China uses about half of the world’s cement for its new roads and buildings.According to the World Bank in 2007, China had 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities.One day in January 2013, the air pollution index in Beijing was 755—measured on a scale of 0 to 500!In late 2012, 16,000 dead pigs were found floating in the river that supplies water toShanghai, the PRC’s largest city. For 2010, a ministry of the Chinese government estimated the monetary cost of the environmental damage caused by rapid industrialization at $230 billion, which is 3.5 percent of China’s gross domestic product.Air pollution from Chinese factories wafts over to the Koreas and Japan. Sometimes, upper atmospheric winds carry the sulphur dioxide from China’s coal-burning clear over to North America’s west coast.
James Peoples, Humanity: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
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