It seems to me like there is laws against this, there are inspectors, but local corruption and small fines is making it ineffective.
Of the numbers at the end of the article are just somewhat correct, we're talking about maybe 10 factories (give or take). So this is certainly something that can be fixed.
At it's so far clear that the government is not condoning this behavior.
China has realized that given their population, climate change will disproportionately affect them. So the government has good reason to actually enforce environmental laws; they’re just too big to do it effectively.
>China has realized that given their population, climate change will disproportionately affect them.
Not entirely sure about this, time and time again there seems to be a disconnect between what China says and what China does.
>So the government has good reason to actually enforce environmental laws; they’re just too big to do it effectively.
When they want to, they are capable of blocking the entire internet, monitoring all residents, manipulating global raw materials. Why else run a dictatorship?
From speaking with people who have lived in China, the environment is a huge concern for the people living there. Unlike in the US, there is a very clear expectation that it's the government is both capable of, and is responsible for dealing with it.
Chinese people aren't some mindless propagandized drones. They have the same capacity of looking out the window as you or I.
You misunderstand me. I'm not calling them idiots, the average person is probably fully aware that all of this environmental damage turned the sky yellow and made it hotter.
The people making the foam 100% know it's illegal (as they demonstrated) and why it's illegal - yet they still do it. The money is more important to them than the ethics.
Besides, if the Chinese government and the Chinese people didn't think differently, all of this censoring and covering up wouldn't be needed.
> The money is more important to them than the ethics.
This is a problem in every country. There's nothing unique about China in that respect. Unethical people will tend behave unethically when money is on the line.
Maybe the cover-ups are done in order to save face, or because some particular agent in the department responsible is getting kickbacks. The CCP as a whole does benefits from the first, not the second.
> When they want to, they are capable of blocking the entire internet, monitoring all residents, manipulating global raw materials. Why else run a dictatorship?
Efforts to enforce regulations on CFC gasses need to work all the time.
Efforts to censor the internet only needs to work most the of the time.
>It seems to me like there is laws against this, there are inspectors, but local corruption and small fines is making it ineffective.
It's not just that, higher government in China have caused the situation - they without doubt hold much of the burden for this. There are multiple angles as for why:
* One of the Chinese Communist Party's main points confirming how amazing their party is (and therefore why it shouldn't be challenged) is the amount it's been able to grow the economy. This has created a national sentiment of "growth at all costs".
* Setting high economic growth goals on local officials means they need to cut corners to get there - including lying about how much money they really made and ignoring laws in favour of growth. The consequence to this is often human lives and environmental damage.
* Preventing the average person from investing in anything other than cheap buildings means that China's housing market has ballooned out of control. (Those who have been able to sneak money outside of China usually also invest in housing.) Building companies therefore want to widen their margins as much as possible whilst competing for investment from locals.
* Trying to maintain a positive image for the Chinese Communist Party means squashing any scandals caused by officials and censoring public discussion/outrage on sensitive issues, such as health and environmental damage. (This doesn't always work, feeding babies cement instead of milk powder was a "little" too far.)
>Of the numbers at the end of the article are just somewhat correct, we're talking about maybe 10 factories (give or take). So this is certainly something that can be fixed.
That's so far and in just one industry. It's also possible other industries are also using CFC-11 but are yet to be discovered.
>At it's so far clear that the government is not condoning this behavior.
1 billion+ people and mass monitoring, I'm pretty sure somebody was aware of this in high level government. By not saying anything, they are effectively condoning it.
Actually, I wouldn't trust the Chinese government to make the formal investigation - they had their chance years ago and did nothing. If we were serious about this, the investigators would be an international team (including Chinese people) and the repercussions would be massive. One "benefit" to it being a dictatorship is that they can arbitrarily set the consequences of these actions and set an example.
Of course this won't actually happen, foreign Countries wouldn't want to risk bad relations with China and the Chinese government wouldn't actually benefit from punishing a large part of their crucial industry who were effectively acting on their orders. They only need to be seen doing the "right" thing.
> They only need to be seen doing the "right" thing.
If it's really is just a handful of factories, the cost of doing the right thing isn't particularly high. It might just be easier than working hard to fake it :)
It seems to me like there is laws against this, there are inspectors, but local corruption and small fines is making it ineffective.
Of the numbers at the end of the article are just somewhat correct, we're talking about maybe 10 factories (give or take). So this is certainly something that can be fixed.
At it's so far clear that the government is not condoning this behavior.