china’s pollution crisis becoming a source of social discontent

WASHINGTON—
Many of us have memories of nostalgia, wake up in the winter morning, welcome the news of snow, so that we can skip school, or spend a few more precious hours under the blanket.
As temperatures drop in mainland China, primary school students there are already familiar with their own snowy days: smog days, when schools and workplaces are closed due to dangerous levels of pollution and heavy smog, this will happen.
But you can\'t be an angel of smog.
In fact, the Chinese people are dissatisfied with China. the-
Environmental degradation is rapidly becoming a potential threat to the ruling Communist regime.
Issues such as unmet political rights needs are no longer the party\'s only existential threat.
One symptom of China\'s growing environmental threat is that cities --
A wide range of closures is becoming the new normal.
In last January, a thick layer of soot hung over Beijing, and life almost stopped.
In October, the pollution level in Harbin, a population of 10 million people in northeast China, exceeded the acceptable level of the World Health Organization by 40 times;
Schools, roads and airports were shut down.
In early December, a large area of central and eastern China
Jiangsu province, Zhejiang province, Anhui province, Henan province
He suffered serious and dangerous pollution.
In Nanjing, which has a population of 8 million, schools, ferries, highways and airports are closed.
In Shanghai, China\'s financial center, visibility fell to a few feet for most of the December S, with many wearing masks covering their faces, and authorities warned children and the elderly to stay indoors until the air was fresh.
Even in Hong Kong, a special administrative region with different laws and much higher living standards than in the mainland, pollution in December reached a \"very dangerous\" level. 10. The all-
The environmental crisis facing China is not melting ice and rising temperatures.
In fact, it was this unusually cold winter that increased energy consumption and increased pollution. (
Coal is the King Road in China, which is why pollution is particularly serious in winter. )
Instead, Chinese citizens are angry at the more urgent need to survive: for example, breathe clean air and escape cancer and other pollution --
Related troubles
The incidence of lung cancer has soared in China, not only because of smoking.
On the other hand, the range of skin cancer is much smaller. U. S.
The interest rate is more than 50 times that of China.
Where the sun is blocked by tiny air particles, the frequency of melanoma growth is much lower.
These are not new.
The difference is the extent to which this issue has entered public dialogue in China.
The Chinese are more aware than ever of their poor air quality and are increasingly angry about their government\'s failure to address the problem clearly.
Prosperity has sent millions of Chinese to sunny foreign destinations where visitors find the sky actually blue, so the air quality in their country is abnormal.
News reports on pollution are frequent in China\'s official media, and air purifiers and polluting readers have become popular household gadgets that citizens can listen --
Coding alarm system of China Meteorological Center of China Meteorological Bureau. PM 2.
5. Describe the pollution measurement of particles less than 2.
The trachea, which can penetrate the lungs at 5 microns, was not known to environmental professionals until recently.
Now it has become part of Chinese slang.
No one will doubt the sincerity of the Chinese leaders to solve the problem.
They realized that deterioration in air quality could be a long-term source of social discontent.
On December, smogaden, a reporter from China Central Television, China\'s main television network, tried to make a positive adjustment to the situation, claiming that it unified the Chinese people and that it made people \"more interesting\" and more knowledgeable.
Another article says smog can boost national security by reducing the effectiveness of enemy missiles and surveillance systems.
Some Chinese responded angrily on Weibo to vent their anger at the regime\'s indifference.
But carefully read the statement of the Third Plenary Session of the party, this is a high
The high-level meeting held on November to discuss the future of China\'s politics and economy shows that the leadership is deeply concerned about the new threat. But what —if anything —can be done?
Without a significant reduction in air pollution from power generation, China will not be able to solve its pollution problem.
China now uses roughly the same amount of coal as the rest of the world combined, while coal accounts for 65 of China\'s power mix. Half of the country\'s rail traffic is used for transportation.
Addressing this huge imbalance will require replacing China\'s current coal-fired power plant with ultra-clean but expensive integrated gasification combined cycle technology that turns coal into gas before burning, at the same time remove impurities or slow shifts in power generation from coal to natural gas, nuclear energy and renewable energy.
Every alternative to coal has its complexity.
If China breaks the secret of its shale gas reserves, the use of natural gas will increase significantly. Shale gas reserves are the largest in the world.
But this is not a simple task: China\'s shale reserves are twice that of the United States, and China\'s lack of sufficient water resources is a necessary resource for fracking.
Hydropower is more promising, but it also brings environmental and power transmission issues, not to mention political issues with the downstream countries that share these rivers.
China is trying to expand this area in water-rich areas --
About 100 dams are under construction or planned on the Yangtze River alone.
Although China was upset after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan in March 2011, China is working to develop nuclear power, which currently accounts for only the country\'s electricity supply.
The 30 nuclear power plants currently under construction will help increase the proportion of clean energy in China, and dozens more are under construction.
However, no alternative energy can replace coal in the short term.
China has more than 300 coal
Compared with about 650 power plants currently in operation, the power plants to be built will be put into production one after another. Chinese officials expect coal usage to grow by 2012 to exceed by 2020.
According to the International Energy Agency, China\'s coal demand will stabilize at least to 2025.
To make matters worse, China\'s energy prices are heavily subsidized, which means they are too cheap to motivate energy efficiency.
China\'s electricity price is 8 cents per kilowatt hour.
In the United States, where cheap gas and coal are abundant, the average price is 12 cents;
The average price in Japan is 26 cents.
In northern Europe it costs more than 30 cents.
Due to the price cap, gasoline prices are also relatively low for a country that has just become the world\'s largest oil importer: 30 cents cheaper than Japan, and more than half of the average European price.
By eliminating subsidies and price controls, allowing energy prices to rise to market levels, energy demand can be suppressed while increasing the competitive power of clean coal combustion technologies.
But the policy of removing subsidies comes at a cost: it will drive China\'s manufacturing capacity out of China, slow economic growth, social discontent, and obstruction of reforms aimed at getting President Xi Jinping
Call the Chinese Dream to the masses.