[p2p-research] China's cancer villages bear witness to economic boom | Reuters

[Paul D. Fernhout]

One external cost of our current means of production, often paid for by the 
poor and young without access to health care:
"China's "cancer villages" bear witness to economic boom"
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE58G00T20090917
"""
One needs to look no further then the river that runs through Shangba to 
understand the extent of the heavy metals pollution that experts say has 
turned the hamlets in this region of southern China into cancer villages. 
... Cancer casts a shadow over the villages in this region of China in 
southern Guangdong province, nestled among farmland contaminated by heavy 
metals used to make batteries, computer parts and other electronics devices. 
Every year, an estimated 460,000 people die prematurely in China due to 
exposure to air and water pollution, according to a 2007 World Bank study. 
Yun Yaoshun's two granddaughters died at the ages of 12 and 18, succumbing 
to kidney and stomach cancer even though these types of cancers rarely 
affect children. The World Health Organization has suggested that the high 
rate of such digestive cancers are due to the ingestion of polluted water. ...
   Mounds of tailings from mineral mining are discarded alongside paddy 
fields throughout the region. "If you test this rice, it will be toxic but 
we eat it too, otherwise, we will starve," said He, the farmer, as he 
shoveled freshly milled rice into a sack. "Yes, we sell this rice too." ...
   Across China, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of small, anonymous 
villages that are suffering the consequences of the country's rapid economic 
expansion, villages with rates and types of cancers that experts say can 
only be due to pollution.
   This may be the fate of more and more of China's population as mines and 
factories spew out tens of millions of tonnes of pollution every year, into 
the water system as well as the air, to produce the fruits of China's 
economic growth.
   Death rates from cancer rose 19 percent in cities and 23 percent in rural 
areas in 2006, compared to 2005, according to official Chinese media, 
although they did not give exact figures.
   The health burden has an economic price. The cost of cancer treatment has 
reached almost 100 billion yuan a year ($14.6 billion), accounting for 20 
percent of China's medical expenditure, according to Chinese media.
   The lack of a national health system means that most of the victims must 
pay their medical bills themselves.
   Healthcare costs took up 50 percent of household income in China in 2006 
due to inadequate health insurance, according to a paper published in the 
Lancet in October 2008.  ...
"""

Related in the USA:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_racism
"Since the term "environmental racism" was coined, researchers have 
investigated why minorities are more likely than whites to reside in areas 
where there is more pollution. Some social scientists suggest that the 
historical processes of suburbanization and decentralization are examples of 
white privilege that have contributed to contemporary patterns of 
environmental racism. In the United States, the wealth of a community is not 
nearly as good a predictor of hazardous waste locations as the ethnic 
background of the residents, suggesting that the selection of sites for 
hazardous waste disposal involves racism. These minority communities may be 
easier targets for environmental racism because they are less likely to 
organize and protest than their middle or upper class white counterparts. 
This lack of protest could be due to fear of losing their jobs, thereby 
jeopardizing their economic survival."

In this case, one might see the USA as using entire countries to export its 
pollution to. Basically, the cost of the product in the store is not the 
full cost, as outlined here:
   "The Story of Stuff"
   http://www.storyofstuff.com/
Although that video misses some parts of the issue, like improved energy 
efficiency with a new product may make a bigger savings that the cost to 
make it, even including external costs. Also, if we can make products in a 
sustainable way, then some of the arguments there are not so important.

What's so sad about this is that we most of what we need to know to make 
most industries pollution free, and we certainly know enough to do much 
better than we do now. An example for energy use:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_emission

Though much information is still locked away from the internet, thus part of 
the need for "open manufacturing":
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30440/description#description
"""
The Journal of Cleaner Production serves as an interdisciplinary, 
international forum for the exchange of information and research results on 
the technologies, concepts and policies designed to help ensure progress 
towards sustainable societies. It aims to encourage industrial innovation, 
new and improved products, and the implementation of new, cleaner processes, 
products and services. It is also designed to stimulate the development and 
implementation of prevention oriented governmental policies and educational 
programmes.
   Cleaner production is a concept that goes beyond simple pollution 
control. It involves active research and development into new, 
prevention-oriented processes, materials and products which are less toxic 
and more resource and energy efficient. Such proactive approaches are 
increasingly becoming the primary corporate and government pathway for 
ensuring environmentally friendly and economically sound production and 
service provision. Technical assistance and in-depth educational and 
training programs are increasingly being used to accelerate the adoption of 
Cleaner Production of Cleaner Products and Services by industries, service 
organizations, governments, universities and private citizens.
"""

 From the US Government's NIST about a "SLIM" project that should be fatly 
funded at 1000X current rats, IMHO: :-)
   "Sustainable and Lifecycle Information-based Manufacturing"
   http://www.nist.gov/mel/msid/dpg/slim.cfm
   http://www.mel.nist.gov/programs/slim.htm
"""
The United States needs to prepare for a future where products are 100% 
recyclable, manufacturing itself has a zero net impact on the environment, 
and complete disassembly and disposal of a product at its end of life is 
routine. To document and monitor these changes, US industry will require key 
resources and methods that will enable it to measure sustainability along 
several dimensions (such as carbon foot print, energy accounting and 
recyclability of materials) allowing accurate assessment of status and 
progress.  These resources and methods require identification of dimensions, 
associated measurements and classification of information relevant to 
sustainable product design and manufacturing. Such a base of information is 
critical to product designers and manufacturing engineers so that they can 
incorporate sustainability in their efforts. Hence, the primary challenge is 
to develop requirements, formal models, and validation methods for 
sustainability-based and lifecycle information-based manufacturing that 
support interoperability among tools and standards for design, analysis, 
simulation, and lifecycle assessment and information management.
"""

So, there are many OK-ish solutions to pollution now, and much better ones 
to come, but many people (especially children) are still paying the price 
for greed (want) and ignorance.
   "A Christmas Carol -- Ignorance & Want"
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6MFN8yiVc0

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/