View photos of China's pollution.
Coal is compressed history, buried death. Geologists estimate the seams of anthracite and bituminous coal in northern China, for instance, were formed from the Jurassic period onward. Within them are the remains of ferns, trees, mosses, and other life-forms from millions of years ago. Although long extinguished on the surface world, they still possess form and energy. Consider coal with a superstitious eye, and foul air might seem a curse suffered for disinterring preancient life. Described with a little poetic license, global warming is a planetary fever caused by burning too much of our past.
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China recently overtook the
United States as the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, largely
because it is so dependent on this fossil fuel. For each unit of energy,
coal produces 80 percent more carbon dioxide than natural gas and 20 percent
more than oil. This does not even include methane released from mines, for
which China accounts for almost half the global total, or spontaneous
combustion of coal seams, which release 100 megatons of energy from coal each
year. China's economy is utterly dependent on coal. It provides 69.5 percent of
the country's energy, a greater degree of reliance than that of any other major country. Cheap coal generates electricity for Beijing,
Shanghai, and Chongqing, fires the steel mills of Huaxi, powers the production
lines of Guangdong, and allows consumers in the West to buy Chinese goods at knockdown prices. No other fuel has such an impact on the environment, both local
and global.
Air pollution is appalling
in almost every city in China. The toll on human health is enormous. Barely 1 percent of the urban population breathes air considered
healthy by the World Health Organization, and it is worst in northern China. The
result is premature death, lung cancer, bronchitis, and other respiratory and
cardiovascular diseases. Another high-risk group is poor peasants who slowly
poison themselves by heating their homes with dirty coal. But the full risks
are obscured. The toxic buildup of lead, mercury, and other heavy metals in the
soil and water near coal plants and smelting factories is not usually measured.
Entire communities are being poisoned without realizing it.
Yet coal mines are as much
a part of China's civilization as paddy fields. Mining and industry have been
crucial in ensuring the longevity of the Middle Kingdom. Despite its reputation
as an agricultural civilization, for most of the last 2,000 years China has
been by far the world's biggest producer of coal and iron, a status lost
only temporarily in the early 19th century when Britain began
industrializing. It is no coincidence that the country's recent return to great
power status has come at a time when it is once again No. 1 in these basic
industries and when large numbers of peasants are working below rather than on
the surface.
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