Causes of more frequent sandstorms in China

"Between Ad 300 and 1949, northwestern China experienced a sandstorm on average every 31 years, but after 1990, the average increased to one sandstorm per year, while by 2006, the average rate of sandstorms for the Beijing region was five or six a year" (Visible earth, 2006). According to the dictionary, a sandstorm is a storm in which sand is blown into the air by strong winds (Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary). Overgrazing, overharvesting of ground flora and nonstandard mines resulting in grasslands degenerating into deserts as well as climate change accelerating the wind strength together lead to more frequent sandstorms in China.
First of all, overgrazing and overharvesting are creating more sand sources these years that directly caused more sandstorms. "Grassland Sustainable Development Research of China", which was done by Development Research Center of The State Council of China in 2003, indicated that the overgrazing was an acute environmental problem: by 2003, the average overgrazing rate of the grassland in Northern China was above 36%. In other words, when the amount of livestock in northeast China has exceeded the capability of the grassland, the growth of grass cannot catch up with the rate of abatement, which results in the descending of grassland. As a result, the soil is exposed to the air causing degeneration of soil. Moreover, some of the ground flora in northwest China is ideal herb. Liu and Diamond (2005) argued that because of overharvesting, the grass production in a unit hectare has been decreasing to about 60% since the 1950s. Taking liquorice: as an example, people are digging out liquorice blindly for tiny economic benefit, which may not only make the liquorice extinct but also break the balance of living conditions of other ground flora. Without the ground flora keeping nutrition and water in the soil, the soil degenerates into sand. So more frequently, the sand storm is created.

Furthermore, sand sources are being made by illegal or bad-planned mining. As stated by Farndon (2007), China is comparatively short of oil and gas resources. Thus, 70 percent of its energy comes from coal. A large number of coalfields are distributed over northwest China. For the sake of profits, many nonstandard and small-scale mines are set up illegally on the area that was forest or grassland before. Just like millions of the rabbet dens under the Australian ground surface, these mines in China are usually improperly developed, which leads to large segments of exposed ground and ruined plants' roots. The waste is disposed without consideration of decontamination, resulting in the degradation of soil which is, in other words, bringing about more sand storms to our lives.

In addition, the accelerator of sand storms, namely wind, is changed by overall climate change. According to Zhang et al. (2005), analyses and researches have already indicated that apart from the phenomenon of El Nino, greenhouse and the abnormality of the climate, the Northern Hemispheric Polar Vortex has changed the Asian West Wind Index (AWWI) partially. Therefore, more gusty days will appear in spring season which generate higher probability in blowing tons of sand into the atmosphere. Degenerated grassland has no power in keeping the soil from blowing away and scattered trees cannot slow down the strong wind. As a result, the change of wind power also causes more sand storms.

In conclusion, the increasing number of sand sources and the growing power of wind are the two main reasons for more sandstorms. Overgrazing, overharvesting of ground flora and nonstandard mines are the three main causes of degeneration of grassland in China and the source of more sand. At the same time, the climate change has a profound influence on changing the wind power. To reduce sandstorms, Chinese government has implemented many methods including policies to control overgrazing and overharvesting, legislation to normalize the nonstandard mines and building up the Green Great Wall. With all these methods which are directly pointing to the main causes, sandstorms can be reduced by the efforts of China.
References:

Development Research Center of the State Council . (2003). Grassland sustainable development research of China. Retrieved March 12, 2008, from www.ccag.com.cn/downloads/c_SADPII/strategy_workshop/eng/DRC.ppt

Farndon, J. (2007). China rises: How China's astonishing growth will change the world. London: Great Britain.

Hornby, A. S. (2004). Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary (6th ed.). Beijing: ShangWu Yin Shu Guan.

Liu, J., & Diamond, J. (2005). China's environment in a globalizing world. Nature, 435, 1137-1286. Retrieved March 12, 2008, from nature.com.

NASA. (2006, April 19). Dust over Japan. Retrieved March 12, 2008, from http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=17521
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Zhang, G.F., Zhao G.P., Na, L., Hu, W.D., Sun, Y.C., Wang, W.D. (2005). Analysis on the trend and reason for spring sandstorm in Ningxia. Journal of Nanjing Institute of Meteorology, 18, 410-415. Retrieved March 16, 2008, from www.cabi.org.

The zero waste system is more suitable for China than landfilling

Question: Briefly compare and contrast any two waste disposal schemes and decide which one might be more suitable for you country.

The zero waste system is more suitable for China than landfilling
Zero waste is a system in which everything we buy is “made from materials that can be repaired, reused or recycled” (Collins, 2002). Landfilling is a way to dispose waste where all the waste is just dumped together. It seems that for China, the difficulty in adopting the zero waste system is the huge expense in making the materials repairable, reusable and recyclable; the huge expense would raise the price of zero waste products and people would be unable to afford buying them. However, in the long run, keeping carrying out landfilling can be more “expensive” than adopting the zero waste system.

The zero waste system could save money in terms of three aspects. The zero waste system would save money for the consumers. Zero waste products are repairable, which in a way extends the average lifetime of the products. Zero waste products are recyclable, which enables the owners to sell the broken devices and to get back some money. Furthermore, the zero waste system would save resources for the society. Implementing the zero waste system, manufacturers would rather recycle their own products than buy new materials because of the low price, which would save the material resources. Since the recycled materials are already purified and refined, energy sources are saved by using recycled materials than mining and processing new materials. Moreover, the zero waste system could generate job opportunities as society needs labor to repair the broken devices and to collect those recyclable products. Consequently, the zero waste system would not add heavy burden to the society.

In contrast, landfilling would be expensive regarding the cost of keep making new products and the cost of land. The lifetime of normal products is relatively short and they become worthless immediately after they break down, which costs the consumers buying new ones and wastes the resources of the society. Besides, landfilling significantly does harm to the land resource. Firstly, landfilling requires land where the waste can be buried or dumped. Obviously, not only the land occupied by the garbage heaps but also large area beside the heaps is not suitable to be utilized because of the bad smell and low sanitation quality. Secondly, when the waste rods, it releases poison to the fields and further to the underground water. The poison spreads all the way along the underground river and erodes the soil. When the soil becomes unfertilized, the crops cannot grow well. It is a common sense among Chinese that China has raised up 21 percent of the world’s population using 7 percent of the world’s land. We cannot afford any more loss of fertilized land.

Compared to landfilling, the zero waste system would save money, save resources and create job opportunities for society. As a conclusion, China should implement the zero waste system to replace landfilling in order to obtain a sustainable way to deal with the waste.

Reference:
Collins, J. (2002, Oct 3rd). Radical plans for waste could herald a big clean up. The Grardian Weekly. P. 25.

Causes of more frequent sandstorms in northeast China (edited)

According to The Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary, a sandstorm is a storm in which sand is blown into the air by strong winds.10 years ago it was considered very rare to see sandstorms in northeast China. However, in recent years, sandstorms have become common spring weather there. Overgrazing, overharvesting of ground flora and nonstandard mines are the three main causes of more frequent sandstorms in China.

The Grassland Sustainable Development Research of China which is done by Development Research Center of The State Council of China in 2003 indicates that the number of livestock in northeast China has exceeded the capability of the grassland. The growth of grass cannot catch up with the rate of abatement, which results in the descending of grassland. As a consequence, the soil is exposed to the air immediately, causing the soil to degenerate into sand. Moreover, some of the ground flora in northwest China is good herb, for example, liquorice. For economic benefit, people dig out liquorice without limit, which affects the growth of other ground flora as well. Without the ground flora keeping nutrition and water in the soil, the soil degenerates into sand. Furthermore, a wide variety of minerals are distributed over some parts of northwest China. For the sake of profits, many nonstandard mines are set up illegally on the area that was forest or grassland before. The construction of these mines is usually improperly developed, which leads to large segments of exposed ground. The waste is disposed without consideration of decontamination, resulting in the degradation of soil.

In conclusion, overgrazing, overharvesting of ground flora and nonstandard mines damage the plants and degrade soil into sand. Every spring, wind blows the sand up and it travels east without the block of trees. Consequently, sandstorms become more frequent in northeast China.

References

Hornby, A. S. (2004). Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary(6^th ed.). Beijing: ShangWu Yin Shu Guan.

The dimension of the selfishness in protecting the environment

In the article “Saving Nature, But Only for Man”, the author’s thesis seems quite reasonable and his viewpoints seem very convincing. However, I feel if he based his thesis on human’s concern for themselves, he should have taken the dimension of the selfishness into consideration, namely, as he encouraged people to take action to protect the environment only when it benefits we human, this principle may lead people to preserve the environment only when it directly benefits himself. As a fact, most of the environment problems will immediately threaten the living quality of the poor, by contraries, the rich can still live without big influence. Take water pollution as an example, the polluted water which is smelly and poisonous will significantely undermine the living quality of people nearby. The poor have to bear the condition while the rich could easily move to somewhere else. Moreover, the rich are actually the group who are in charge of the projects that are harmful to the environment and who are able to support the projects that are helping improve the environment. Obivously, letting people take their own profit as the motivation of perserving the environment is not a wise suggestion as the dimension of selfishness is not controlable.