What is the biggest environmental problem in your country? What caused it? And how do you think the problem could be solved?

The week before 2008 China Olympic began, Beijing’s air pollution problem was all over the media; as a result, athletes from different countries started to worry if the air quality were going to affect their game performance. For instance, when the U.S. Olympic team landed in Beijing International Airport, some athletes were even wearing air-masks. For decades air pollution has been one of the biggest environmental issue for People Republic of China. And unless the country starts to take immediate action, sooner we will all feel the affect.

After China entered the World Trade Organization, China’s economy has been increasing dramatically. By providing cheaper human labor to the world market, it has attracted many businesses to produce its product in China. For example, Nike Corporation’s headquarter is located at East Huckaback, Spain. However, all of its shoes and cloth are produced from Guangzhou, China; as a result, more factories were built in the cities and along the river. After seven years China has became a powerful country. Its economic power was quoted by New York Times as “the most massive and rapid redistribution of the earth’s resources in human history.”

However, such position comes a price: one fourth of its country is in desert, three forth of its forest disappeared. Factory waste such as lead or sulfur dioxide hovers most cities. Toxic material such as sulfur dioxide caused acid rain, and it has already been damaging forests and watershed in Korea and Japan. Residence pours trash into the Yellow river and China Sea has caused fish to die-off. And according to a projection, the number of cars on Chinese road will grow from 2 million to 130 million in the next 20 years—that is 3 times more than the total vehicles in United States.
Trying to solve China’s air pollution issue is very difficult. China has 13 billion of people, and an average Chinese household uses about 10,000 kWh yearly. However, the government does have the resources and technology to switch to renewable energy. 75% of France’s electricity derives from its own nuclear energy. Moreover Since the country is communist, which meant the government has total control of the media—educate citizens about the importance of the natural environment and things they can do in everyday life such as: recycle, drive less, and use compact fluorescent light bulbs.

In conclusion, telling China to “go green” is an urgent and necessary task. Although it is very hard to draw a conclusion on how much impact the Chinese environment will affect its long-term economic growth, however, a generation from now, China’s industrial boom might be viewed in a different point-of-view. As the leading country—United States needs to be a role model for the rest of the world. After all, the U.S. is still responsible for a quarter of man-made greenhouse gas. And even today, China’s total production of carbon dioxide emission is still less than a fifth of America’s. Unless the world came together as one, protect natural habitat and restore ecosystem will never be done.