China's Environmental Pollution

Choking on growth; reaction paper

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Choking on growth; reaction paper

‘Choking on growth’ part one is a series of articles by New York Times examining the impacts of growth, urbanization and industrialization on the pollution and the overall health of china. The article being reviewed is a special series of articles on the effects of industrialization and urbanization in china. The main topic is, “As China roars, pollution reaches deadly extremes” (Joseph and Jim, 2007). This article was compiled and written by two authors of New York Times by the names Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley and published on August 26, 2007.

According to these two authors, no country in history has risen to significant industrial power without an equal environmental damage and pollution due to industrialization and urbanization. China is the fastest growing economy on earth as it ranks second worldwide in industrial output with major industries being mining, manufacturing, construction, and energy (Joseph and Jim, 2007). With such enormous rapid growth in industrialization, the people of china are well familiarized to industrialization related issues such as: -

* Industrial pollution

* degradation of environmental quality

* depletion of marine life and water quality

* ozone layer depletion which is the source of skin cancer as a result of penetration of ultra violet rays

* lead poisoning in industrial cities

* respiratory cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases

The two authors continue to argue that China is choking on its success. Environmental degradation is now so severe that with such continued state, the pollution will pose a long-term burden on the Chinese public with political challenges to the ruling communist party (Joseph and Jim, 2007). They continue to argue that the environmental degradation repercussions have made cancer china’s leading cause of death as china’s ministry of health says. It is caused by toxic...