Winton Dong

    dht620@sina.com

    WHILE Chinese were busy with the travel rush and family reunions to celebrate the Lunar New Year, the most important and spectacular festival in China, heavy smog was again blanketing Beijing and other northern industrial provinces that surround the capital.

    Under this circumstance, I can’t help remembering U.S. writer Rachel Carson (1907-1964) and her environmental science book “Silent Spring.” The book, published on Sept. 27, 1962, documented the detrimental effects on the environment of the indiscriminate use of Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and other pesticides in the United States, aiming to eradicate fire ants and other injurious pests after World War II.

    After its publishing, the book, which awakened environmental awareness in the American public, was met with fierce criticism and opposition from government agencies, chemical companies, research institutions and scientists who were financially sponsored by the chemical industry in the United States. Major pesticide producers such as DuPont and Velsicol threatened possible lawsuits against Carson and her research assistants for libel. In a letter to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, then U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson reportedly attacked Carson by saying that she was unmarried despite being physically attractive and she was “probably a Communist.”

    As the forerunner of the U.S. environmental movement, Carson died of breast cancer in 1964. Despite the fact that she didn’t see great environmental progress with her own eyes, her book spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy. The most direct legacy of Carson was the campaign to ban the use of DDT all over the United States, formation of the Environmental Defense Fund in 1967 and more importantly, the creation of the U.S. Environmental Agency (EPA) by the Richard Nixon Administration in 1970.

    In the 1950s and 60s, while Chinese were still enduring the Great Leap Forward period and the “Cultural Revolution,” U.S. citizens had come to realize the importance of environmental protection. China has achieved substantial economic progress since the launch of the reform and opening-up policy in the 1980s. However, it is still struggling to cope with environmental deterioration and the shrouding of smog in most parts of the country. Heavy smog not only disrupts airport and expressway traffic, but also obstructs schooling and daily work in northern China. Some well-equipped schools even had their physical education classes in gyms sealed with air purification systems. In Beijing, desperate parents are reported to be moving away from the capital or are considering doing so for the sake of their children’s health. Cities in Guangdong and Hainan provinces with better air quality are their primary destinations.

    No matter how advanced our economy is, a country without clean air cannot be a country of ascendance. We must take urgent and decisive measures to fight against smog and curb the deterioration of the environment. While inspecting Zhangjiakou (co-host city of the 2022 Winter Olympics together with Beijing) in Hebei Province on Jan. 24 this year, President Xi Jinping told provincial leaders to hasten reduction of industrial overcapacity. Premier Li Keqiang has also pledged to wage war on air pollution, and a goal of over 80 percent days with good air quality annually in major cities by 2020 has been written into China’s 13th Five-Year Plan. Fighting against pollution is surely an arduous task and faces strong headwinds. It will not only affect local GDP growth, but also impact the activities of various vested interest groups.

    Heavy reliance on coal for industrial purposes and indoor heating are major reasons for air pollution. China must enact stricter rules to cut excessive capacity in coal mining and the metallurgical industry, shut down low-quality coal mines and steel makers, undergo a series of low-carbon refurbishments, replace the existing outdated capacity with highly efficient capacity, optimize the smokestack industries of those coal-driven cities in northern China, and encourage them to go green and divert to dairy, tourism and other environmentally friendly industries.

    Meanwhile, the implementation of law is very important. Anyone who violates environmental protection laws, rules and regulations should be held accountable. The Central Government should also strengthen supervision of governments at various levels. However, instead of simply punishing polluting companies and individuals, the focus of supervision should be shifted to investigating the actions of local governments in environmental issues, such as insufficient attention paid to environmental protection, excessive exploration of natural resources and other forms of dereliction of duties.

    Moreover, according to a World Health Organization report, air pollution continues to pose a big threat to human health globally. About 2 million premature deaths all over the world annually can be attributed to the effects of air pollution. As China is waging a long-term war against air pollution, the government is urged to seriously study how pollution, especially smog (which is mainly composed of nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, carbon oxides, ozone, and smoke or particulates from industrial, coal, vehicle emissions and chemical reactions), impacts human health over the long term and deliver targeted and timely interventions.

    (The author is the editor-in-chief of the Shenzhen Daily and guest professor of Shenzhen University with a Ph.D. from the Journalism and Communication School of Wuhan University.)