Abstract
Global warming and climate fluctuations that occur due to air and water pollution are well known and frequently discussed issues. Their consequences are followed and studied all around the world. One of the countries that took its time to start paying attention to the ecological problems is China.
Yet, in 2013 the Chinese government faced the need to address the country’s ecology due to serious climate changes that affected the country’s society and slowed down its economy. Now China’s economy is threatened by its ecology, so the country might lose its status of the world’s number one distributor of goods.
In the world of nowadays weather patterns are discussed in reference to global climatic conditions. The changes of weather in the world are carefully observed and analyzed by thousands of experts. This is done because the change of climatic patterns can be highly dangerous, so when it happens unpredictably people’s lives become endangered.
Moreover, according to the latest research the countries that did not care to keep an eye on their weather and climate are now facing a lot of trouble due to such phenomena as greenhouse effect, smog and water pollution. China is one of such countries.
Fluctuating climatic conditions that massively occurred in China in winter of 2013 have a future tendency to create significantly negative impacts on the development of the country’s economy that is based on severely ecologically unfriendly manufacturing processes and materials. The difficulties inflicted by the fluctuating climatic conditions in China enforced issues with transportation, human resources and maintenance of the standard manufacturing and trading practices.
Background Section
Fluctuations of climatic conditions have been observed in China for a while, yet in 2013 their impact became quite serious so the Chinese Government had to work out ways of addressing them. Air and water pollution that happened due to the rapid industrialization in the country created massive fogs and haze phenomena in the North of China. As a result, the transportations slowed down significantly.
Fog and haze affected both motor vehicles and air transportation modes, which made the country unable to export its goods and also import raw materials for the manufacturers. Due to the delay of export sales, the country’s income also dropped. Since China is known as one of the world’s major international traders, it is obvious that the whole system supporting the Chinese economy immediately occurred under a serious threat due to the weather conditions.
Literature Review
Batty (2010) noticed that significant changes in weather conditions and climate started to happen decades ago all around the world. Many countries reacted quickly and immediately enforced eco-friendly programs and policies reducing the waste disposed to the environment, bringing social awareness about the issue of global warming and introducing the citizens to new ways of living and consumption.
In order to constantly monitor the changes of climatic conditions the meteorologists of the world had to keep an eye on pH levels of soil, chemical composition of air and bodies of water, and the amounts of pollution created by industries (Batty 2010).
Original Argument
China is known for its rapid developing economy and incredibly high rates of production and distribution of goods of all kinds. The markets of every single country in the world are flooded with goods from China that are rather cheap and have low quality.
This occurs because the Chinese manufacturers exploit unqualified labor and cheap raw materials that are in most cases very toxic and harmful. Logically, manufacturing processes that involve toxic materials tend to produce large amount of toxic wastes and emissions and pollute the environment badly.
Even though the pollution caused by industrialization in China has been going on for at least thirty years, the Chinese government ignored it. In 2013 the consequences burst out. Today, the leaders of China try to address the problem by spending a lot of money on meteorological centers that predict the occurrence of fog and haze, yet in reality, fighting the consequences does not help to reduce the issue. The root of this problem is China’s highly toxic manufacturing processes.
To make them less harmful the country would have to hire qualified workers and start using eco-friendly raw materials, which would not only slow down the manufacturing processes but also make them much more expensive. This is likely to disrupt the whole economical system of China based on distribution of enormous amounts or very cheap products very fast. In order to address their climatic fluctuations China would have to alter its industries and lose the advantage of the world’s number one distributor.
Conclusion
China today seems to be stuck in a vicious circle of its self-inflicted problems. Supporting old manufacturing and trading habits seems to be impossible due to the weather conditions. A major change in the country’s economy and production might enforce a number of social changes of such aspects as migrations, levels of education required to get a job, employment policies, health care, trades and international relations.
Reference
Batty, L. (2010). Ecology of industrial pollution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.