When I was around 7-8 years old, I used to love visiting my hometown – Jinan – every summer, simply to escape from the crowded streets and intense heat in Shenzhen (the city where I was born and raised, located near South Sea).
Fig. 1 – Spring Festival in the 1970s and the 2000s – trees were gone, as well as the people who moved to big cities.
Jinan, a city belongs to the province of Shandong in the North part of China, favored me with its cool breeze and the freshness in the air. The traditional Chinese courtyard dwelling where my father used to live with my uncles and my Grandparents back in the 1970s was located in the suburban area. I spent my summer there every year until couple years ago, when the government eventually carried out the resettlement project. But back to the year when I was only 8, the village was still filled with small, linked courtyards owned by farmers and industrial workers . After 2 p.m. – the most heated time in a day – wind would start to rise. It was the best time to go out as cats and ducks were also enjoying sunshine on the field. I always loved chasing the little animals across the street, trying to catch them. However, the air was pretty dusty because of the blowing wind and the extremely dry soil caused by the unusual length of the dry spell. I liked the dryness, as laundry dried naturally after one night, and my sweat never stuck to my skin like how it behaved when I was sweating in Shenzhen – it would stay on my skin because the weather was so humid that slowed down the evaporation. From a different perspective, the dry spell was definitely dreadful to the economy. Huge water transportation project such as cross country pipelines were put into action to move water from the South to the North. My grandmother used to joke about how I still had to drink Shenzhen’s water while I was already in Jinan. Shower was a type of luxury as it used up a lot of water. So public bathhouse was very common in Jinan in those days. At night, a small fan would be good enough even in the mid summer. In Shenzhen, it would be impossible to survive without an AC because temperature at night was still very high, likely at 33 degree Celsius. But in Jinan, we saved electricity as no AC was needed at all.
Fig. 2 – Last record of the dwellings and dusty air before the resettlement
However, according to my father’s description, my memory of Jinan was still quite different from the place in his memory. Other than the change of architectures and the emergence of ‘screens’ from all sorts of technological devices, the weather has also changed significantly. Those old 70s’ summer felt much cooler than the 20s’ summer, probably because there weren’t any big constructions that would take down the trees. The gap difference between temperature at time in the early morning and night, and time in the noon was greater. Warm jackets were required in the early and late time of a day, but under the sunlight at noon, man could go shirtless. Although the weather was still not humid, it was not as dry as what it is right now. I guess several changes have caused the drier weather. Decrease of plants is the first component, as plants are powerful and effective water protectors and land preservers. The increasing amount of industries is the second component, whether it is their increasing demand of water or the air and water pollution caused by the chemicals released into the environment that would harm the natural cycle of such resources. In general, the temperature was higher than the old days. From the family photos my father sent me that were said to be taken in the first week of October – National Day of China – it was clear that the temperature was already low enough to wear thick, padded jacket with layers of other clothes. But during all those visits I made on the National’s Day vacation to Jinan, temperature was still warm, usually at around 24 degree Celsius. Clearly, there is an evidence of climate change over the past half century.
Fig 3 & 4 – October in my father’s memory
Back at that time, climate change was a concept that barely anyone knew about or would pay attention to. Without a doubt, industrial wastes and sewage that lacked proper treatment were dumped into the nature world of Shandong, causing damage that was neither reversible nor measurable. The rising dust issue and the phenomenon of smog were two examples of the significant harm urbanization has done to the village. It was inevitable that the locals living in Shandong now possess better living condition that includes but not limited to 24 hour hot water for shower, Internet access to global communication, shorter travel time made possible by the new railroads. But from the fact I realized after I heard my father’s description – the fact about the degree of degradation our environment has experienced in the past 30 years – it made me question is it really the living condition we are improving or it’s just the current living condition fulfilled our selfishness and internal hunger for a seemingly better economy. No matter which condition we are really yearning to improve, we should always keep in mind that we always have a chance to rebuild economy, but we can never have a chance to rebuild earth.
Postcard from the future
After reading several reports of case studies that focused on the environmental issues my hometown – Jinan (in the province of Shandong) – is experiencing, I have identified two that will be severely harmful to the sustainability of Jinan and even to China as a whole if no changes to the current environmental management are made in the next couple years. These two issues – somehow related in a vicious cycle – are water shortage and air pollution (smog).
Although the problem of water shortage has been on the list of top environmental concerns, I was never aware of the degree of urgency. According to one of the report, China is short of water resource overall, with a water possession per capita less than one-third of the world average. The situation is worse in populous and rapid urbanizing regions such as North China Plain and eastern coastal provinces, as the total water availability in these regions only accounted for 7.7% of China, but the population too, over 37% of China’s total population. Shandong – the province in which lies my hometown Jinan – is at a location categorized both as North China Plain and eastern coastal provinces. The main cause for the water scarcity is urbanization that is encouraged by government. As economy booms, characterized with expending cities and growing urban industries, eastern coastal provinces becomes China’s priority beneficiary of opening-up and economic reform policies while speeding up environmental deterioration. Especially in Shandong, according to urbanization rules and the current urbanizing trend, it is predictable that rapid urbanizing will go on during next one or two decades. It is estimated that the province’s total population will be close to 100 million in 2020 and most of which will live in cities and towns. Industrial growth is also expected to worsen the water competition in Shandong, causing the even bigger problem of water exploitation. Adding up to the disaster of water shortage is the low precipitation caused by climate change. Because Shandong belongs to the East Asia monsoon climate region, most of its water resources rely on rainfall, which in 75%-90% of the time happened merely in summer. In the past 60 years, the average annual precipitation decreased about 6 billion m3and result in almost 5 billion m3 reduction in total water resource. Other serious issues include the increase of wastewater discharged from urban, groundwater depletion, and sea water and salt-water intrusion. Less and less fresh water is available to the residents and industries in Shandong, making life harder and spreading the fear of depression. Likely in Jinan – one of the agriculture and industrial center of Shandong – a situation that is the same or even worse than the predicted water shortage is going to take place if no sustainable strategies are imposed without enforcement.
The second issue – air pollution – is also a calamitous consequence resulted by industrial growth as a part of urbanization. Similar to Beijing, Jinan is also experiencing heavy smog and an increasing number of lung disease in its population. However, the new industries are not the ones that should take most responsibility but the old ones that are hindering the enforcement of environmental protection laws. An article published 9 months ago reported an issue of factory hiding coal-fired boiler and locked up inspectors to resist environmental oversight. Although the ones in charge were detained and the plant was shut down, similar issues took place all around China. From April 8 2017 to April 15 2017, of the 2,301 companies and constructions checked by the government-sent inspectors, 1621 were fund to be violating laws and regulations, including illegal and excessive emissions and falsified monitoring data. This number shocked me, and scared me with a potential future of a smoky China. It is also frightening to think about the add-on effect with the water scarcity – plants died because of droughts, making air quality even worse – it will be painful to live in Jinan if both environmental issues are not resolved as soon as possible.
Therefore, my imagined future in the next decade is already dreadful, somehow resembles the ‘dust bowl’ happened in American history. The only hope is to have new technology of water treatment, water network, and air purification invented, as well as an increase in the forest coverage in the industrial area. But certainly, the first step is to have people and government realizing the urgency of the issues and fight against exploitation and pollution with the ultimate amount of effort.
Front View of Postcard
Back View of Postcard
Side view of Postcard
Bibliography
Chen, Aizhu. “China’s War on Smog Chokes Shandong Industries, Smokes out Fuel Kiosks.” Reuters. September 13, 2017. Accessed June 20,
2018. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-environment-shandong/chinas-war-on-smog-chokes-shandong-industries-smokes-out-fuel-kiosks-idUSKCN1BO0BO.
Wu, Peilin, and Minghong Tan, Challenges for sustainable urbanization: a case study of water shortage and water environment changes in
Shandong, China, Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13, 2012, Pages 919-927, ISSN 1878-0296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proenv.2012.01.085. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878029612000862)
Zheng, Jinran, and Ruixue Zhao. “Inspectors Locked up at Shandong Plant.” ChinaDaily. May 18, 2017. Accessed June 20, 2018.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-04/18/content_28970076.htm.
