By Alex DobuzinskisGreen is the color of death, according to the New York Times.
And the Green Revolution, which was a catalyst for a drastic transformation in how humans lived, is often credited with the green revolution.
But, in fact, the green transition in China was largely driven by toxic chemicals, according the New Scientist.
In a recent study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, researchers from the University of California at Davis found that the environmental health of Chinese cities was a significant contributor to a dramatic decline in life expectancy over the last 50 years.
“A few decades of rapid urbanization has transformed China into one of the most polluted nations on earth,” said lead author Christopher S. Johnson, a professor in the department of Earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences.
In China, pollution, including pollution from air conditioners and industrial waste, was responsible for about half of the country’s deaths in the first half of this century, Johnson said.
When you compare China to the U.S., you’ll see the same thing, said Richard B. Anderson, a co-author of the paper and a professor at the University at Albany.
“In China the number one cause of death is air pollution.
So you’d expect China to be much more polluted than the United States, but in reality China is not that polluted.”
While China is notorious for its toxic air, the pollution in the country is largely tied to industrial waste and the city’s reliance on chemical fertilizers.
In the first part of the 20th century, industrialization in China transformed the countryside into a vast metropolis, said Johnson, which meant the need for toxic chemicals to be used to grow food.
“As the urban population grew, the need to feed the population grew as well, and that was the catalyst for the chemical industries,” Johnson said, referring to the chemical factories that processed the industrial waste for fertilizer and pesticides.
“And that, in turn, created the need of toxic chemicals for fertilizers, pesticides and for food production.”
The research found that Chinese cities were the worst polluters in the world, with a pollution rate of more than 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per capita.
While the number of people living in the city was growing, the number per person of air pollution was increasing, with the amount of toxic compounds in the air increasing from a relatively small amount in the early 1900s to about one billion tons of toxins in 2010.
“The Chinese are the worst environmental offenders,” Johnson told the Associated Press.
The study also found that China’s environmental health was deteriorating in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
A large portion of the pollution was due to industrial wastes.
According to the study, nearly 30 percent of the urban smog was due, in part, to the use of industrial wastes as fertilizer.
Another big contributor was the lack of access to fresh water, and it has been estimated that one third of the world’s population lives below the poverty line.
But the pollution is not just due to China’s poor environmental stewardship.
In addition to the lack the country has access to clean water, pollution from industrial waste also contributes to poor health in many parts of the developing world, including in India, the Philippines, Brazil and Indonesia, the authors said.
In fact, China has some of the highest levels of air pollutants in the entire world, according a 2011 report from the World Health Organization.
In other words, China’s pollution is far from perfect.
And while China’s efforts to tackle the problem are laudable, the results have not been as positive as Johnson would like.
According to Johnson, China is responsible for the majority of air emissions in the United Kingdom, France and other nations.
He said China’s overall air quality in China is worse than other developing nations because of the large amount of pollutants it is using.
“China’s air pollution is more than five times worse than that of the United Nations, and is comparable to some of Europe’s worst cities,” he said.
“And that’s a serious problem.”
Johnson also noted that China does not have a good track record of improving air quality, citing the country in the mid-1990s as a source of major pollution, and the country still has not made major strides.
It is unclear if the green transformation in China has made the environmental impact of its pollution any less significant, however.
In 2009, China announced a new plan to reduce its pollution levels.
However, according for the AP, China had to meet some of its targets by 2019.
In 2010, China set aside $1.4 billion for its environmental improvement plan.
Johnson noted that the funds were earmarked for pollution control, clean water and other initiatives.
Still, China still has the second highest air pollution rate in the World.
Meanwhile, China remains one of only a handful of developing nations with the highest rates of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other health problems. China’s
