Let's hope Thailand new leaders will protect environment from industrial pollution. From the New York Timeshttp://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/world/asia/26china.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Some excerpts form the article.(China's) Energy and environmental officials have little influence in the bureaucracy. The environmental agency still has only about 200 full-time employees, compared with 18,000 at the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States.

China has no Energy Ministry. The Energy Bureau of the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s central planning agency, has 100 full-time staff members. The Energy Department of the United States has 110,000 employees.

China does have an army of amateur regulators. Environmentalists expose pollution and press local government officials to enforce environmental laws. But private individuals and nongovernment organizations cannot cross the line between advocacy and political agitation without risking arrest.

Environmental woes that might be considered catastrophic in some countries can seem commonplace in China: industrial cities where people rarely see the sun; children killed or sickened by lead poisoning or other types of local pollution; a coastline so swamped by algal red tides that large sections of the ocean no longer sustain marine life.

In many parts of China, factories and farms dump waste into surface water with few repercussions. China’s environmental monitors say that one-third of all river water, and vast sections of China’s great lakes, the Tai, Chao and Dianchi, have water rated Grade V, the most degraded level, rendering it unfit for industrial or agricultural use.

China is choking on its own success. The economy is on a historic run, posting a succession of double-digit growth rates. But the growth derives, now more than at any time in the recent past, from a staggering expansion of heavy industry and urbanization that requires colossal inputs of energy, almost all from coal, the most readily available, and dirtiest, source.

Chinese leaders argue that the outside world is a partner in degrading the country’s environment. Chinese manufacturers that dump waste into rivers or pump smoke into the sky make the cheap products that fill stores in the United States and Europe. Often, these manufacturers subcontract for foreign companies — or are owned by them. In fact, foreign investment continues to rise as multinational corporations build more factories in China. Beijing also insists that it will accept no mandatory limits on its carbon dioxide emissions, which would almost certainly reduce its industrial growth. It argues that rich countries caused global warming and should find a way to solve it without impinging on China’s development.

Thailand used to be the number one pollutor and now it's China sure where does the wealth come and go from...

Anyway the world will kill us before we kill it :-)

Take in to account that the USA has 12 Trillion dollar GMP and China's GMP is about 2 Trillion dollars.

"I bet they are happy to see one more big shot polluter in the world....Now they are not the only one...It is not...but it could be a spin story..."

This has to be one of the stupidest comments I've read in a while.

The New York Times is not going to make up lies about China in an attempt to make the US look better. The Times is not an arm of the US government or a propaganda vehicle.

Their reporters in China report what is actually happening there, regardless of whatever is happening in the US. And it's been reported for several years now by American and EUROPEAN publications that China is turning into an environmental disaster area.

It's not a secret, and it's not a conspiracy of lies by Americans.

When they reported on the massacre in Tiananmen Square, did you tell your friends that the American media made it up so people would stop talking about what we did to the Indians?

Jesus, what a jerk.

Lobert--> right on!!!

I hope China & the rest of the world will clean-up ASAP...before it's too late. We only have one world & we all share it. It's not like there are other planets we can go to. Please support Greenpeace & other agencies.

Action needs to be taken immediately!

**** it . You'll be dead soon anyway........8-)

Have you been talking with piant and thomas?

Chinese manufacturers that dump waste into rivers or pump smoke into the sky make the cheap products that fill stores in the United States and Europe.

I love this quote. And who does the government think they are harming most by doing this, especiall the river water. Typical Mainlanders.

It really doesn't matter who is causing or bank rolling the polution in their country as along is it is harming their citizens and environment. Set laws and regulatons and enforce them you idiots. You might lose some business to say Vietnam, but then hopefully the next country will do the same. At some point the lowest bar will be higher than it used to be.

scary... very scary

Conversation:

"We f**ked up out environment during the industrial revolution and years after that...Books like Silent Spring and the gradual awakening after 1960's made us to wake up and smell the coffee. Actually we noticed that we couldn't smell the coffee, and still cant smell it. Since then we have been trying to undo our screw ups. Our houses were covered in black smoke by the coal plants...Please, do not do not follow our mistakes in how we got where we are now. Please, find way to develop your country forward so that you don't destroy your nature the way we did along the way."

"Bah, why we should not be allowed do the same mistakes you did? We want to poison our environment too! Screw you, dont push us your western ideologies. GRRRR"

I think this could be one kind of caricature of the situation. (Please forgive any factual mistakes)

you have it pretty right sunsnow

the usa screwed up the enviroment big time during our industrial revelotion. the lakes and rivers were a mess the air was a mess. the quality has slowy been improving as people realize what has happened but there are still issuses here in the usa. i see it as very sad that these companies will go to other countries and build plants that wont meet epa standards in their own countries.

now people will say this is just a usa companies way of doing business. well its not every major company in the world has planets in other countries where they can get away with doing this. while in mexicalli, mexico i saw plants for companies from every corner of the globe operating there. the really funny thing to me was most of the air pollution i saw which can only be described as a thick low flying cloud was being picked up by the san andres ( i think thats right) winds going into southern california.

The pollution in China is the some of the worst anywhere (except maybe Mexico City). When you fly into Beijing on a plane all you can see is brown smog. There are many problems, the factories run mostly on coal, there are 6,000 new cars on the road each day as the middle class starts buying cars. The water pollution is really bad, i think at least half the rivers and lakes are polluted. But China is spending more money on R&D than any other country to solve the pollution problems. But is may take another 20 years.