So far we’ve been pretty lucky with the air quality during the time we’ve been in Shanghai. But, as news reports earlier this year indicate, the environment, especially air quality, is still a very relevant concern in Shanghai. One of the most interesting lectures we’ve had so far was a lecture by an environmental engineering professor at Jiao Tong University. The professor broke Shanghai’s environmental issues into four major components: air quality, water quality, solid waste, and noise. Her statistics indicated that for the most part Shanghai’s environmental issues are improving. To some extent these improvements are due to new environmental regulations and technology. But the professor indicated that the majority of these improvements is due to heavy industrial activities moving out of the city, especially to western regions of China.
Are these improvements then simply a matter of redistributing pollution to other areas of the country? To some extent spreading pollution out does serve to decrease its impact on the environment. One of the major concepts she talked about in her presentation was the idea of “environmental capacity”, which is the amount of pollution the environment can dissipate. Shanghai’s waterways in particular are over capacity, so moving pollution away from the city can significantly improve water quality on an aggregate level. Another major advantage of redistribution is that the actual effect of pollution on humans is decreased by moving polluting industries away from densely populated areas.
At the same time it seems like redistributing pollution isn’t a real solution to the problem of pollution. Recently, the rise of microblogging in China has made it difficult for companies to relocate some industries. The professor gave the example of Project PX, which was a chemical plant that was forced to relocate several times due to citizen complaints. In the long term only technological development will decrease pollution levels without restricting economic activity. Moreover, air and water pollution is not truly local. Eventually China will need a true solution to these environmental problems.
Tags: Air Polluttion, China, Environment, Shanghai