
Ecological disaster looms everywhere in China with little impetus for change. The central government does not have the will or the means to reverse the trend. At the grassroots level resistance to dissent prevails and many environmentalists languish in jail. It is at the local government level that the blame must be levelled. There it is a case of naked self-interest.
But before we get to self-righteous and damn the Chinese for doing nothing about approaching environmental Armageddon there are a few things to be considered. First China argues that during the Industrial Revolution there was much degradation and like in modern China dirty coal was the standard fuel. So it can be argued that China is playing catch up. We are also looking at economies of scale here. According to Jonathan Watts “The über-capitalist Communists now have the highest emissions of global-warming gases in the world (although the average Chinese person generates one-seventh the emissions the average American does)” Further America is outsourcing it’s true level of emissions by relying on China to manufacture things that if manufactured in North America would create green-house gases here.
All of these arguments have some validity but China’s environment continues to degrade at blinding speed with little impetus for change.