'll be like China soon).
I grew up in LA in the 70's. It was really bad. It was never like this.
And while Trump is doing his best to make things horrible, California remembers and won't roll back their own requirements.
Try 1963 and 1970... a little more than 2 years.
Please. Here's the actual text from the executive order:
Sec. 3. Rescission of Certain Energy and Climate-Related Presidential and Regulatory Actions. (a) The following Presidential actions are hereby revoked:
(i) Executive Order 13653 of November 1, 2013 (Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change);
(ii) The Presidential Memorandum of June 25, 2013 (Power Sector Carbon Pollution Standards);
(iii) The Presidential Memorandum of November 3, 2015 (Mitigating Impacts on Natural Resources from Development and Encouraging Related Private Investment); and
(iv) The Presidential Memorandum of September 21, 2016 (Climate Change and National Security).
Your turn if you have an actual source that actually says stuff from 1963 and 1970 is going away.
"recent months" = ~ 6
"tens of thousands" = ~ 20,000
=> ~ 100 / day
Uh huh. I don't think so.
If any factory was shut down a second longer than it took to make a "donation" to the right cause I'd be surprised.
If you think it will stop there, you are very naive.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
So let's take stock: the trollish comment braying ridiculous partisan talking points is modded insightful; the comment asking for the basis of the first comment is modded troll.
The lunatics are officially running the Slashdot asylum.
In other words, there was no basis for your original post other than you meeting Chicken Little for drinks tonight. Hardly a surprise.
Our democratic traditions are to be cherished and protected, not denigrated. China is a shit hole compared to the US.
I'll bet half of those factories are shut down simply because they compete with some princeling or are not owned by the right people. Factories that are owned by the powerful can get away with anything. Remember that China recently specifically derided the rule of law.
Have a look at Document Number 9.
LA, at its worst, was an order of magnitude better. Largely because of climate.
The EPA can revoke all it's rules, fire everyone, and close it's doors forever and I don't expect air to get as bad as China. That's because each state has it's own laws on air quality. If you think that the states have to allow China levels of pollution because Trump, or some future POTUS, says they have to then let's talk about just how far federal law can go. There's 30 states giving the federal government the middle finger on marijuana laws. Sanctuary city/state laws and rules means the federal government can't enforce immigration law effectively. States will tell the federal government to fuck off if it means allowing air pollution being released uncontrolled.
The Chinese government is controlling their pollution because they are now running a risk of outright public revolt. This has gone on for far too long and much worse than people are willing to tolerate. Things got this bad because people in China didn't have much choice but more people have enough spare time and money now, due to a better economy, that they are comfortable enough to stand up to the government now. People have better access to information, even with the Great Firewall of China keeping a lot of things quiet. We're seeing a near repeat of what brought down the Berlin Wall, and the Iron Curtain it represented.
I was watching some news report on the air pollution and safety violations at an American mine, a coal mine I think. The workers being interviewed complained about being "forced" to violate procedures and falsify documents. I bought the big evil corporation gimmick until I realized that these people weren't "forced" to do anything. They could quit. They could call an enforcement agency. But being the largest employer around everyone played along because the first person to speak up would be an outcast for shutting down the mine and putting people out of work. This went on until it got so bad that people died and the enforcement came in to look around. No one could deny the problem now. China is merely seeing this same thing on a national scale now. People played along because speaking up meant getting singled out by the community and/or government for rocking the boat.
Isolated cases can still happen in America, just as I saw on that news report. China is not likely to fix everything with the pollution but it's no longer as taboo as it was to bring it up. There is an expectation now of clean air in China, and also expect this to be a sign of things to come.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
What those breathless stories about fast Chinese deployment of small renewables are missing is that any factory-built tech can be placed in service faster than site-built technologies. But then compare the feeble capacity factor of those fast-built windfields with, say, Three Gorges Dam.
china also greatly benefits from rare earths, lithium etc becoming the new oil.
The actual pollution is invisible!
That doesn’t mean it isn't bad. But it means that this is NOT the pollution!
It is simply morning fog and similar situations! Anyone who has actually been there, knows that!
I always see these pictures spread for propaganda reasons. I could make pictures, precisely like that, of any big US city where there is fog sometimes too!
How can one be so fucking moronic and fall for that shit? It’s like religion or TrumpHillary... People seeing what they (are made to) *want* to be true.
And yes, I do not agree with Chinese policies or how companies there treat their workers at all. Because is a centrally planned extreme capitalism. Ever more centrally planned than the US one.
... overpopulation, leading to famines, resource fights, and psychopathic anonymity due to even the smallest communities being way above Dunbar's number.
Yeah, the one child policy was cruel. I would have gone for “Use some fucking contraception, or be expelled from the country, so you can live in your own overpopulated shithole country with blackjack and hookers and not enough food so you'll starve! I won't limit your freedom. But I will not let you limit mine in my own country!”.
But do you really believe people would actually obey that? A species that is the result of billions of years of winning at natural selection by sucking up resources and pumping out children? lol, yeah, right!
How the fuck does a citation make anything any more true??
A logical argument does not care who said it! If Hitler himself said it, that would change nothing!
What matters, is that the statement is *logically* perfect, and based only on statistically reliable paradigms/axioms that one has *verified* or can verify oneself!
That can and SHOULD be done right in the comment. Wikipedia has this exactly the wrong way around, with forbidding original research. And given how obfuscated references are, and how the Wikipedia admins generally behave, not just according to my own observation, I hypothesize that this is *deliberate*.
Maybe they can move the factories to the USA. The coal industry and Mr. Trump will rejoice.
...you don't have 80,000 factories to inspect/shutdown in the first place ;-)
This means here (Pacific Northwest) an upheaval in the the recycling of of solid waste (plastics especially). It's into the landfill for awhile (I hope just for a while). Some think this maybe a permanent thing others think it is a temporary interruption.
How many of the US identity politics movements are bankrolled by the Chinese state? Supposedly we finance Falun Gong for the same reason - social destabilization of our geopolitical rival.
Also, I'm puzzled by the moral perspective comment
I meant the good of environmental protection is in the same bag as the rest of the heavy handed policies. Also, though the end result on the environment is good, the means do matter, and in the past some environmental reforms have included death penalties and probably (not knowing of an example) corruption-tainted company takeovers.
Someone had to do it.
Here's a few more instances:
The chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, has been linked to kidney
cancer, birth defects, immune system disorders and other serious health problems.
So scientists and administrators in the E.P.A.’s Office of Water were alarmed in
late May when a top Trump administration appointee insisted upon the rewriting of
a rule to make it harder to track the health consequences of the chemical, and
therefore regulate it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/1...
In the weeks before the Environmental Protection Agency
decided to reject its own scientists’ advice to ban a potentially harmful pesticide,
Scott Pruitt, the agency’s head, promised farming industry executives who wanted to
keep using the pesticide that it is “a new day, and a new future,” and that he was
listening to their pleas.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...
How many more instances until we call this a trend?
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Survival is its own morality. My son has asthma and Beijing's air might have killed him as a child. The quick math of how many people are damaged or dying compared to the number of elites violating air quality standards makes applying penalties - especially for egregious cases - easy. What's going on in Beijing on a bad day goes beyond pollution - it is willful murder and the government should respond accordingly. The owners are probably part of the CCP, so ... they've already had plenty of experience with how the government is run and they should have known better. Most are probably well-off and can flee the country if they know they're going to be targeted.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/1...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...
How many more instances until we call this a trend?
The Gray Lady issuing anti-Trump screeds isn't a "trend" -- it's a way of life.
This advertisement brought to you by Fukushima brand radioactive fish.
We have hardly any factories left to shut down if we wanted to. It's easy to have cleaner air when your heaviest industry is telemarketing.
As would all the working class people who would man the factory. And that's why you hate that idea. Indeed, that's why you hate Trump - because you hate working people.
https://www.scientificamerican...
Here's another act to pollute the air and cost consumers $10.3 billion a year.
See a pattern yet?
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
See a pattern yet?
Yes, yes I do. I see a pattern of you making histrionic allegations that (a) our air quality is going to become like China's, because (b) Trump is "dismantling" the 1963 and 1970 Clean Air acts, and then when asked for the basis of those allegations providing a spray of random links that don't even pretend to support your claims.
I see one of two choices: either critical thinking is tough for you and so you honestly don't understand how citing an article about cost recovery for coal and nuclear plants needn't have anything at all to do with subverting the Clean Air Act, or you fully realize you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar and are flailing around trying to save face and ignoring the fact that makes you look even sillier. My gut says the latter, but I've been wrong before.
Which part of "forcing people to pay $10 billion a year to burn more polluting coal don't you understand?"
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Which part of "forcing people to pay $10 billion a year to burn more polluting coal don't you understand?"
Pro tip: when using quotation marks, it's usually considered sporting to put them around the actual words you're quoting. The most charitable way to characterize your rewrite of your original statement would be a paraphrase. Using quotation marks around a paraphrase is misleading at best.
Moving past that, I'll patiently repeat, one more time, that your article says nothing about rolling back anything in the 1963 and/or 1970 Clean Air Acts (or, as you put it, "dismantling" them). In fact, other than a touch-feely and utterly unmeasurable statement at the outset, the article says nothing about air quality at all and focuses its angst on the unfairness of what it considers to be subsidies for coal and nuclear.
Ergo, your initial rhetorical statement that I questioned (i.e., "Trump is dismantling the Clean Air Act so we'll be like China soon") continues to be, as was clear from the start, absolutely baseless.
And with that, I'm done putting the rattle back on the high chair on this topic. Have as tin-foil-free of a weekend as you can manage.
So, what makes you think Trump doesn't want to dismantle the Clean Air Act?
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
A few more references for you to try to explain away... (It helps if you wave your arms)
https://thinkprogress.org/trum...
https://thinkprogress.org/comm...
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Myth. China recently reached *parity* with US manufacturing.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Obvious bullshit. Sorry.
Also, if you believe that, you'll also believe the sky is plaid and water is dry.
Edit Wikipedia then and see how long it lasts then. The article says China surpassed the US in 2010, which to me is "fairly recent" when we're on the scale of nations and their manufacturing capability. Other sources claim that US manufacturing *cost* is now equal to China's, probably due to us being more productive and other economic factors. Even if we're a solid no. 2 as opposed to no 1 these days, the "nothing is made here any more" meme really is mostly myth. Sure, iPhones, blah, blah; but that's not the only good that's manufactured.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Is Wikipedia your source of "truth"? Even when the assertion contradicts what is obvious to everyone?
You really don't want to give this up, do you? Just to play devil's advocate, I think the myth stems from the fact that consumers are more likely to be exposed directly to Chinese goods. ie, if manufacturing is only "small appliances sold at Wal Mart" then you're right; but that's not all manufacturing. Manufacturing encompasses a much broader sector--things such as oil rigs, specialized heavy machinery, and defense related items to which the consumer is not exposed. On a dollar basis though, the most expensive manufactured item I have is my car, and it was made in the USA even though the company is Japanese. It's easily 10X the value of the manufactured goods inside my house--but all you see when you turn over a coffee-maker or look behind a TV at Target is "Made in China", so the myth persists.
BTW, how well curated is *your* source? You haven't even offered one.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Language is the beginning and the end of political thought.
My source is not *curated* at all. It is lived experience, what I see with my own eyes.
"Quick get out, the building is on fire!"
"I'm not worried. The fire alarm is not ringing."
"Dude, look at the flames and smoke - the room we're in is burning!"
"But the fire alarm isn't ringing."