昨年と今年のＴＩＭＥ誌記事に中国の汚染実態があったのでご紹介します。北部が特にひどくＰＭ2.5が1000マイクロｇ/㎥とＷＨＯの安全基準の４０倍ほどとあり、平均寿命は５．５年短縮し、８歳の子供に肺がんが出たとあります。中国人は脱出も考えているようです。日本人もいよいよ中国から引き上げる口実が中国側責任に転嫁できるチャンスです。中国から引き上げる理由は他にもたくさんあって、日本の生産拠点を中国に依存し過ぎてるから中国製を日本へ輸出して儲けた金で中国は軍備を拡大しアジア全体の脅威になっているのも１つです。脅威の一端が尖閣問題になっているのが最大理由ですが、詳細は別の当方ブログ
反日の有無に関わらず中国依存を少なくするを参照くだされば幸甚です。
14.1.16付TIME誌
北京の汚染は1年ぶりの高水準で、毒性のあるPM2.5が671マイクロｇ／㎥となり、WHOの安全なレベル25マイクロg／㎥の26倍ある。この1年では最高レベル。冬は石炭を炊くのでレベルが上がるAs my colleague Emily Rauhala wrote earlier today, the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin, close to the border with Russia, is suffering through some truly horrible air pollution. And given that this is mainland China — home to some of the most polluted cities in the world — that’s saying something:
13.10.21付
ロシアとの国境に近いハルピンでは本当に恐ろしい大気汚染で犯されている。
State media said the PM 2.5 reading [which measures the level of harmful particulate matter in the air] ‘exceeded’ 500. A Reuters report put the figure at 1,000, or 40 times higher than what the World Health Organization deems safe. Photographs from the city show air so murky it would be easy to mistake Monday morning for deep, dark night.公共メディアによるとPM2.5は500マイクロg/㎥を超え、1000である。この月曜の朝は暗くてよるみたいだ。
The intensification of the smog has to do with weather — as temperatures dip in more northern cities like Harbin, the coal plants that provide most of China’s energy and heat kick into overdrive. (It doesn’t help that in 1950, the Chinese government declared that everyone who lived north of China’s Huai River and Qinling Mountains — which includes major cities like Harbin, Shenyang and Beijing — could receive coal-powered heating for free.) The pollution was so bad that the police had to close off highways and the provincial airport because of accidents, while admissions into Harbin’s hospital spiked because of patients with breathing problems.1950年に政府がハルピンや北京では石炭暖房をただにしたのが状況を悪くしているが、中国のエネルギーと熱は大半が石炭に頼っている。事故を防ぐため幹線道路と空港を閉鎖しなければならなかった。
None of this is new. Anyone who has spent even a short time in China’s major cities knows the air quality on many days is often worse than the worst you might experience in European or American cities. I got my start as an environment writer almost 10 years ago covering the worsening air pollution in Hong Kong, which was mostly due to emissions from cars, coal plants and factories across the border in China’s bustling Guangdong province. Along with glass-covered skyscrapers and hellish traffic, smog has been the most visible manifestation of the startling economic growth China has experienced over the past quarter-century.
It’s hard to know for sure whether air pollution in China’s cities really is getting worse — the data from the central government can be less than credible, so much so that Beijingers came to rely on the U.S. embassy, which tweets out daily air-quality readings from its own sensors. 中央政府のデータは信用できないので北京ではアメリカ大使館のツイッターに出る値を頼りにしているBut what’s clear is that awareness of the bad air is rising, even as Chinese citizens have become more emboldened — and more able, thanks to the rise of microblogging services — to complain about environmental problems. During the first six months of the year — which began with reports of an “airpocalypse” in Beijing — foreign visitors to China fell by 5% over the same period of time from the previous year, and the number of tourists visiting Beijing fell by 15%. Concerns over H7N9 bird flu may have played a role, but the idea that China is literally hazardous to your health can’t help either.北京観光客は15％減った。
At least foreign visitors have a choice. Chinese citizens have to live in polluted cities like Lanzhou, Xining and Jinan, cities where particulate readings are at least six times higher than the target set by WHO guidelines. The health effects are dangerous — researchers estimated that the half a billion people in northern China will live an average of 5½ years less than their southern counterparts, thanks to the thick air pollution in the north. Just last week, the WHO declared that air pollution is officially a carcinogen, and a leading environmental cause of cancer. The 2010 Global Burden of Disease study found that air pollution accounted for 1.2 million premature deaths in 2010. Even as China’s citizens get richer, air pollution will ensure that they get sicker too.蘭州、西寧、済南などWHOガイドラインの6倍以上の汚染都市に住むしかない。健康被害は危険レベルにあり南部地域の人より平均して5.5年寿命が縮まる。WHOは発がん物質があり、ガンの原因となり得ると発表した。120万人の寿命を縮めるという。
You can’t make this stuff up. On Sunday, with swaths of eastern China shrouded in a polluted haze, Chinese state media decided to release a list of five “surprising benefits” of smog. Here, courtesy of Wang Lei, an editor for China Central Television’s website, are five good things about bad air:中国中央テレビの上げる5つの大気汚染の利点
1. It unifies the Chinese people.中国人を団結させる
2. It makes China more equal.中国を対等にする
3. It raises citizen awareness of the cost of China’s economic development.経済発展には犠牲を伴うことを知らせる
4. It makes people funnier.人を特異な存在にする
5. It makes people more knowledgeable (of things like meteorology and the English word haze).気象学や英語のｈａｚｅもやを知る
2. It makes China more equal.中国を対等にする
3. It raises citizen awareness of the cost of China’s economic development.経済発展には犠牲を伴うことを知らせる
4. It makes people funnier.人を特異な存在にする
5. It makes people more knowledgeable (of things like meteorology and the English word haze).気象学や英語のｈａｚｅもやを知る
I’d like to think the piece as well-intentioned satire. Perhaps it was. But the article, which has since been pulled, was followed by another piece of pollution promotion. On Monday, the Global Times published a piece that said air pollution might help the Chinese military by obscuring sight lines, reducing the effectiveness of surveillance and weapons systems.
For the most part, China’s netizens were not impressed. “It is a public tragedy that half of China is engulfed in smog, wrote one. “We should not entertain ourselves by this tragedy.” Wrote another: “The smog weather makes CCTV much stupider. They always treat us as fools.”
China’s Youngest Lung-Cancer Patient Is Just 8 Years Old, and Pollution Is to Blame中国の最も若い肺がんは８才で汚染が原因
Smog-related cancer deaths in China are soaring. Now children are being affectedスモグ関連のガンは中国では非常に増え、今や子供までかかっている １３.１１．５付
A woman and her son wearing masks walk along a road as heavy smog engulfs the city on Oct. 21, 2013 in Changchun, China
To the list of China’s environmental horrors, add one: an 8-year-old with lung cancer. Doctors at a hospital in coastal Jiangsu province blamed the girl’s condition on pollution, according to a state media. The child, who has not been identified, reportedly lived near a busy road and was exposed to harmful particles and dust. She is being called China’s youngest-ever lung-cancer patient.江蘇州の海辺の町で医者は汚染による少女の状態を非難し、中国で最も若い肺がん患者と呼んだ。
The news comes amid growing concern about the health effects of air pollution. Last month the World Health Organization for the first time classified air pollution as a cause of cancer. The agency said air pollution caused 220,000 cancer deaths in 2010 and that more than half of lung-cancer deaths from particulate matter were in East Asia. Lung-cancer deaths in China have multiplied more than four times in the past three decades, according to government statistics.先月WHOは初めて大気汚染をがんの原因と認め、２０１０年に世界で22000人が肺がんで死亡、粒子状物質による肺がん死亡の半分以上が東アジアで発生したといった。過去３０年で中国の肺がん死亡は４倍以上増えたと政府が発表。
The problem is particularly bad in northern China, where coal-powered heating systems add extra filth to the mix. These emissions have shortened the lifespans of Chinese people living north of the Huai River by an average of five years, according to a study published this year by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an American journal. In Beijing, the smog-addled capital, cancer is now the leading cause of death, with lung-cancer rates jumping 60% in a period of 10 years.とくに北部がひどく、石炭を熱源にするシステムだからである。Huai River(黄河と揚子江の間の大河)の北に住む人の寿命は５年短縮される。スモグで混乱する首都北京ではがんが主たる死亡原因で肺がんの占める率は１０年で60％増加。
Chinese urbanites are all too familiar with chest-rattling smog. In the northern Chinese city of Harbin last month, the pollution was so thick that kids were granted a “smog day” off school, roads were closed and planes grounded. State media said the PM 2.5 reading (which measures the level of dangerous particulate matter in the air) “exceeded” 500. A Reuters report put the figure at 1,000, or 40 times higher than what the World Health Organization deems safe. Last year, Beijing endured weeks of off-the-chart pollution that English speakers now refer to as the “airpocalypse.”都市生活者は胸がガラガラいうようなスモグが日常化し過ぎて、ハルピンでは先月のスモグの多い日に学校が休み、道路、空港は閉鎖になった。PM2.5が５００を超えたと州政府発表。NETでは1000と言われ、WHOの安全値の４０倍としている。とてつもなく汚染されている
Perhaps the only upside of the city-shuttering smog is that it has forced the Chinese government to own up to the problem. This fall, the government announced a new blueprint for cleaning up the air by 2017. The plan calls for 5 billion yuan, or $817 million, to fight pollution. There will also be color-coded emergency measures for bad pollution days in Beijing. On red days, for instance, half the city’s cars will be idled and schools closed. Under a code orange, factories will slow and activities like fireworks and outdoor barbecues will be restricted.２０１７年までに政府は対策として８．１７億ドル使用する。
These plans are better than nothing, but many wonder why the government hasn’t done more to keep people safe. After news of the 8-year-old’s diagnosis broke, hundreds of people commented on the story, wishing the child luck and expressing their own fears about living in a region where the air quite literally kills.この額はないよりましだが人々はなぜもっと国民を安全にすることをしないかという。
Channeling the sentiment of many here, one reader invoked a Chinese idiom: “Hao hao xuexi, tian tian xiang shang,” or, roughly, “Study hard and make progress every day.” Parents and teachers have been saying it for years, urging children to work harder, do better. But to this old phrase, they added a second bit of advice that reflects the dark mood as the country heads into another toxic winter: “Study hard and make progress every day,” they wrote. “And then leave China.”昔からある中国のことわざ「よく学び日に日に向上」の後に最近は「その後、中国から脱出」を追加している