Monday, May 7, 2007
MY REFLECTION:
The article mainly talks about one type of cross boundary pollution, air pollution. Pollution does not respect boundaries. It can drift by air or sea or be imported as waste aboard ships, from one jurisdiction to another. It is inevitable. Some countries may not need to be responsible for those pollutions but with increasing globalization of pollutions, they have to spend money to deal with problems that are not triggered by their own.
Globalization is double edged sword. It does bring both benefit and problems to our world, depending what is being globalized and to what extent people benefit from it. Facing the problem showing in the article, the globalization of pollutions is certainly not a good thing. As the article described, there are scores of deaths and billions of dollars in damages due to the sand pollution in China pass over to South Korea and Japan. Moreover, it also increases the tension in neighbor countries’ relationship. There are also many other pollutions which are able to cross border. For example, there are garbages from the Chinese mainland washes up on Kinmen's shore which is in Taiwan. Contaminated seawater from China also travels to Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong through the Yellow and East China seas. Further more, there are reports saying that pollution from Asia is helping generate stronger storms over the North Pacific. Satellite measurements have shown an increase in tiny particles generated from coal burning in China and India in recent decades. Comparing 1984-1994 with 1994-2005 they found an increase of 20 percent to 50 percent in deep convective clouds. In addition, smoke from burning jungles in Indonesia spread across wider portions of Southeast Asia last Novermber testing the relationship between the neighbours.
Moreover, globalisation worsen the problem to some extent. Tasking the examples mentioned in the articles, Why Bei jing has to suffer at least 6 sand storms per year? This also has something to do with the globalisation in China. As there are more and more foreign investments in China, there are less spaces for houses, factories and morden facilities. People have to cut down the trees resulting more soil can not be hold by the root of the trees in raining days. They begin to move with wind and thus there are increasing amount of sand. Moverover, increasing factories globally inreases the amount of contaminated water, polluted air and toxin chemicals emitted. This in term results in worsen pollution state in original country. Then due to the natural factors, such as wind, rain etc, those pollutions are transformed to other countries resulting in pollution globalisation.
Then how to solve the cross boundary pollution problem? I think the only way to tackle these problems is through joint efforts in which all parties share responsibility for reducing pollution. It may not be fair to those countries who do not trigger the problem but suffer the consequences, like Singapore in the issue of Indonesia Smoke. However, since those pollutions have come to their own countries, governments have the responsibility to reduce them for the sick of their people. They may set up funds to build clear up facilities, filtration systems etc for treatment of the pollution. In addition, neighbour countries may come into agreement to join force to solve the problem. For example, South Korea has reached a deal with Mongolia and China to set up more monitoring stations for dust storms. Moreover, international organizations can also be set up to solve the cross boundary problems. For example, the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) has set up a Cross-boundary and International Division to put a sharper focus on our efforts to deal with regional and international pollution issues. The EPD’s efforts to reduce trans-boundary pollution reflect the idea that environmental protection is a shared responsibility.
Hence, in conclusion, globalization of cross boundary pollutions is certainly a disadvantage of the globalization. However, it has to use the force of globalization to control the situation and lessen the problem.
Sign off,
Li shihan
Environmental and health expert
Future Perfect; Environment and Health Expert
10:26 PM
