Chinese Environmental Problems and the Potential for Change

Over the past month there has been much in the news about catastrophic natural disasters and anthropogenic environmental woes plaguing the vast Chinese landscape.  This is certainly not “news” for its novel or exceptional nature.  Yet, the extent of these events does raise questions about the future of China’s environment and of the choices that its government will make to secure or squander that future.

Some of the biggest news stories focused on the July 16^th oil spill in Dalian.  Two oil pipelines ruptured and exploded leaking thousands of barrels of oil into the sea near this northernmost warm water seaport in the Yellow Sea.  In the days that followed, there were many reports questioning the Chinese government’s account of the size of the spill and documenting the improvised nature of the “grim task” that was its clean-up.  This event showed the lack of preparedness in mitigating or responding to such a disaster.

Long before the oil spill, the southwestern countryside had been experiencing a record drought dating back to October of 2009.  The drought was then ended by heavy rains that touched off landslides and swelled the waters of the Yangtze River and tested the limits of the Three Gorges Dam.  Days later, reports followed of the worst flood in a decade along the Yangtze that killed at least 273 people as of July 22^nd.  More rains and deadly landslides hit the north-central county of Zhouqu killing 127 people in early August.  And more rain is forecast for the area, thwarting clean-up, rescue and aid efforts.  Such crises require resources and planning to respond to such national emergencies in providing for citizens’ basic needs.

Amid such devastation, one of the most interesting discussions has focused on the power of these events and on assessing their role in affecting the Chinese governments’ current policy toward its environment, its people, and its economic livelihood.  A Reuters blog speculates if this is China’s “Minamata moment”, referencing Japan’s Minamata Bay long plagued by industrial pollution that poisoned large numbers of local fisherman and their children with high levels of mercury.  The “moment” led the Japanese government in the 1970s to prioritize pollution reforms.  A staff writer for the Natural Resources Defense Council attempts to provide some answer to the speculation by highlighting two lessons learned from these and other events.  First, “You can only solve the problems you know about,” referring to the slow reporting of industrial-related accidents.  Second, “Social stability comes from fixing the problem,” recognizing that social stability is ultimately one of Chinese national priorities and to best secure that priority, China needs to find big picture solutions for these types of problems.  A writer from the Atlantic introduces yet another possibility.  The article is skeptical of recent events’ role in bringing about a largely transformative moment, instead seeing it as a “recalibration” that will attempt to find a new balance between status quo economic interests and the need for more responsive environmental needs.

Discussion Questions:

1. Pick one or more of the recent Chinese environmental problems mentioned in any of the articles.  What do you think should be expected of the government in mitigating and/or responding to such an event or events?
2. Think about the vast scale of the Chinese national landscape.  What challenges do you think are inherent in dealing with the diverse and changing environments in this area?  Can you make any suggestions for such a scale dilemma?
3. What do you think that these events will mean for the future of the Chinese environment and its people?  How do you think the Chinese government will weigh the interests of its industries and economy against that of its peoples’ and lands’ well-being?

Google Earth(tm) Resources for the Gulf of Mexico Oil Slick

Description:  NASA has provided a KMZ file that gives animations, photo overlays, satellite images, trajectory forecasts, and additional resources for looking at the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Source:  Google Earth(tm) and NASA.  Open Google Earth and fly to  28°56’52.10″N,  88° 6’36.41″W to access the NASA placemark.

Discussion Topics:  Observe and describe the flow of oil over several days.  What impact will the oil spill have on human environments?  wildlife?  marine ecosystems?

Disaster in the Gulf: Are Southwest Florida’s Wildlife and Beaches at Risk?

The images are agonizing … fishermen facing ruin, their lives in jeopardy. Sea turtles surfacing through swirls of floating oil. Doomed dolphins struggling in the discolored surf. Disoriented pelicans being cleansed by overworked volunteers. Beachgoers saying that they’re on their favorite patch for one last time. Disaster looms over one of America’s most fragile ecosystems.

Fifty miles to the south, disaster had struck days earlier. Eleven men had lost their lives when one of the world’s technologically most advanced  and operationally safest oil rigs, the Deepwater Horizon, had suffered a series of devastating explosions that sank the vessel and left its newly drilled wells gushing oil into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico by the tens of thousands of gallons daily. As a growing patch of thickening oil formed over the accident’s epicenter, the coastline’s only ally was the wind. Northerly breezes slowed the oil’s advance on the Mississippi Delta and nearby shores, where workers floated miles of orange-colored floating “booms” to keep it offshore. But when British Petroleum’s first effort to cap one of the Horizon’s gushing wells failed three weeks after the explosions, the writing was on the wall. This would be no contained spill. The question was how much of the Gulf of Mexico would be despoiled.

It’s worth looking at a map to gauge the prospects.

In common with other large water bodies in the Northern Hemisphere, the Gulf of Mexico has a clockwise circulation, its waters being augmented via the Strait of Yucatan between western Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula and leaving to join the Gulf Stream through the Florida Strait between the tip of Florida and Cuba’s north coast. If nothing else affected the Gulf’s circulation, the oil slick would move eastward along the Florida panhandle, then southward along the peninsula’s west coast and eventually eastward into the Atlantic. Indeed, some television commentators projected just such a scenario, suggesting that the oil would ultimately affect East Coast beaches, travel north in the Gulf Stream, and reach as far north as Cape Cod. 

But the situation is more complicated than that. While dominant circulation patterns driven by Coriolis force — generated by the Earth’s rotation — do create clockwise gyres in the Northern Hemisphere (and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, for those of us who remember being taught the old wives’ tale of the bathtub drain running in reverse downunder), surface patterns are far more affected by prevailing winds and other factors. In the case of the Gulf of Mexico, the salinity of coastal waters is affected by the two major rivers, the Mississippi and the Rio Grande, creating vertical as well as horizontal circulations. The submarine topography of the Gulf of Mexico, which is much deeper in the west than in the east, also comes into play. The shallower eastern Gulf increases its potential vulnerability to oil pollution.

So there is no simple answer to the question of risk. Are the beaches and ecologies of Southwest Florida in danger? Not yet, but the longer the oil gushes into the Gulf, the greater the danger will obviously be. Will wind directions help alleviate the risk created by the fundamental circulation of the Gulf’s waters? Since this appears now to be a crisis that will endure for months, it is relevant that summer is the time when the easterly Trade Winds are strongest, and their effect is likely to be to push oil slicks away from Southwest Florida shores. But all westward-moving pressure systems, being circular, have eastward components, and there will be times when the same Gulf breezes we covet on Boca Grande have the potential to bring oil to our shores – unless BP somehow manages to stem the flow of oil.

At the time of writing, that does not look likely.  So the short answer to the question is: yes

**This article by Wiley author, H.J. de Blij, originally appeared in the Gasparilla Gazette, May 12, 2010. Click here to see article in its original format.