The latest news from Copenhagen concerns ocean acidification as a result of carbon dioxide absorption, with scientists warning of its effect on marine life, coral and fish, on which a billion people depend as their principal source of protein. Less carbon dioxide, then? “Only if the rich nations give us money,” African states say, and withdraw from further negotiations. Is saving the world really all about money?
“Fire dragons all over — Armageddon has arrived,” someone from the 12th century Song Dynasty, arriving in a time machine in 21st century China, might cry at the sight of his home shrouded in smoke and haze. How might he understand the poisoned water, soil and air?
Seeing the resurrected 3rd century BC terracotta warriors of Shaanxi Province wearing face masks to protect them from greenhouse and other toxic gases, he learns about Earth’s polluted environment, which has been dramatically documented by award-winning photographer Lu Guang (盧廣), whose work documents humankind’s deadly impact on the planet.
The lower Yangtze River, for example, and its delta region — like the Pearl River delta — have been polluted beyond remedy. Ma’anshan, the biggest industrial site in China’s Anhui Province, profiting from 70,000 steel mills and chemical plants, sends yet another flood of toxic cocktails into the air and the river. The Yangtze has become the world’s biggest and most hazardous sewer, where city and industrial waste, fine-tuned with the remainders of titanium processing, ammonium carbonate and methyl pyridine pesticide, accumulates over a stretch of 3,000km.
A large number of chemical industrial parks are concentrated in Jiangsu Province. One of the parks has more than 100 chemical plants at a single coastal site, their wastewaters discharging unregulated into the East China Sea.
There are smog-poisoned cities all over China. Just look at the Shizuishan industrial district in Ningxia Province, or further down the Yellow River around Wuhai in Inner Mongolia, where Soviet-style coal power plants cover nearby villages with thick black clouds. Our friend from the age when gunpowder was invented would demonize them as “black dragons” haunting the sensitive semi-arid land of steppes and scarce cultivation, as well as the agricultural land of Shanxi, Hebei and other areas where population and industries have become concentrated.
The noble task facing the world’s leadership would therefore be tackling the total sum of environmental sins, which do not end with China and do not disappear with time. How much is still remembered of the worst ever industrial atrocity that occurred in Bhopal, India? Under similar conditions, similar atrocities could happen again elsewhere at any time.
Union Carbide has probably shied away from this summit, but even after 15 years, the man-made human and environmental disaster of Bhopal cannot be forgotten. The chemical reaction that happened in 1984 in a neglected pesticide factory in the capital of Madhya Pradesh state released 40 tonnes of deadly methyl isocyanide and other toxins into the air, killing 25,000 people and leaving 500,000 physically and genetically hurt.
The UN summit in Denmark’s capital this month is the biggest environmental show ever seen, calling 15,000 delegates and 100 world leaders from 192 countries to the discussion table. But while the world is being suffocated by trash and toxic chemicals, the negotiators are discussing only certain specific pollutants, namely greenhouse gas emissions. Adamantly targeting greenhouse gases, the summit concentrates on new businesses in times of declining industries and economic strain. Rich countries hope to survive with new technologies and products, while poorer countries tend to preserve their traditional role as beggars, hanging on to outdated technologies passed down from developed nations.
The climate summit is limited to pursuing massively reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. But how can this target be met by means of a legally binding treaty between rich and poor countries if the model for environmental degradation has been set by the world’s leading nation and is being blindly copied by the world’s most populous nation?
Mankind has for years been adversely influencing the climate and weather. In 1950, there were an estimated 53 million cars, a number that is expected to exceed 1 billion next year.
On the other hand, the climate has always been changing in long-term cycles, which have created and terminated several ice ages for hundreds of millions of years. Thus, we may be headed for warmer or colder times. Nonetheless, short-term observations have shown that, under the influence of greenhouse gases, global temperatures are unlikely to rise by less than 2°C within the next 10 years. The US therefore wants to cut emissions by 17 percent, while the EU proposes cuts of between 20 and 25 percent. China would require reductions of 40 to 45 percent. How can change be brought about while new technologies and businesses — including renewable energy sources such as wind, water, photovoltaic, solar, thermal and geothermal power and biofuels — have all been proved to be immature, uneconomic or even detrimental and unethical?
As probably none of the world leaders has arrived in Copenhagen without one of the “fire dragons” that fuel global climate change, we might remain unconvinced that they are serious about combating rising greenhouse gas emissions.
Present global problems need to be seen in a broader frame. Not only should deforestation be banned worldwide, but also the comprehensive, wanton destruction of our environment. Can this be stopped by treaties that are feared might affect “economic growth” in the very nations that are probably doing the most harm to our planet, or by a new world leadership?
Engelbert Altenburger is an associate professor at I-Shou University in Kaohsiung.
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