Main Cause Of Environmental Issues In China Environmental Sciences Essay

Population problems are one of the worlds most important social problems, and they are the cores of many contemporary social problems. Also, population problems are closely connected to environmental issues, and the earth is threatened by them. There are different kinds of population problems which China is facing now, and the problems of “Sole child policy” have begun to show: First, the overpopulation problem; second, the population aging problem; third, the decline of population quality problem. The statistics show that China has the biggest population in the world, and there are probably 1.3 billion people in China. In addition, the speed of population growth is amazing that the average annual growth rate is up to 0.57%. Large population and weak carrying capacity are the basic national conditions of China at this stage, and it is difficult to change in a short time. The population problem is a long-term problem in the primary stage of socialism in China, and it may lead to limited resources, less sustainability of the earth, and the poorer population quality. These results are all main causes of environmental issues in China, and the Chinese government has paid attention on these problems.

Why China has too much population?

The first reason is that China has low cost of having children. The lower cost of having children in the place, there will be the higher density of population. The geographical feature in China is that the western part is high, and the eastern part is low. The highest Tibetan Plateau in the western region has average 4,000 meters of altitude above sea level, and to the eastern coastal areas, it is less than a few hundred meters. This terrain condition is affected by Pacisic monsoon, which makes the rains concentrate on May to December. Also, the growth of crops needs moisture and temperature, and May to December in China has both heat and rain in the same period, these make China suitable for food planting, especially for the cultivation of high-yielding rice. In such areas suitable for the cultivation of rice, there will be more grain output in the same proportion. Using food as a unit of account to calculate, China has a lower cost of dependents. Therefore, a larger number of dependent will make the population density be larger.

The secondly reason can be that China has different cultures and different religions. Ancient Chinese thought that no offspring was a big problem, and in order to carry on the family line, they needed early marriage and childbearing traditions. Also, they were desired for sons, and they would not stop having babies until a son was born because they thought sons could support the parents when they got old. In addition, there can be another religious factor such as the East Asian religions restrict abortion. These directly cause that each family has many children, which is a basis of overpopulation in China today.

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The third reason of why there are many people in China is that after the liberation, medical conditions greatly improved, and the survival rate of babies was highly improved. Also, Chairman Mao in that period suggested that more people would have more power because of the demand of labor for the technology backward and lack of military power that time.

In brief, these three reasons show that China has a huge population base, and with the growth of the population every year, it leads to overpopulation in China, which results in a series of environmental issues now.

Why overpopulation in China causes environmental issues?

With the growth of population and the improvement of product tools, the depth and breadth of the usage of the nature are perpetually expanded, and human’s interference on ecological environment is bigger and bigger. When people’s business activities reverse natural original balance and coordination, and the nature cannot make up itself for the damage by human activities, there will be a series of ecological environmental issues. It can be reflected through many aspects such as limited resources, serious pollution, and decease in biodiversity.

Because the population is becoming bigger, the demand of industry for resources and economy in China is becoming bigger. However, the industry is like a double-edged sword, and at the same time it brings prosperity and civilization, it also brings negative effects. Due to various reasons, China’s not very large industry destroys natural ecosystems, and increases environmental pollution. From a domestic perspective, as city as a center, the range of environmental degradation is still expanding; soil erosion and desertification degree aggravated; resource destruction and waste is widespread, and some important resources gap gradually widened. Environmental pollution and degradation become one of the main factors restricting the sustainable development of China’s economy and threatening the health of people.

In 2002, the world’s forest coverage rate is 31.3%, but China is only 14%. Due to the irrational use of pasture, the grassland shows degradation, desertification, and salinization trends, and the average grass yield decreased by 30%-50%. In the arid and semi-arid areas, precipitation is far below evaporation, and vegetation is sparse and the ecology is fragile. The mild human activity is likely to lead to land degradation and desertification. China is one of the world’s most serious soil erosion countries, and serious soil erosion and desperate short of water resources eventually led to the devastating floods and Southwest drought in 2010. In northern China, the desert, Gobi, and desertified lands have reached 1.54 million square kilometers, accounting for 16% of the total land areas.

Also, the biodiversity is continuously decreased. According to Stancheva, she said that: “All of the previously described effects of overpopulation on the environment lead to the destruction of the natural habitat of many wildlife species” (Stancheva). China’s biodiversity is very rich, and higher plants and biological species account for 10% of the world. However, biodiversity is under a double threat from population growth and environmental degradation. Nearly half a century, China has more than 1,000 kinds of species extinction, which include about 200 species of higher plants. 15%-20% of plants and animal species are endangered, including about 4,600 species of higher plants and 400 kinds of wild animals.

In addition, because of overpopulation, the industry activities become more important, which brings population. The air pollution is very serious, and the quality of atmospheric environmental in more than 500 cities cannot reach international standards. The pollution comes mainly from coal-fired release of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, smoke, dust pollution, and automobile exhaust pollution. In addition, the quality of water environment is deteriorating due to industrial wastewater discharge. The levels of pollutants in the water environment is far more than national quality standards, even infiltrating contaminated groundwater, which leads to the situation that local residents have no water to drink. Also, the emissions of solid waste are increasing, but the treatment rate and comprehensive utilization rate is not high. Finally, the noise pollution in the city becomes a major hazard. National regional environmental noise pollution rate is among the highest in the world.

In general, higher demand for industry activities causes a series of environmental problems such as the lost of forest, the soil erosion, the decrease in biodiversity and pollution. Also, higher demand for industry activities is a result of overpopulation. Therefore, overpopulation is an indirect factor of environmental problems.

The solutions for environmental problems caused by overpopulation

The first solution is that accelerate the progress of science and technology to improve the sustainability. The government must enhance China’s resources alternative capacity and ability to regenerate; the government also needs to enhance the assimilative capacity of the environment to reduce waste emissions. The second solution is improving education and health situation, and enhancing people’s quality. Environmental issues are very close to people’s quality problems, and sustainable development requires changing the traditional values of the environment to make everyone shoulder the responsibility to promote human harmony with the environment. The third solution is insisting on the national policy of family planning to reduce the burden on the environment. It is necessary to strict control of population growth, and to make the population growth rate in the level of which economic power and the supply of resources can withstand. The final solution can be improving resource utilization and reducing resources wasted. To conserve resources not only needs to reduce waste of resource consumption, but also must reduce the waste of resource development. At present, China has a serious waste in resource development. Also, strengthening the management of resources and improving resource utilization are an important part of the coordination of relations between people and lands.

In conclusion, overpopulation is one of China’s population problems, and if the government and people do not pay attention on it and do not have some solutions for it, there will be a huge damage to the environment.