Another means of population control for China?

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Kidicious


If you ask me the US is more communist with it's environmental policies. Poluting the water that people drink so that profit can be made is capitalism. When you make laws to protect the environment at the expense of profit that's not capitalism. The question is how much can nations in this globalised economy afford to protect the environment with the increased competition to produce at low cost.

Let me correct you there . Capitalism means that any provable harm done to anyone has to be redressed , and the guilty punished . If I pollute/poison the air near your house , and you get asthama thanks to that , I'm liable . Polluting drinking water is very definitely anti-capitalist . When you make laws to protect people from harm ( thorugh the use of force or fraud ) , you are being a capitalist .

Capitalism simply means the right to do anything you want as long as you don't harm anyone else ( through the use of force or fraud ) .

And if hurting the environment does not hurt a human being , then there is no reason why it should be disallowed .

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Tingkai
How much is enough? $2.2 billion? $2.3 billion? Will $100 billion over five years solve the problem? I don't know.

The anwser is simple. You spend what you have to for as long as you have to in order to provide clean drinking water to to everyone in the country. That means they have to regulate industrial pollution, they have to treat sewage before poring it into rivers, they have to have water treatment plants to treat drinking water, and they need a safe delivery system which doesn't recontaminate the water once it has been treated. If China didn't spend $30 billion per year on defense and instead diverted $10 billion per year towards providing clean drinking water then I'm sure they'd reach their goals relatively quickly. It's not that China doesn't have the resources it's just that the one party dictatorship just doesn't give a rat's ass about the enviroment and clean water for their people.

[Spiffor]

Not exactly topical, but one the **** will be on the verge of hitting the fan, don't you think the Chinese will heavily invest in de-salinization of sea water?

Nearly all of the population the CCP cares abour lives on the coast, so such technologies would quench the thirst of all people "of importance". And there are already dramatic progresses made by Israel, despite Israel having very little money/research potential in comparison to china.

[Dinner]

The US and Europe don't even use de-sal plants. To expensive. A few rich Arab oil states use de-sal but they are the only ones which I can recall.

[Spiffor]

Israel has recently made a breakthrough, making de-sal much cheaper. Israel has traditionally invested quite some money in research about it, and I don't see why the Chinese wouldn't, once they become seriously threatened by thirst.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by aneeshm


Let me correct you there . Capitalism means that any provable harm done to anyone has to be redressed , and the guilty punished . If I pollute/poison the air near your house , and you get asthama thanks to that , I'm liable . Polluting drinking water is very definitely anti-capitalist . When you make laws to protect people from harm ( thorugh the use of force or fraud ) , you are being a capitalist .

Capitalism simply means the right to do anything you want as long as you don't harm anyone else ( through the use of force or fraud ) .

And if hurting the environment does not hurt a human being , then there is no reason why it should be disallowed .

That definition of capitalism makes less sense than any that I've seen.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Not exactly topical, but one the **** will be on the verge of hitting the fan, don't you think the Chinese will heavily invest in de-salinization of sea water?

Nearly all of the population the CCP cares abour lives on the coast, so such technologies would quench the thirst of all people "of importance". And there are already dramatic progresses made by Israel, despite Israel having very little money/research potential in comparison to china.

They will probably just let people suffer and die.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Educating the people? What do you think China is, a democracy? Why would the state educate the people? They don't have to do that. All they have to do is keep the water clean, they don't have to worry about educating the people to do that since they have all the power.

To solve this problem, China needs to take a two-pronged approach.

Spending money provides an immediate solution to the some of the problem. Is it enough? I don't know, but China is doing something (and remember that the $2.1 billion is for rural projects. We don't know how much is being spent on urban projects).

But education is necessary for the long-term. The local government officials need to learn that water pollution poison the land, increases health care costs, and slows down economic growth (loss work hours, etc). They need to be taught why reducing water pollution is in their own self-interest and that way environmental laws are more likely to be enforced.

The same applies to factory owners and the rich. They need to educated about the cost of pollution and how that cost will affect their pocketbooks.

There also has to be education of the people in general.

Education by itself won't solve the problem, but it is part of the solution even in an authoritarian society.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The anwser is simple. You spend what you have to for as long as you have to in order to provide clean drinking water to to everyone in the country. That means they have to regulate industrial pollution, they have to treat sewage before poring it into rivers, they have to have water treatment plants to treat drinking water, and they need a safe delivery system which doesn't recontaminate the water once it has been treated.

It would be nice if it was that simple.

Government regulations need effective enforcement and that requires a civil service that can deliver results w/t corruption and an effective court system. The problem facing China is that too many civil servants are corrupt, a problem China is tackling, with limited results. China also needs more lawyers and judges plus effective policing.

It's not an easy task. Even the Brits failed in Hong Kong, even though they had 150 years of colonial rule. No one drinks water straight from the tap and only in the past 5 - 10 years has Hong Kong stopped pumping sewage straight into Victoria Harbour. The situation is getting better, but it is far from perfect.

Originally posted by Oerdin
If China didn't spend $30 billion per year on defense and instead diverted $10 billion per year towards providing clean drinking water then I'm sure they'd reach their goals relatively quickly.

I agree completely.

Originally posted by Oerdin
It's not that China doesn't have the resources it's just that the one party dictatorship just doesn't give a rat's ass about the enviroment and clean water for their people.

All government's waste too much money on military spending. Look at the money the US wastes on its military and useless wars. Americans, and the world for that matter, would be much better off it cut defence spending by a third. If the US did that it would still be the most powerful country in the world.

Or the idiots in Pakistan and India buying F-16s because the other guy is buying F-16s.

It's all about big boys who want to have expensive toys to make themselves feel powerful.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Not necessarily.

An authoriatarina gov't can respond quickly to a problem, if it chooses to address it, much more faster than say a government controlled by rich corporations.

[Kidlicious]

Tingkai,

I can't believe what a China apologist you are. There is nothing hard about cleaning up your mess.

[Kuciwalker]

I can't believe I'm agreeing with Kid

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Tingkai,

I can't believe what a China apologist you are. There is nothing hard about cleaning up your mess.

An apologist?

Nah, I'm just pointing out to the difficulties China faces.

It would be nice if people could just snap their fingers and solve problems in an instant, but it doesn't work like that in the real world.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kidicious
They will probably just let people suffer and die.

The peasants = yes
The city-dwellers who produce serious money = no

Why does everybody assume that a dictatorial regime will let its assets go, just because these assets are people?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Nah, I'm just pointing out to the difficulties China faces.

Bolony. They don't have to figure out how to do it. They have to decide to do it.

Spiffor,

The peasants = yes
The city-dwellers who produce serious money = no

Why does everybody assume that a dictatorial regime will let its assets go, just because these assets are people?

I meant only the peasants.