Submitted By: Steve Munio

We’ve all seen the figures verifying China’s economic growth time and time again, they are staggering. These always seem to be accompanied by forecasts of continued growth for decades to come, which are equally spectacular. This is where I have my doubts. I believe there are other significant factors that are not adequately considered in these forecasts, factors that one cannot even begin to estimate or predict.

An interesting article was published in the New York Times which discusses some of the underestimated downfalls of this rapid rise.  This is a country where nearly 500 million lack access to safe drinking water. However, despite what China’s own experts and senior officials describe as “intolerable,” Beijing has shown that it is unwilling and/or unable to make significant changes at this time.

Only 1 percent of China’s urban population of 560 million now breathes air considered safe by the European Union. Yet still, the government insists that it will accept no mandatory limits on its carbon dioxide emissions.

“Indeed, Britain, the United States and Japan polluted their way to prosperity and worried about environmental damage only after their economies matured and their urban middle classes demanded blue skies and safe drinking water. But China is more like a teenage smoker with emphysema. The costs of pollution have mounted well before it is ready to curtail economic development.”

The toll this pollution has taken on human health remains a delicate topic in China. Along with media regulation and free speech silenced by persecution, the leadership has banned publication of data on the subject for fear of inciting social unrest, said scholars involved in the research. But the results of some research provide alarming evidence that the environment has become one of the biggest causes of death.

How confident can we be in these projections of future growth, when we cannot even begin to guess at the devastation to be caused by China’s  disregard for sustainability?