More Streaming Trash: The Rampant Industrialization of China – Environmental, Political and Human Consequences
- VBS travels to the single most polluted place on earth, the coal-mining town of Linfen in Shanxi Province, China, where kids play in dirty rivers and the sun sets early behind a thick curtain of smog. – vbs.tv
Used under license from Shutterstock.com
Linfen, China’s coal capital was named the most polluted city in the world by the Blacksmith Institute, an organization that focuses on identifying heavily polluted areas and providing help to the people who live in them. A city of over 4 million, Linfen is literally choked by smoke from coal fires and steel mills, many which operate illegally to reap the financial rewards offered by China’s huge industrial activity. Much of the local population suffers from respiratory conditions and other pollution-related health problems. It is quite clearly an environmental catastrophe and one of the worst examples of industrial and economic growth at the sacrifice of human and ecological concerns.
Click on the link above to watch the documentary produced by Australia’s ABC network originally aired on March 24, 2009 about how the recent economic downturn is affecting China’s poor migrants and farmers, and how Australia has been effected by both the industrial boom and looming bust. China’s government has officially promised its people to maintain an economic growth rate of 8%. A failure to do so could result in public unrest and even in another Tianamen Square-like incident. Such commitment to industrial growth does not bode well for environmental concerns.
By Graham Land
Additional resources:
Narrated photo essay on Linfen
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Tags: China, coal, environment, industrial, Linfen, Pollution
More Streaming Trash: The Rampant Industrialization of China – Environmental, Political and Human Co…
Linfen, China’s coal capital was named the most polluted city in the world by the Blacksmith Institute, an organization that focuses on identifying heavily polluted areas and providing help to the people who live in them…
More Streaming Trash: The Rampant Industrialization of China – Environmental, Political and Human Consequences | Greenfudge.org…
Linfen, China’s coal capital was named the most polluted city in the world by the Blacksmith Institute, an organization that focuses on identifying heavily polluted areas and providing help to the people who live in them…
More Streaming Trash: The Rampant Industrialization of China – Environmental, Political and Human Consequences | Greenfudge.org…
Linfen, China’s coal capital was named the most polluted city in the world by the Blacksmith Institute, an organization that focuses on identifying heavily polluted areas and providing help to the people who live in them…