A Strategy For Reducing Air Pollution

As the exploration of the industrial development and increased speed of the urban sprawl in Beijing, many severe environmental issues attribute mainly to the anthropocentric activities have been come out of the scene. One of them is the air pollution. Air pollution has been regarded as the most severe environment issue in China since it has already threatened to physical health, especially for the respiratory tract and lung. “In January 2013, Beijing experienced historical heavy air pollution. In this particular month, very few days were observed with blue sky.” (Lijian Han et.al., 2015) According to the analysis of the driving factors, “the population grew fast, and energy consumption and the number of vehicles increased rapidly” (Ju Zhang et.al., 2010), these factors add together can make the air quality worse than any one of them separately can. Firstly, it has been an undoubted truth that more and more people originally lived in rural has been moved to core urban of Beijing since there are more opportunities in there. Therefore, the huge explosion of urban population with more energy release and more CO2 exhalation is seen as an inevitably primary factor causing the bad air quality. What’s more, as the population

Air pollution by definition, is the presence in or introduction into the air of a substance which has harmful or poisonous effects. Beijing is a major Chinese city that endures air pollution significantly. A study on the global burden of disease found that outdoor air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China each year (Chemical & Engineering News,2017). As China is the world's second largest economy behind the United States, it is most definitely under the influence of globalization. Globalization causes industrialization, a process that will inevitably create pollution.70% of air pollution in China is from the tailpipes of automobiles (Conserve Energy Future, 2017). Thus, the introduction of advanced transportation brought by globalization has adversely affected China's atmosphere.

According to the EPA pollution recommendations, when a city reaches an air quality index (AQI) of over 400, all people should avoid going outdoors. Beijing’s highest AQI is 895. This impacts the daily lives of Beijing citizens immensely. Air pollution has been related to increased cases of cancer, heart disease, stroke and other respiratory illnesses. It is also associated with asthma in children.

In the past decade, the severe air pollution problem in fast developing countries, particularly in China, has caused highly social and scientific attention. In 2014, 92 % of the world population are exposed over to the WHO Air Quality Guidelines (AQG) PM2.5 concentration level of 10 μg/m3 (World Health Organization, 2016). Ambient particulate matter (PM) pollution ranked as the third leading risk factor in India and Nepal, and ranked as the fifth in China (GBD 2015 Risk Factors Collaborators, 2016). In 2012, about 3 million deaths globally were attributed solely to ambient air pollution, and around 87% of it occurred in low- and middle-income countries (World Health Organization, 2016).

In the article, “The Filth They Breath in China,” author, Michael Auslin, discusses the health concerns that citizens in China are forced to face, and how the country put itself in that position. China positioned the importance of its economic success, above the health of its people. The air quality has reached a state where people are urged to stay inside in order to avoid the dense smog. Also, industries have dumped an immense amount of waste into water sources, causing them to be unsafe for public use. These extreme living conditions should catch the eye of those living in the United States, in order to prevent the same from happening to them.

In the article “Beijing to Raise Threshold on Red Alerts for Smog”, it’s very interesting to know that finally China is doing something about their air pollution problem. For years and years they haven’t done anything because China doesn’t have the same rules and regulation as the United States of America. China produces a lot of products for different countries so that’s a major source of pollution also and they don’t have any kind of regulations on the smoke coming from the factories, and the air quality is terrible their as well. In the United States the EPA has the authority to shut down factories and tell them they need to make changes because we take pollution seriously compared to China who just takes it lightly which isn’t a good thing.

Air pollution has been recognized as a major threat to environmental health, and the effects that it can have on the population are extremely varied. In the environmental aspects, air

The population growth in Beijing contributes to a big portion of its pollution. The population has risen from 11 million to 16 million in just 7 years, and has nearly doubled over the past century. Factories that utilize coal burning contribute to the smog currently present in Beijing. Many of these factories depend on outdated and inefficient technology which emits air pollutants. Beijing is a victim of its own topography since it's surrounded by mountains which traps pollution within the city. Air quality worsens in the spring and summer seasons when the humidity and temperature levels increase. Air pollution has been so drastic to the point that the city often engulfs in smog making it near zero visibility which in turn causing road

“Air Quality Guarantee Plan for the 29th Olympic Games in Beijing”. In this plan, similar control measures were extended to surrounding areas, including Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Shandong. In Tianjin and Hebei, this policy was compulsorily and strictly implemented. However, for Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Shandong, the plan was only implemented if air conditions became extremely serious. Wang et al. (2010b) found that in June 2008, the daily emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NOx), and particulate matter (PM10) in Beijing totaled 103.9, 428.5, and 362.7 tons, respectively. During the Olympic Games, the daily emissions of SO2, NOx, and PM10 in Beijing were reduced to 61.6, 229.1, and 164.3 tons, which were 41, 47, and 55% lower than the respective June 2008 emission levels.”

To begin with, the amount of inhabitants in Beijing causes pollution. As the capital of China, most every Chinese person dreams of living in Beijing, for this reason Beijing is full of people, and as they move in the air becomes worse. Beijing population is increasing every day and as people increase car use also increases. With nearly 20 million of people living in Beijing, this amounts to 5 million cars driving around every day. Even though the government tries to limit cars that drive in one day by the plate number of each car, but still these cars create abundant carbon dioxide. To make matters

The Economic boom from factories connection to air pollution is unconventional. The reason factories stay open is only for the monopoly it has over monetary distress. The economical perspective affects the health concerns beyond a doubt. Nearly 5-6 million people die every year due to an illness related to air pollution. The pollution is tremendously bad in China, which the people of China have to stay inside their homes with the windows shut at all times. China has faced their first “red alert” which has put a halt to usage of motor vehicles, and factories stopped operation. People all over the world are suffering from air pollution, some cases worse than others. Urbanization constantly grows each year which contributes to air pollution which has an immense impact on the

16 of the top 20 air polluted cities are located in China; this is due to rapid development in many what were rural areas of China. A massive 30% of china suffers from acid rain, also because air quality is so poor, 400,000 premature deaths from air polluted causes in 2003. Leaking water pipes contaminated drinking water, which caused illness throughout China; resulting in 70% rivers/lakes are polluted.

Many people today do not realise how driving a vehicle can affect people’s daily living. Currently in China, people are fighting for their lives because of the amount of emission that vehicles put out into the atmosphere. Whether individuals have efficient vehicles that do not harm or pollute the atmosphere or lack efficient vehicles, the quality of air is an issue that affects, not just China, but the entire world. The following articles will discuss what is better for China’s environment through different areas such as ethos, logos, and pathos. In the article “The Health Effects of Beijing’s Smog,” by Devon Haynie will discuss ways to help China through logos and pathos, but lacks ethos. While Jennifer Duggan, (2014), in the article “China to Scrap Millions of Cars to Ease Pollution,” will discuss different ways to prevent vehicle pollution using ethos, logos, and pathos.

A recent study found that an average 1.6 million people die every year in China because of the growing smog and manmade air pollution that clouds over the country. While global warming and reducing our carbon footprint has become an almost world wide effort, China has been one of the main countries associated with pollution especially air pollution or smog. A research team based out of California discovered that a majority of people in China are breathing unhealthy air because of the pollution mainly due to China's coal factories. The smog has also been related to diseases such as cancer which has killed tens of thousands of Chinese people. Even with the evidence and studies conducted, the Chinese

Through urbanization, the most common view is the establishment of factories. Most of these factories are located in heavy industrial areas of the cities. It is easy to hypotheses that air quality has become worse in Shanghai since it started urbanization in the 1980s. However, there is not a proportional