Poverty and pollution

Posted by Mark on Dec 7, 08:56 PM

I had expected to be back on the wall by now. Unfortunately when I awoke yesterday morning the flu I’ve been battling had different ideas. Coughing up something that resembled a cross between jelly and a fur ball I quickly decided that I wasn’t going anywhere. I was bloody relieved to find that the mess I had coughed up didn’t sprout legs and start walking.

By 10am yesterday morning I was elated by my decision to stay in bed. A fierce wind that seemed to have originated from the North Pole blasted the area with such intensity that even the windows of my room were shuddering. In this type of weather even Santa and his reindeer go on strike. If I had been out there in my current state I’m sure that I would have added pneumonia as one of the obstacles that I’d have to overcome.

Luckily the room I’m in has a tv that picks up the English news channel so I’ve been spared the torment of watching back to back table tennis matches. One of the news features that regularly appears is China’s high level of poverty and pollution.

According to the news bulletin 300 million Chinese live without access to safe drinking water and 200 million Chinese live in poverty. I would say that these figures are probably on the conservative side.

Although the news bulletin appeared to recognise China as being the worlds leading producer of greenhouse gases, interestingly the reporter, UN and Greenpeace representative played this down by stating that in terms of a per capita basis China is significantly less destructive then other developed countries such as the US and Australia.

To my way of thinking, the idea behind a per capita analysis is that it places countries on an equal footing and enables comparison between countries with various populations. However this also assumes a degree of equality amongst a population since the assumption is that each person produces a certain amount of pollution to go about their daily lives.

Unfortunately, despite China’s booming economic status, many Chinese live in standards that could be described as third world. Whereas it may be legitimate to compare the per capita basis of greenhouse gas produced by developed countries – since these populations (broadly speaking) share the benefits of what causes this pollution in the first place i.e. homes with electricity, air conditioning, refrigeration and other conveniences such as motor vehicles for transport etc. This is not the case with China.

In effect, when China compares itself with other developed countries on a per capita basis, it is taking advantage of the unfortunate situation that many of its citizens are underprivileged to formulate a perception that it actually isn’t doing so bad compared to other leading economies when it comes to pollution.

Anyway… that’s probably a bit ‘heavy’ for my flu effected mind to deal with and do adequate justice to the serious problem the world faces in regards to pollution. Just wanted to share my thoughts of the moment.

I’m eager to see how I will feel tomorrow morning. At the moment I’m assessing my ‘wall walking’ ability on a daily basis. I’ll let you know how things pan out.