China’s Water and Air pollution Crisis

Published on Jan 13, 2014: Lately there’s been a lot […]

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Climate State

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February 13, 2014

Published on Jan 13, 2014: Lately there’s been a lot of talk about Chinese air pollution; smog so thick, you can barely see the streets of Beijing. But what you might not know is that China is facing a major water crisis. Rivers are drying up and there’s not enough water to go around. And what little water there is has been so polluted by chemical and industrial run off, it’s undrinkable. And if the Three Gorges Dam didn’t cause enough trouble, the next great public work sure will. It’s called The South-North Diversion Project, and will link up the Yellow River with the Yangtze River, hopefully funneling water from the south to the water starved North. All it takes is drilling through the Himalayas.

Related

Shanghai Tower (650 meters) gives a good perspective on the air pollution (smog)

Reuters: Severe pollution in Beijing has made the Chinese capital “barely suitable” for living, according to an official Chinese report, as the world’s second-largest economy tries to reduce often hazardous levels of smog caused by decades of rapid growth.

Pollution is a rising concern for China’s stability-obsessed leaders, keen to douse potential unrest as affluent city dwellers turn against a growth-at-all-costs economic model that has tainted much of the country’s air, water and soil. The report, by the Beijing-based Social Science Academic Press and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, ranked the Chinese capital second worst out of 40 global cities for its environmental conditions, official media reported on Thursday.

China’s smog has brought some Chinese cities to a near standstill, caused flight delays and forced schools to shut.

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70 Comments

  1. Jeremy Parsons January 14, 2014 at 12:28 am - Reply

    well thank god I waited to drink beer tonight. the water in the south is
    in large supply but it is all run off from the north and black. nothing
    lives in it. when I was in Hainin china I turned on the shower and it
    comes out yellow and smells like piss. oh I was naked and standing in the
    shower when I turned it on.

  2. Jeremy Parsons January 14, 2014 at 12:33 am - Reply

    gao is gonna miss me guys, soon I go to china to bring home my spanking
    brand new Chinese wife. she is Cantonese so yes a much better
    quality person than his kind, so I will be very busy banging my brains out
    and not able to play on youtube much. just be happy my video camera not
    on. you might go blind.

  3. SuspiciousComrade January 14, 2014 at 12:36 am - Reply

    crap crap and more crap

  4. Eric von Terrible January 14, 2014 at 12:39 am - Reply

    They say the CCP stays in power because they feed the people. If studying
    the Third Reich has taught me anything, people fear uncertainty, and
    because the CCP provides security from this, they stay in power. I fear
    what the CCP will do with their backs to the wall, especially with regards
    to Japan. Vietnam? Money on Vietnam, remember the Sino-Veitamese War of
    1980 (I think that’s the year…)

  5. Sean James January 14, 2014 at 12:40 am - Reply

    Stop drinking China’s water, the poor elite members of the CCP can’t fill
    their many pools in their mansions. I bet collecting rain water isn’t an
    option with the air pollution, it becomes undrinkable before it hits the
    ground!

  6. david gong January 14, 2014 at 12:46 am - Reply

    The result of greed?

  7. TheBuckeyeFarm January 14, 2014 at 1:02 am - Reply

    India has sanitation and water problems just like China. India fighting
    over water, and some rivers don’t even make it to the ocean anymore.
    Western U.S. needs to learn to conserve water, but the farmers need large
    amounts for their crops. All people of the world have problem with clean
    fresh water, because it brings new wars and conflicts.

  8. John Munro January 14, 2014 at 1:07 am - Reply

    Why haven’t you done a video on the massive fire that burnt down a huge
    amount of shangri-la that was started in a newly built hotel and when the
    firefighters didn’t come and a local man opened a fire hydrant there was no
    water because the CCP turned them off!

  9. thomas cureton January 14, 2014 at 1:15 am - Reply

    I’m going to live in Shanghai in September to study at Fudan university for
    a semester, this is quite startling, haha

  10. blazinchalice January 14, 2014 at 1:15 am - Reply

    2:47 This is hyperbole and offensive. I’ve been to China. While the water
    conditions in Beijing were atrocious (undrinkable tap water at the Nikko
    Hotel, open sewage running in drains throughout the city), I took a shower
    and came out smelling fine.

  11. TENCENT January 14, 2014 at 2:04 am - Reply

    way to go

  12. Yu Wang January 14, 2014 at 2:19 am - Reply

    Thanks for reminding me to help my country to build it much better. Thank
    you so much.

  13. Andrew Leung January 14, 2014 at 2:20 am - Reply
  14. MrGornowich January 14, 2014 at 2:21 am - Reply

    wonder what crisis China is going to have next? Evil Mutants? *fingers
    crossed*

  15. thomas reddick January 14, 2014 at 2:42 am - Reply

    Here is one for you Chris, up here in New York, Michigan and some other
    states sit up here on the great lakes, we have products that come into the
    states from china on freighter which they dump their water that they used
    for ballast which is filled with polluted water and holds all kinds of
    animals and material that is not native to the United States.. Like the
    zebra muscles and a fish called the Goby The freighters are asked by the
    country they are coming from to dump there ballast into our waters and then
    when they get to the port of call, they then take in our water from the
    great lakes to be used for ballast on their return trip which they bottle
    and sell as soon as they get back to the their own country. all this
    happens and our government gets on the sportsman with higher licence fees
    and more and more regulations on what we can do. Instead of tackling the
    real reasons.

  16. TheLongshot1982 January 14, 2014 at 3:05 am - Reply

    How does anybody survive with such unhealthy water? They have already
    murdered the Chinese river dolphin to be functionally extinct in less then
    40 years. How does it support a nation with over a billion people?….and
    now your telling me its going to effect another nation of over a billion
    people my spreading the problem????? the dead pig thing put a delicious
    taste of bile in my mouth, its such a clusterf@#$ it WILL effect the
    enviorment globally at some point if not already. If you know anything
    about the world currents and ecosystems etc. everything is in delicate
    balance…….WE ARE F@#$ED…… chris is the man!!!

  17. CodeStock January 14, 2014 at 3:32 am - Reply

    Maybe when Chinese will struggle with fulfilling basic needs like clean
    water they will finally wake up and do something about their idiotic
    government.

  18. Excalibur01 January 14, 2014 at 3:35 am - Reply

    Fuck, I’m going to be possibly staying with relatives for a month. Guess I
    can go for a month without brushing my teeth

  19. TheLoyalOfficer January 14, 2014 at 3:50 am - Reply

    This story definitely has “legs” – to use the journalistic parlance.

    Long term, this may be China’s worst problem of them all.

  20. frangitofrangito January 14, 2014 at 3:58 am - Reply

    Depends. Some people love China, others don’t. Personally, I haven’t been
    there in 30+ years. Maybe it’s better now. Don’t know. But the last time I
    was there it was a shit hole. Beggars and pickpockets everywhere,
    government officials harassing you for bribes, unscrupulous drivers taking
    you for a ride and overcharging, and of course, endless government
    bureaucracy. Has anything changed, then? Let me know.

    Some have said that Chris’ videos give a negative view of China. I happen
    to enjoy them because he exposes the corruption and hypocrisy that is
    rampant in the country. I already HAVE a negative view of China. Maybe
    that’s why I’m such a big fan.

    As for evidence that dams cause seismic activity, China jailed a prominent
    and experienced local seismologist after he went public with his opposition
    to a dam being built on a fault line in Szechuan province a few months
    after the catastrophic earthquake there. How’s that for proof?

  21. recordmanful January 14, 2014 at 5:10 am - Reply
  22. Mojoman57 January 14, 2014 at 6:13 am - Reply

    Problem solved! Obama is selling fresh water from the Great Lakes to China.
    He’s such a nice guy.

  23. Daniel Ackerman January 14, 2014 at 6:18 am - Reply
  24. Neko Usagi January 14, 2014 at 6:29 am - Reply

    this might sound like a dumb comment but i thought china was distilled the
    sea water into drinkable water [or something like that] this is all so
    crazy though

    why don’t the china people rise up and fight…..or wait, they’re to weak
    from no water or air…..

  25. xbuster17 January 14, 2014 at 7:20 am - Reply

    people are 70% water, china has to many people they say, solution, ccp run
    soylent green soda! it’s so simple! Chris just likes to exaggerate every
    tiny chinese problem!

  26. SPRoubi2020 January 14, 2014 at 7:45 am - Reply

    Why don’t they just build solar and wind powered desalinization plants
    along the coast and channel that water to areas in need? I know it sounds a
    little far-fetched, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

  27. Pingali Sivasehubabu January 14, 2014 at 4:49 pm - Reply

    WATER IN CHINA.

  28. SEAN PAN January 14, 2014 at 4:55 pm - Reply

    Let’s make it clear, China is not censoring this information from their own
    people. In fact,they are doing the best and trying to develop the new
    technology to solve the problem. We hope they will succeed,we may learn
    something from them for our future. The only thing Chris can do with the
    bad spins is to fool you, my dear fellow Americans, but it won’t help us in
    any way.

  29. SEAN PAN January 14, 2014 at 5:32 pm - Reply

    They are dealing with their own problems head on and will succeed some
    where down the line. What have our government been doing since Moon shots?

  30. Afrohog January 14, 2014 at 8:47 pm - Reply

    Your so good at doing these vids dude, your both professional and
    interesting, never letting things get to dry. Not even this ep xD

  31. Assassinister Creed January 14, 2014 at 9:11 pm - Reply

    They should invent fake water.

  32. Theresa Youtubinator January 14, 2014 at 9:26 pm - Reply

    sad : (
    scary look you did at the beginning!

  33. TheMotoben January 14, 2014 at 9:59 pm - Reply

    It is a shame really. If China can afford to – and feels the need to –
    invest what is a truly staggering amount of money in the canal project,
    then the advances that they could make in de-salination would be amazing.
    After that, the solution could probably be franchised with Chinese plants
    de-salinating water cheaply for so many other countries. This would be at
    least some return for the investment, and it would be in cold hard foreign
    currency.

  34. NoLongeraTheory January 14, 2014 at 10:48 pm - Reply
  35. Roger Van Zant January 14, 2014 at 11:30 pm - Reply

    Stuff like this is why I don’t think China is likely to become a hyperpower
    under CCP rule.

  36. Curtis Gregory January 15, 2014 at 12:22 am - Reply

    +Zy Liu ,,, very true, I seen it happen in California.
    Worth repeating: http://fotomen.cn/2011/12/polution/2/
    All states in US have followed California, it really works.
    I clearly remember, me as a little guy, here in North Carolina.
    I felt the pain, I was fined $3500 for a small error I made while burning
    some garbage.

  37. akronzips101 January 15, 2014 at 3:14 am - Reply

    china is like mexico on steroids, DIIRTY!

  38. pseudo123456 January 15, 2014 at 4:57 am - Reply

    wonder how much cloudseeding you need to fill up a lake?

  39. 10WLan January 15, 2014 at 5:17 am - Reply

    All right, now I know why chinese don’t wash themselves very much, there’s
    a reason. Luckly, their smell isn’t strong like ours and this is a bless in
    the Shanghai’s subway. Oh shit, I just noticed that two years in China made
    me a racist like them! Whatever, chinese people are good guys, except for
    all that makes them so stupid and corrupted. The communist party, indeed.

  40. Hammond Organ January 15, 2014 at 5:38 am - Reply

    It really smells like an addiction to large projects to keep 1.5 billion
    people employed, than anything realistically related to logic. Great video.

  41. shockwave2291 January 15, 2014 at 11:03 am - Reply

    What’s funny is that China has access to one of the largest freshwater
    sources in the world: The Himalayas. Despite this, the commie government
    still managed to make water shortage a major problem because of poor
    regulation

  42. Laurens van Rooijen January 15, 2014 at 6:12 pm - Reply

    I very much agree with the core statement: No matter how big the oppression
    is, a government that cannot deliver drinkable water, edible food and
    non-poisonous air to breath is facing a serious problem, for these are the
    basic needs of every individual. If China fails to adress this challenge,
    this will cause the fall of the CCP. Sooner or later.

  43. MabusZero January 15, 2014 at 10:50 pm - Reply

    A very nice treatment of the fallacies of central management of resources.
    The incentive structures and logical limitations are commensurate to scale
    rather than intention.

  44. Kevin Sullivan January 16, 2014 at 8:33 am - Reply

    Look up “Life Straw” Its a tube that filters the filthiest water instantly.
    They cost around ten dollars and are given free to African children to
    drink from mud holes.
    They are probably made in china and could be made available to the public
    there.
    But like you said the Chinese government looks for mega solutions that
    cause more problems and overlook the simple answers.

  45. Pro 2 Gold January 16, 2014 at 8:22 pm - Reply

    I wouldn’t swim in that pool of 1000 people, someone may have pee’d in that
    pool or worse made a Baby Ruth…

  46. p money January 17, 2014 at 3:55 pm - Reply

    i guess this is a part of the broader chinese movement towards energy
    securing, seems the military build up should help enforce that or make it
    easier to quell uproars

  47. Lance Alot January 17, 2014 at 9:14 pm - Reply

    Simple, We should bomb China or go to war IF they dont comply with New
    Regulations.

  48. Greginda11 January 18, 2014 at 1:04 am - Reply

    as a worst case scenario, mass dehydration, revolution, military rebuff,
    tens to hundreds of millions dead.

  49. MrTankwu January 18, 2014 at 9:09 pm - Reply
  50. mailee le January 20, 2014 at 9:56 am - Reply

    CCP does not care about his or her people only party. Chinese can die but
    not a party CCP wants to rule the China as long as they want and CCP is
    also rule everything” Disastrous.”

  51. magemaatikko January 21, 2014 at 3:31 pm - Reply

    In 20-40 years the effe4cts are to going to play major role! If you cant
    have water

  52. AssadNizam January 23, 2014 at 3:08 am - Reply

    I contracted Shigella Dysentriae & needed to be hospitalized as soon as I
    got back from China. No villages or countryside, just big & medium sized
    cities all up & down the eastern coast from Behai to HK by train for a
    month..& I only washed with it…I did drink soda with local ice in western
    owned fast food places..god knows what I ate

  53. believersunderground January 24, 2014 at 5:16 am - Reply

    China’s drinking water is done! bug good old water incorp day. 322

  54. John Jeffrey February 2, 2014 at 5:46 am - Reply

    Another indignity suffered upon the people of China..And for what? More
    garbage to fill Walmart’s shelves? More money in the pockets of the rich
    and the corrupt?
    Why did they not see the damage done in other countries by un-regulated
    industry? When no thought is given to the environment? It’s a simple
    equation…You don’t shit where you eat!…and when all the potable water
    is gone…when they cannot grow crops..or even run industry to churn out
    more patio furniture and DVD players then where will the people go? The
    ☭ CCP ☭ is gonna look silly when everyone is dead..or has run away to
    other places where they can still breathe and drink the water…

  55. blunt stone February 6, 2014 at 5:56 am - Reply

    society fools following stupid things without thinking are the cause of
    this and many of you people watching this video dont even see anything
    wrong but if you’re living a blind existence following what people you dont
    even know tell you to do , buying tons of useless stuff and selling youre
    whole freedom and life time to get money than youre as much skum as the
    government is .. basically youre not even alive.. youre just a useless
    follower.

  56. Wilson Dizard February 7, 2014 at 5:56 am - Reply

    When the price of a good increases people reevaluate the ways they use it.
    A gallon of gasoline (equivalent to about four liters) in the US
    frequently costs about as much as a liter of petrol in Europe, which partly
    explains why European cars typically get much better gas mileage than US
    autos. Water pollution and air pollution both are examples of “the tragedy
    of the commons.” When a good that is held in common (like grazing access to
    the “commons” in the UK before the 18th Century enclosure movement divided
    up all the land and changed land tenure law) is available to all “for
    free,” the result very often is wasteful consumption or pollution; hence,
    tragedy of the commons. The solution is the “polluter pays” principle of
    environmental law: that all of those polluting chemical plants have to pay
    for cleaning up the water they’ve destroyed or the air they’ve fouled. That
    principle in the US was successfully attacked by the Reagan-Bush
    administrations and the polluting industry campaign donors. Apparently it’s
    never been introduced in China. Preventing pollution in the first place is
    clearly the way to go. Cap and trade laws are the way to go for curbing
    greenhouse gas emissions, because they allocate pollution control spending
    most efficiently.

  57. Roots Lifted February 13, 2014 at 5:37 am - Reply

    fuck china!

  58. hogo1 February 14, 2014 at 11:56 am - Reply

    disgusting fucking country

  59. SolarWeatherWatch February 16, 2014 at 3:51 am - Reply

    Untrue.. not anywhere,, New York City tap water is perfectly drinkable. We
    have the best tap water on the planet. Except maybe for Dubai.

  60. DangerMou$e February 18, 2014 at 8:48 pm - Reply

    Well, China is obtaining our fresh water from our Great Lakes through the
    2006 Great Lakes Compact. There is a loophole in it allowing companies to
    take fresh water out of our Great Lakes as long as they are shipped in
    containers below a certain size. Since 2006 the water level of the Great
    Lakes has dropped significantly and China is one of the countries
    benefiting. I guess if they can’t get their fresh water from home, getting
    it from their enemy is the next best thing.

  61. littleray93 February 21, 2014 at 8:49 am - Reply

    How bad do things have to get in China before the government finally does
    something to reverse all this damage that is being done to the environment?
    If things continue like this, I’m afraid it will be too late.

  62. Connor Schuster February 22, 2014 at 4:43 pm - Reply

    That’s what Communism gets you

  63. dagnyatl February 27, 2014 at 7:14 am - Reply

    I was in Bangkok in summer 2008 and was horrified by the appearance of the
    water in the city’s “canals”. I swear to you, it GLOWED GREEN. Scary and
    it’s coming a city near US.

  64. Thieluar Polytropoi March 2, 2014 at 6:28 am - Reply

    is the bottled water safe to drink?

  65. Adrian Gomez March 5, 2014 at 9:37 am - Reply

    Why aren’t people aware of this. Are people so blind as to what is going on
    this the planet. This planet is fucked and to late to repair it.,
    especially since the U.S has stubborn people.

  66. Christopher Harris March 7, 2014 at 6:40 am - Reply

    wow…I thought my country made bonehead decisions…

  67. David McConville April 6, 2014 at 5:14 pm - Reply

    No wonder they invest so much in Canada, we got the largest supply of fresh
    water that everyone wants.

    Anyway, China’s situation is less sustainable than the water consumption in
    U.S. states like Florida. It won’t be long until their growing industries
    causes devastating amounts of internal strife and the country plunges into
    civil war. (assuming one does not start up with India, Nepal, Bangladesh
    and other affected countries in South East Asia that rely on the glaciers
    from the Himalayas.

  68. Michael Leavitt April 28, 2014 at 4:24 am - Reply

    *Water Is A Basic Need*

    China doesn’t have enough clean fresh water.

  69. Kenneth Leslie May 15, 2014 at 1:57 am - Reply

    To say it brief…China is screwed: the state faces its own internal
    deconstruction and collapse at this rate from beyond poor choices that will
    cause more destruction than that caused by both Imperial Japan and the
    Mongols during their invasions COMBINED.

  70. arki ting May 25, 2014 at 3:08 pm - Reply

    believed or not, china deserved for these situation.

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