App.1: Edgar on...the Environment.

It’s difficult to talk about the environment in China and not feel completely worried about how on earth anyone could possibly sort this mess out.

What stands out the most to the outside observer is that the land, this country, is here for the benefit of man. It’s as simple as that, or so it would seem. The Chinese have been shaping and controlling the environment here, in often ingenious and creative ways, for eons, but nonetheless it has been bent and buckled and stretched and swamped, drained and flooded, mined and filled in, and we only need to see Michael Jacksons face (RIP) to see what happens when one goes too far in trying to fix what wasn’t broken in the first place. Eventually it caves in, bits drop off that weren’t meant too and in the end no amount of pollyfiller will ever put it right again.

True, some of Chinas most scenic spots are the result of mans direct intervention on the land. Look at the rice terraces - a necessary, ingenious and beautiful feature. But such is the arrogance of China, if something isn’t working as it should, they do something to change it, seemingly without considering further reaching consequences. The 3 gorges dam is possibly the most stark example of this, the containment of the environment in more subtle ways continues...barrels of water contain flowers in temples, the flowers that adorn every city are kept in their pots, parks and gardens are arranged and walled, shrubs and bushes lining highways are pruned into perfect spheres or other pleasing shapes with edges so sharp you could cut yourself on them, the Great Wall wraps itself around the very country. . .

All of these feats are both fantastic and frightening. And it keeps China CONTAINED.

Within this contained world of order and correctness, there is only space for the creatures that are allowed. It has slowly dawned on me over the months I have spent here, that there are no animals here. There are bugs, true, and by god there are mosquitoes, but there are no creatures. Whether you are up early in the morning or late at night, in an urban sprawl or out in wilderness, there is neither sight nor sound of another living creature. There is not even any road kill on any of the roads or highways. Yes there are cats and dogs, there are ponies, buffaloes and other beasts of burden, there are the protected pandas, (China is doing its best to back track on that one), but that is all. It is even rare to see birds in the sky. There are eagles that soar over Hong Kong, there are peacocks in the parks, and there are those long legged white wading birds in the paddy fields, and you see the odd tiny sparrow or swoops of swallows in the eaves of the temples and bell towers, but again, that is all. At night, in the depths of nowhere, up on the Tiger Leaping Gorge, in the forests of Huang Shan, in the tropical shrublands of Guangdong, there is no wail of foxes, or scatterings of little creatures or rustle of anything rummaging in the shrubs.

All you see are the odd lizard, (my count 6), the occasional spider (approx 5) cockroaches (gallons), rats (gallons) and that is it.

Have they been eaten? Is the land so sour that nothing can bear to live here? Have they been driven out, sick of the relentless pounding sound as China constructs and then reconstructs itself grumbling to themselves as they cross the border into Vietnam, “if only they wouldn’t start the drilling at SIX am!”.

I asked my class once if there were hedgehogs in China. I was told no, but if there were, they would probably eat them. I wonder how much of Chinas need to put food on the table has destroyed and removed forever what once kept the impoverished nation on its feet...

Ask a Chinese person what they know about Climate Change and they will most likely look blankly at you.

Tell them about how car fumes and factory emissions are choking the atmosphere causing it to heat up, causing global warming that is changing weather systems all over the globe whose effects we see today, and they have no idea what you are talking about. This scares me. This scares me a lot. And yet the same people I talked to can design a computer programme to play a “game” where one has to figure out the most logical way to generate electricity from a variety of ingenious sources from steam irons to water turbines...

China recycles, this is true, but more for necessity than in a last ditched attempt to salvage something because of the “environmental” factors. People rummage through bins and pile up all the paper because they can sell it. The same for plastic drinks bottles. Scrap metal. Nothing gets wasted, but this is so people can FEED themselves, not through a desire to help the greater good and certainly not to save the world!

The environment here has left me feeling terribly sad on most occasions. It is scarred and defected, choked and filthy. I spent a long time trampsing about before I found a fresh body of water I felt confident dipping my toe into - close to 600 million people have water supplies that are contaminated by animal and human waste. Thats a staggering number. According to SEPA, more than 70 percent of China's lakes and five of China's seven largest river systems are polluted enough to be unsuitable for human contact...and still the waste and the filth gets pumped into the waterways and chimneys continue to funnel thick evil looking clouds of smoke into the air. Buses and trucks go by filling the highways with a jet black smoke screen as they grumble past you.

The air in Beijing is apparently akin to smoking 40 cigarettes a day apparently, and I believe it. The Chinese I meet joke that they smoke because the air is CLEANER taken in through a filter. I breathed it and it made me sick. It made all of us sick. The air in China is supposedly responsible for over 400,000 premature deaths a year from lung and heart related diseases. 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities, and more than 100 million people live in areas where the very air itself is considered “very dangerous”.

With the water too dangerous to drink, and the air too dangerous to breathe, China becomes a very frightening place indeed...a ticking timebomb that will take the rest of the world to where?

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