t'ien ming

March 20, 2004 8:27 AM

China's Building Blitz.In scale and pace, the building boom currently sweeping over China has no precedent in human history. China is spending about $375 billion each year on construction, nearly 16 percent its gross domestic product. In the process, it is using 54.7 percent of the world's production of concrete, 36.1 percent of the world's steel, and 30.4 percent of the world's coal.
posted by four panels (16 comments total)

Any condos for sale for Yankees? Needs mentyioning: along with this huge spurt of building and manufacturing is a huge appetite for OIL OIL OIL...now speculate
posted by Postroad at 8:37 AM on March 20, 2004

China Plans to Pass the U.S. on Fuel Economy

The Cost of Dirty Air: Using Atmospheric to Quantify the Impact of Air Pollution on Agriculture and Human Health in China, sponsored by the China Project of the Harvard University Center for the Environment

Visible Earth: China pollution

China Pollution Indicators and Status

China - Environmental Issues
posted by matteo at 8:38 AM on March 20, 2004

The Death of Chinas Rivers

Peasants Bear the Brunt of China's Energy Plans

China in an Energy Quandry

China Awakens to its Devastated Environment
posted by stbalbach at 9:53 AM on March 20, 2004

'Cause remember: 5% of the world's population consumes 95% of the world's resources.

Or something...
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:59 AM on March 20, 2004

Ok everyone, time to lay off China. Every now-developed country has at various points in their histories exploited the environment (or still does). Because you are all now all enlightened you seem to forget that and decide that other countries can't develop in the same way. All this talk on the environment parallels the debate over free trade. Everybody developed their economies using protectionist policies, and when their economies were able to compete, they turned into free traders and tried to browbeat other countries into opening their economies.

I say let China use all the coal it wants to keep its 1 bil people warm until it is able to afford cleaner means. Let them displace people for dams, if it means they can develop hydroelectric power and people will be better off in the future. It is hypocritical to criticize them for it.
posted by h00dini at 10:04 AM on March 20, 2004

Actually, the USA has a higher CO2 output than China.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:18 AM on March 20, 2004

We used coal and dams a hundred and fifty years ago to develop, there must be a better way in 2004.
posted by Spacelegoman at 10:21 AM on March 20, 2004

All I can say is that some of there skyscraping constructions in Shanghai are quite Logans Run /futuristic

( jpeg view )
posted by RubberHen at 10:21 AM on March 20, 2004

Takes balls to create architecture like that, it does.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:56 AM on March 20, 2004

We used coal and dams a hundred and fifty years ago to develop, there must be a better way in 2004.


We use coal and dams today. And what's wrong with a dam anyway? Sure, it upsets the local environment, but no more then, for example a skyscraper.
posted by delmoi at 11:18 AM on March 20, 2004

Actually, I was in China in 1993 and was completely, utterly and totally astounded at the amount of construction that was happening at the time. I remember coming back home to London and telling all my friends, "China is one GIGANTIC construction site!" I had never seen anything like it in my life. Entire mountainsides had been dug up for construction. I am not at all surprised to see these statistics.
posted by PigAlien at 1:21 PM on March 20, 2004

PS, I really enjoyed the pictures. Nice post, Four Panels!
posted by PigAlien at 1:22 PM on March 20, 2004

The tipping point approaches, like a flatulent brontosaurus in ballet slippers.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:19 AM on March 21, 2004

"I say let China use all the coal it wants to keep its 1 bil people warm until it is able to afford cleaner means" - I say the first world invests in helping China develop clean energy sources.

China has every right, especially considering the profligate energy consumption of the US, to burn all the coal it wants to. And it will, unless the affluent world provides China with the technological and financial means so that it can leapfrog the dirty phase of industrialization and avoid powering it's economy with coal. Maybe the US, for example, could eliminate some of the tens of billions (US $) in federal subsidies that currently go to subsidizing oil, coal, and nuclear power in the US and, instead, spend that money - in the form of loans - in assisting China to develop clean energy. This would help to partially correct the current US balance of payments deficit with China as well.
posted by troutfishing at 7:43 AM on March 21, 2004

It'd be better for the USA to focus on getting its own citizens to quit using more energy than anyone else in the world. China produces less CO2 than the USA.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:12 AM on March 21, 2004

The tragedy of the commons has never really been a tragedy because there's always been another commons nearby to exploit. I'm afraid, however, that our entire atmosphere and ecosystem are the last tragedy of the commons we may ever experience and, as usual, we don't seem to be able to do much about it.
posted by PigAlien at 5:35 AM on March 26, 2004