Re: Here's one for Josh Hill

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 07:49:35 -0700, Skipper
<skipspamless@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <bgbtc3dnn1v0o0blplest1qanjlkoa8a35@xxxxxxx>, boots
<no@xxxxx> wrote:


I have a client who built houses in Shanghai, and a friend who's made
movies there. I know what they tell me, particularly him about the
contrast in the impoverished countryside and the rapidly expanding
cities. And from her I hear about the pollution. I'm talking about the
clouds of pollution and the rivers of pollution, too - maybe you read a
few months back about the toxic spill in the river that went into
Russia and pissed off then Russians big time. If not maybe I could dig
it up. And now all the products in the news this month being recalled
because of heavy lead paint, etc.

The point is that, in their mad rush to make profits, they're different
than here. They can sacrifice a million people a year and it's kind of
a blip on their overall population. Meanwhile, I live in California and
read about Chinese air pollution coming across the Pacific and being in
our air. At the height of the industrial revolution here, I wonder if
you could see the pollution from space, or if it would travel an ocean
to toxify the air in other countries?

"Fifty years ago this month, a toxic mix of dense fog and sooty black
coal smoke killed thousands of Londoners in four days. It remains the
deadliest environmental episode in recorded history."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=873954

Not an 18th or 19th century example, but the Chinese are living in a
20th century economy with 20th-century population densities and, of
course, there are more than a billion of them -- four times our
population even today.

BTW, I believe that scientists have found evidence in sediment that
metal smelting in the ancient world lead to an elevation of lead
levels on a continental scale. Caveat: it's something I read a long
time ago, and I'm probably remembering the details wrong.

Things like that are why I say they're doing themselves in. I talk to
people who have large experience in the country, not just rely on what
I read.

They'll start to clean it up, as we did; right now they're still in
the "Let's get out of dire poverty" phase, and have more pressing
concerns. Not that we're doing very well, despite all our advantages:

"The Bush administration is set to issue a regulation on Friday that
would enshrine the coal mining practice of mountaintop removal. The
technique involves blasting off the tops of mountains and dumping the
rubble into valleys and streams."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/us/23coal.html

Sickos. Hardly a day goes by that they don't appall.

--
Josh

"Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is
good is not original, and the part that is original is not good."
-- Samuel Johnson
.

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