Chenyu, I agree with every point you make here. Every culture goes through periods when growth is faster than ecological advancements. But I have seen such massive changes in the standard of living for the Chinese over the past thirty years, I think you are really ultimately headed in the right direction. When you compare the industrial revolution of America with the revolution that you are experiencing right now, you can see that it is very similar to ours.

Sanitation will become a national concern when citizens appeal to the government to do something about it and when those citizens become aware that there is no quick fix for the problem. It won't change just because the government builds some sewage treatment plants. The people need to realize that these kinds of institutions will cost money and that will mean taxes on all the citizens. Taxes are forever, but they make life better for everyone.

Pollution is a big problem in many countries. And it hasn't been eliminated in America either. But we do have many organizations here that originally operated on a non-profit basis to help eliminate the many sources of pollution. For many years the solid wastes in America were voluntarily taken by individuals to collection points. People(concerned individuals) set up these collection points, first using their own money and then later continued to operate them by obtaining government grants. Eventually, as recycling became a new wave and people began to realize the value of it, those organizations didn't have to be non-profit any longer. Instead they became an industry in their own right, and the profits from recycling now are quite good.

Most of the trash collection companies offer recycling services as well as refuse pickup. There is an extra charge for picking up of recycling items that is added to everyone's monthly garbage bill, and then the trash companies sell the recyclable materials to other companies that use the raw materials to manufacture new goods.

Typical items to recycle are the plastic bags and other forms of plastics. All plastics in America are marked with a number that indicates the grade of the plastic. That grade is used to determine what other items the plastic may be used to manufacture. Aluminum, glass, styrofoam, and paper are other items that the trash companies will pick up.

Also currently gaining in popularity in America are thrift stores that accept donations of used items of household goods of every description, and personal items including clothing, shoes, furniture and knick-knacks. Childrens clothing is especially popular since prices are so high for new items and kids grow through clothes and shoes so quickly. When I want to make quilts to donate to the local police stations for their victims assistance programs, I prefer to find the fabrics at the thrift stores. Instead of $5 per yard I usually pay 25-30 cents per yard.

Air quality can be very bad at certain times of the year, but like everyting else, our vehicles are taxed to support the pollution controls that are mandated by congress to built into every new vehicle. The emissions controls cost extra, the vehicle inspections cost extra, and the safety features on vehicles cost extra. Everyone who buys a new vehicle pays for more than just a ride to work. We pay for clean air and protection in case of accidents.

China has it's problems, but it's people like you who love your country and want to make it better who will be the instigaters of changes. China has a wonderful and ancient culture that can only be preserved through caring changes that come from the inside, from the people who understand how your country and your countrymen think and feel.

Lastly, you say that China needs help, and with that point I agree wholeheartedly. The Chinese people are brilliant, thoughtful, sensitive people. You've lived through some very hard times over the past 100 years, but all that considered, the Chinese have done extremly well and come out of it smelling like a rose. The only changes to China that could ever be acceptable to the Chinese would be the ones that the Chinese make for themselves. You hold the key in your hand, Chenyu.

Your Friend, Cheryl

Unfortunately, our planet cannot conceivably, possibly, even remotely support the reckless rampaging greed-strewn path to fat self-assured comfort taken by the West for the billions of humans in the East and South.

Two wrongs do not make a right, and even if they did, the crucible will still break. China right now is the severe test-dish; I think the break-down of human enterprise will begin there and spread out around the world as fossil fuel declines and vicious wars over its control increase.

Chenyu, the future could be bleak for all of us and it is probably bleakest where you are. The only thing we can do here to help is to try not to contribute to the madness. We can not buy - for example - the cheap products made in your country, the making of which is destroying your environment. We can use our own excrement to grow food. We can drive less, earn less money and generally contribute less to a mad economy.

A worst problem in China is water, Water tables are 200 ft lower now, than they were in the 80's, What going to happen
when they run out of clean water for food production.

I had hoped that China would continue to perfect and develop the railroad system, and avoid the private automobile, as a means of standard and accepted transportation. Passenger trains pollute less, and they take up much less space than the roads and parking lots needed to accomodate cars. We can agree that the private automobile is more flexible and more convenient to the user than the local train. We are having great difficulty maintaining the bare-bones AMTRAK system here in the USA, so it is no surprise that the Chinese prefer to adopt the private car. Who can blame them?

Yeah, it's kinda silly, us wanting THEM to be more ecologically sound.... course it's easier to sit back and want THEM to do stuff that we won't. California has had a bullet train on the drawing board for YEARS... but SOMETHING keeps stopping it... wonder what that is?

Who are we to tell anyone to develop energy efficient transportation when we allow energy pigs to drive Hummers down to the 7-11 for a quart of milk?

The most deliberately wasteful people on this planet are accountants and dentists and soccer moms driving these trucks. Until this nation does something about removing these repugnant vehicles from the possession of people with more money than brains and sorely lacking in personal ethics, then we have no moral right to ask others to do what we ourselves refuse to.

Wayne

Guilt and moral rights and askings don't really have any affect on the realities of numbers and destruction, do they? We certainly are wasteful pigs over here (and even the least wasteful of us could be a lot more parsimonious), but regardless of what we do, Asia is going to consume the lion's share soon, and also be doing most of the wasting.

Whether 'we' have the moral right to tell them anything, they aren't going to listen. This massive added burden will break the system.

There is nothing 'we' can do stop others. The only thing I can do is alter my own behaviour.

china as on poster noted is will not have worry about energy shortages or oil shortage soon. They will have worry about another major resource water. I energy can be derived from many sources to run a country wasteful or not but lack drinking water and food are what kills civilzation.
china is at the beginning of what could turn out to a new famine cycle which is one of the reasons several of the old dynesties fell. china has 1.2 million or more people.

Polution will decrease the same way it happened west through public outrage and new tech other wise china will learn a leason the usa and many places in west did not have learn how bad pollution can really get.

"china has 1.2 million or more "

...obviously you mean "billion", in the American sense

When we get to numbers that high I think it is easier to understand/comprehend by refering to millions as a boatload and billions as a big mother honking boatload.

Who can imagine a million of anything let alone billions? It is simply a big mother honking boatload of people in China.

I've been following your economic development though the Wall Street Journal: picking through themes there.... acknowledge your desire to raise the standard of living in various provinces (particularly in the north), but I am rather concerned how our U.S. system is translated both figuratively and literally in your country (ie the lack of scrubbers on your coal fired energy plants)... to the degree that your country pushes the envelope.... for I think we haven't been very good about our risk assessments of late...(my view ,anyway.....based upon what we are learning....) and the cascading effects transcribed into global policies