Air Pollution in China Essay

In November 2013, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. Then I was only eight years old, which made me the youngest person in China or even in the whole world to be diagnosed with the disease. According to Chinese officials, the cause of my illness was exposure to polluted air for a very long time. Later that month, the World Health Organization classified air pollution as a significant human carcinogen. By then, studies did not say much about lung cancer in children. Research into the impact of air pollution on human health and death has only been useful in instituting federal air quality regulations.

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My disease brought to light the effects of the Chinese government's obsession with growth. My country makes most of its policies depending on whether they will help grow the country or not. This obsession has made the government forget the people who they are supposed to serve. Today in China, there are more than 400 villages labelled as cancer villages because they possess high risks of cancer. Most of these villages are close to pollutant factories, and they have an unusually high number of deaths each year.

I feel that the government is more concerned about the thriving of industries and forgetting the lives of people. Lung cancer has been there among children before, but mine was the first incident where it was caused by pollution. The previous cases have been hereditary or genetic, and they were easier to manage compared to mine. I understand that a nation needs to grow its economy and industries, but should it be at the cost of its citizens? What's the point of being a superpower nation with an unhealthy population?

President Xi Jinping's emissions-cutting agreement with, former United States President, Barack Obama gave environmentalists and those of us suffering from the pollution some hope of a better China in the future. In the agreement, the United States agreed to reduce emissions by 26-28 per cent below its level in 2005 by 2025. For me, this was good news because it meant that no more children would have to suffer like me in the future. This plan was only good on paper because the local authorities tasked with the implementation rely heavily on the revenues from the polluting factories. These authorities have opted to act blind to activities of these factories because after all reduction in emissions can only save the future, unlike thriving industries that are going to improve the economy today.

In 2013 Jin Zengmin, chief executive of an Hangzhou eyeglasses retailer, offered 200,000 Yuan ($32,000) to Bao Zhenmin in a bet for him to swim in a river Jin used to play in as a child. Bao Zhenmin is Ruian's environmental protection bureau chief. The bid by Jin was prompted by his numerous attempts to get the local officials to pay attention to the river without success. Jin had shared images on twitter and other social media platforms but still got no response. This case shows how much we as the Chinese citizens are craving to have a less polluted country, but the government is not listening.

I do not wish my condition on any other child. This sickness does not leave room for me to do most of the things people my age are doing. China is home to over 1.3 billion people. But today most of these people are sick or dying from diseases that could be avoided by nurturing a less polluted China.

(This girl lives close to a major road in Jiangsu province of Eastern China. https://www.latimes.com/nydn-life-style-health-china-youngest-lung-cancer-patient-8-years-old-1-1507272-story.html )

References

Brink, S. (2013). A Chinese Child's Lung Cancer Is Linked to Pollution. Retrieved 6 November 2019, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131108-lung-cancer-childhood-china-pollution-eight-year-old-girl/