Unit 2 Lesson 1: China's Yellow River

I remember a picture book I had as a child. I can't remember the title but it had to do with a Chinese family living on the Yellow River. I guess, since I have never been to China, the image of the river in that book is the image I have carried in my head throughout the years. What a rude awakening to see the enclosed photo and to read the National Geographic article by Brook Larmer, "Can China Save the Yellow - Its Mother River?"

The article discusses the horrific pollution being pumped into the river by industry. The water is too poisonous to use for irrigation and animals which drink from it have died within hours.

The importance of water cannot be overstated. Obviously it is vital for crops/irrigation and for the wildlife that live in it and near its banks, but consider for a moment what the absence of water means. Yep you got it, a desert. Parts of the Yellow River Basin are becoming deserts, "creating a dust bowl that may dwart that of the American West in the 1930s, driving down grain production and pushing millions of 'environmental refugees' off the land." To date, about 3,000 of the 4,077 lakes found in the Qinghai region have already disappeared.

The damage is undeniable with the river changing colors from white, to purple to maroon depending on the amount and kind of waste being dumped into it. The question is, what is the response? What is the response of the government and of the people of China to the destruction of resources which can not be replaced? On the part of the people, there seems to be the start of a strong environmental movement. In the last 10 years environmental action groups have grown from a dozen or so to several thousand. The article interviewed members of Green Camel Bell, an environmental action group who felt that they were helping to make a difference. It should be noted that some environmentalists have been arrested and allegedly tortured. Nonetheless, the problem is not the outrage of Chinese citizens, but rather the lack of outrage on the part of the Chinese government. A farmer after complaining of the pollution was simply told, that his home was "uninhabitable" and that nothing further could be done. Government responses often seem designed to ward off large scale protests rather than to make large scale changes to established policies. For instance the government has just approved, "52 billion dollars in coal mining and chemical industries to be installed along a 500-mile stretch of the river north of Yinchuan." Needless to say such developments are having dramatic effects upon the rural community surrounding the River. It is effecting not only their crops but also their bodies. "Nearly two-thirds of China's rural population, more than 500 million people, use water contaminated by human or industrial waste. It's little wonder that gastrointestinal cancer is now the number one killer in the countryside." In the rush to the free market finish line, the Chinese government seems willing to sacrifice its water. As Larmer so aptly puts it, "Perhaps every revolution, even a capitalist one, eats its children."

Many look at the environmental policies of Mao and the Cultural Revolution with shock and a amazed kind of awe. It is thus terrifying to find that Mao is still very much driving the environmental policies of China today. Take the Water Transfer Project for instance. It "will siphon 12 trillion gallons of water a year from the Yangtze Basin and send it 700 miles north, passing beneath the Yellow River in two places. It's no surprise, given the Olympian scale of the project that it originated as one of Mao's pipe dreams." It seems clear that China is focused on the here and now rather than developing a sustainable environmental policy for the future.

The subsidies the government pays for water are a big part of the problem. If businesses and industries were forced to pay the true market price for water, I think they would be much more judicious in its use. This could also be a way of getting money to pay for the clean up of the damaged areas and invest money in researching long term solutions to the overwhelming problems the country's rivers now face.