I
read the article “Is Your Stomach Too Full?” by Mark Hertsgaard this week and
found it eye-opening. It began by discussing
the incredibly poor economic state of China qualitatively, which made the
poverty seem more real. Hertsgaard
discussed the lack of shoes in the winter, the ice on the inside walls of
homes, the lack of sanitation, and the respiratory problems of the Chinese that
have led to a culture of excessive spitting.
All of these descriptions really made it clear that the Chinese do not
care much about climate change or the environment. They care about getting out of poverty, being
warm, having some comfort, and having a job.
This makes logical sense. As
shown in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, basic survival is the most basic need so
this needs to be filled before other things are considered important.
The article continues on to discuss
the electricity and power generation of the Chinese. In China, electricity is predicted to
increase at least seven percent per year, which would require a double in
electrical generating capacity every decade.
That would require thirty to sixty new power plants every year, about
seventy-five percent of them burning coal.
In addition, the Chinese are not putting many environmental features on
their new power plants because of the additional costs. It is very simple. A company can build more plants if each plant
costs less money to build. As a result,
with the exception of electrostatic precipitators, most plants built do not
have scrubbers on them and do not wash the coal.
On the bright side, in the 1980s
China reduced their energy intensity by focusing on increasing energy efficiency. They realized that the energy production may
not be able to keep up with the rapidly growing economy. Although China is not likely to cut
consumption just for the environment, they may be tempted to increase energy
efficiency to save money. This may be a
way to help green the Chinese economy, especially because some studies have
shown that replacing the old, inefficient Chinese technologies with new
efficient ones could cut China’s energy consumption by forty to fifty
percent. That is a huge decrease, which
could help to offset the increase in electricity and other forms of energy
usage as the population rises and becomes more modernized.
Although energy efficiency seems
like the easy solution here, it is not.
As the article points out, the Chinese would prefer a power plant that
costs $1000 per kilowatt that has 30-45% efficiency compared to a $1400 per
kilowatt power plant that has 45% efficiency and removes 90% of the sulfur dioxide
and nitrogen oxides. Energy efficient
technologies cost more, and China does not have the time or money to waste when
it is trying to expand the number of power plants so that people can be
warm.
So what could be a possible solution
to fixing China’s environmental problems?
China’s environmental problems are not only theirs; they are also the
rest of the world’s problems. China’s
development could put the world over the tipping point in regards to climate
change. Is it ethically sound to tell
them to stop burning so much coal? Can
the world force them to put scrubbers on their coal power plants or buy more
energy efficient technologies?
I would say that we cannot force
these changes on China. Forcing China to
stop burning so much coal or forcing them to put scrubbers or other
environmentally-friendly technologies on plants may be taking heat away from
the poorest Chinese during the winter, which I do not think is ethically
right. It is not another country’s place
to make that decision. We cannot force
China to change its ways.
America can do two things in this situation. The first is that America can try to fix
itself before trying to put the blame on developing countries and before trying
to restrict what they can do. The
developed countries used fossil fuels to become developed, so they should be
trying to clean up themselves before scolding others. Second, America can give information, advice,
and support to developing countries to help them develop sustainably. We cannot force China to stop using coal or to
start using energy efficient products.
We probably cannot even convince them that energy efficient technologies
are worth it in the long-term because they care about the short-term right now (much
like companies in the United States). Any
technological solution that the United States gives to China probably needs to
be at the same price or cheaper than Chinese technologies. If the technology is efficient enough to
payback its extra cost fast enough, the Chinese may consider it.
For
the good of the environment, the United States should consider transferring
some environmentally-friendly technologies over to China, just as Japan is with
scrubbing technology. They can do this
by providing information about environmentally-friendly technologies or by
selling them the environmentally-friendly technologies. If the developed countries really want to
tackle climate change, then they could provide the Chinese with some subsidies
to help lower the cost of energy efficient technologies down to the cost of the
older technologies, which would make the decision easy for the Chinese. This subsidy would probably never pass the
American legislature, but maybe a non-profit or another country will step up to
help bring clean technologies to China and other developing countries in the
future by helping to pay for the extra cost.
No comments:
Post a Comment