GEOL 352 – Fall 2014 September 24, 2014 Veronica Sosa-Gonzalez China: Setting the context

Outline Geography and population Health and education Political history Relation to environment Climate and Environment Environmental issues of today

Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment

Area: 9,327,490 km 2 Second largest country in the world Population: 1,357,380,000(2013) Rural population: 637,284,480 (2013) $6,807 GDP per capita Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment

Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment

Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment

Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment

Life expectancy: 75 Fertility: 1.7 births per woman Adolescent fertility rate: 9/100,000 women (15-19 years) Tuberculosis: 73/100,000 people (0.073%) Mortality (<5 years): 13/10,000 live births HIV: No Data Literacy percentage: 93% (2010) School enrollment –Tertiary: 27% (2012) Ratio of female to male tertiary enrollment: 113 (2012) Primary school completion rate: No Data Public spending on education: No Data Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment

: Xinhai Revolution puts and end to the Qing dynasty and establishes the Republic of China January 1, 1912: Establishment of the Republic of China Period of great instability, ended by the Chinese Civil War in 1949 October 1, 1949: Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong proclaims the Establishment of the People’s Republic of China Great Leap Forward slogan: Man must conquer nature Population growth Starvation deaths ( ) Mao died in 1976 Currently Xi Jinping is the President of the People’s Republic of China (since March 14, 2013) Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment

The “three great cuttings” (or four?) The Great Leap Forward ( ) Backyard steel furnaces to produce enough steel to “catch up” with West world. Melting of plows, pots and other metal to create useless steel Roughly 600,000 furnaces were operating by October 1958 required coal, almost all made by clearing forests and establishing charcoal burners in villages Grain as a Key Link ( ) Response to the famine following the Great Leap Forward Dazhai model Deforestation for agriculture Grain production became the highest priority Opening for Development (early 1980s) Dismantling of collectivized agriculture and creation of household responsibility system. Peasant families where contracted to do the farming work, and they had control over their agricultural practices decision making – widespread illegal deforestation resulted Market-driven deforestation ( )? State-owned forest companies gain considerable freedom from the Ministry of Forestry Forest companies were able to respond to market needs and thus improve market efficiency (chainsaws and heavy machinery can now wipe out forests for timber products faster)

Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment

Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment

Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment

Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment China

Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment China ranks 118/178 countries Overall score 43/100

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN CHINA Air pollution Water pollution Desertification Dam constructions Massive production of goods e-waste dump

Hydropower in China World leader in dam amount and hydropower energy Produces over 15% of the world’s hydropower 22,000 dams more than 15m tall built since the 1950s Three gorges dam (2008) stretches 1.5 miles across the Yangtze river Produces 10x the hydropower of the Hoover Dam

The world’s 10 Most Polluted Places – Scientific American, 2007 LINFEN, CHINA TIANYING, CHINA At the center of Chinese lead production, this town has lead concentrations in its air and soil that are 8.5 to 10 times those of the national health standards. The concentrations of lead dusting the local crops are 24 times too high. In the heart of China's coal region in Shanxi Province, Linfen has dust and pollution that make it almost impossible to breathe, and the water is polluted with arsenic.

GUIYU, CHINA: an e-waste dump

Olympics in Beijing - August 8-24, 2008

What I saw in the field...