http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/16/china-children-drivers-environmental-change-pollution
I personally took interest in the class discussion about the air pollution in China, so here is the analysis about this article which discusses about the negative externalities of air pollution in China.
Negative externalities:
The most obvious externaltiy, is actually the title. Air pollution is the result of many industrial activities, or even by human themselves. China has the largest population in the world. And in order to support that population, lots of release of energy is needed. And air pollution is one of the side effects in extracting that energy to perform daily actions.
How is this affecting the different kinds of population?
One thing that would be common for all population is health problem, as long as the people choose to live in the same area, and the air pollution has gone worst, they all have an equal chance of getting lung cancer just like the example mentioned, an 8 year old girl just got lung cancer and it was due to over-exposure to high levels of pollution.
The other side to it is the coverage of the natural scenary. Due to the high intensity of air pollution, the smoke, has engulfed the city almost every day. Therefore people are affected by not being able to have romantic moments and look up to the sky to count stars and etc.
What's the government doing about it?
They probably do realize about the air pollution. They're not going to take instant actions about it though. In the article it says that the government 'wants nothing less than "lose face" internationally. You can see that there is a economic irrationality where pride gets in the way in an economic activity.
Well, that’s just the reluctance of the government. But according to the article, they’re actually going to invest 227 billion dollars to curb pollution. It was not mentioned exactly how they’re going to spend this budget. But we can guess as economics student.
Manufacturing some goods and services may emit the one of the largest air pollution, the government could subsidize some of the firms that produces necessity and also contributing to air pollution quite abit. The government can also use this budget to make a larger scale of law re-enforcement group to re-enforce their environmental laws, or conditions.
However, that is only a strategy, it’s only going to be effective in around 2017, some people cannot wait for so long as their offsprings are already very badly affected
Along with China’s one-child policy, more people now immigrated to other places such as Australia and Canada mentioned in the article. This phenomenon is bad for China, it’s ‘brain drain’, loss of educated population. This is only the option when you have the money.
So what do the middle class or the less privileged ones do?
Well, what they can do is wait. Wait for China’s government’s actions to be in place. Maybe few years later they will protest against the government when they found out that their sky is completely in grey.
I personally took interest in the class discussion about the air pollution in China, so here is the analysis about this article which discusses about the negative externalities of air pollution in China.
Negative externalities:
The most obvious externaltiy, is actually the title. Air pollution is the result of many industrial activities, or even by human themselves. China has the largest population in the world. And in order to support that population, lots of release of energy is needed. And air pollution is one of the side effects in extracting that energy to perform daily actions.
How is this affecting the different kinds of population?
One thing that would be common for all population is health problem, as long as the people choose to live in the same area, and the air pollution has gone worst, they all have an equal chance of getting lung cancer just like the example mentioned, an 8 year old girl just got lung cancer and it was due to over-exposure to high levels of pollution.
The other side to it is the coverage of the natural scenary. Due to the high intensity of air pollution, the smoke, has engulfed the city almost every day. Therefore people are affected by not being able to have romantic moments and look up to the sky to count stars and etc.
What's the government doing about it?
They probably do realize about the air pollution. They're not going to take instant actions about it though. In the article it says that the government 'wants nothing less than "lose face" internationally. You can see that there is a economic irrationality where pride gets in the way in an economic activity.
Well, that’s just the reluctance of the government. But according to the article, they’re actually going to invest 227 billion dollars to curb pollution. It was not mentioned exactly how they’re going to spend this budget. But we can guess as economics student.
Manufacturing some goods and services may emit the one of the largest air pollution, the government could subsidize some of the firms that produces necessity and also contributing to air pollution quite abit. The government can also use this budget to make a larger scale of law re-enforcement group to re-enforce their environmental laws, or conditions.
However, that is only a strategy, it’s only going to be effective in around 2017, some people cannot wait for so long as their offsprings are already very badly affected
Along with China’s one-child policy, more people now immigrated to other places such as Australia and Canada mentioned in the article. This phenomenon is bad for China, it’s ‘brain drain’, loss of educated population. This is only the option when you have the money.
So what do the middle class or the less privileged ones do?
Well, what they can do is wait. Wait for China’s government’s actions to be in place. Maybe few years later they will protest against the government when they found out that their sky is completely in grey.