Wow! Thomas Friedman Discovers That China Has Air Pollution Problems!

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The NASA Earth Observatory declared that some Harbin neighborhoods “experienced concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) as high as 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter. For comparison, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s air quality standards say PM2.5 should remain below 35 micrograms per cubic meter.” This means that Harbin would need a 97 percent reduction in pollution in order to reach the maximum level our government would recommend. NASA said Harbin hospitals reported “a 30 percent increase in admissions related to respiratory problems, and several Harbin pharmacies were sold out of pollution face masks.” The American jazz singer Patti Austin canceled a concert in smoggy Beijing because of “a severe asthma attack in combination with respiratory infection,” according to the event’s website.

It was no wonder that at a gathering of environmental activists in Shanghai I attended, organized by the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy, or Juccce, the conversation was dominated by moms and dads talking about where in China to live, when to send their kids outdoors and what food and water to trust. While swapping notes on China’s latest “airpocalypse” a few days later, Hal Harvey, the American chief executive of Energy Innovation, who is working with China’s government to try to get its air quality back under control, asked a powerful question: “What if China meets every criteria of economic success except one: You can’t live there.”

Indeed, what good is it having all those sparkling new buildings if you’re trapped inside them? What good is it if China’s rapid growth has enabled four million people in Beijing to own cars, but the traffic never moves? What good is it if China’s per capita incomes have risen to a level affording tens of millions of once-poor peasants diets rich in milk and meat, but they can’t trust the labels? What good is all that rising G.D.P., if there is no clean air to breathe?

China has built amazing hardware in 30 years — modern cities, roads, airports, ports and telecoms — bringing more people out of poverty faster than any country in the history of the world. The Chinese have much to be proud of. Every healthy economy, though, depends on a healthy environment. China will stall if President Xi Jinping and his government do not now build the software — the institutionalized laws, courts and norms — that can ensure that all this growth will not be undermined by an epidemic of despoiled land and dirty air.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/opinion/friedman-too-big-to-breathe.html?ref=opinion&_r=0