Growing Public Unrest Leads China To Admit To 'Cancer Villages'

eldavojohn writes "A new report from China's environment ministry has resulted in long-overdue self-realizations as well as possible explanations for 'cancer villages.' The term refers to villages (anywhere from 247 to 400 known of them) that have increased cancer rates due to pollution from nearby factories and industry. The report revealed that many harmful chemicals that are prohibited and banned in developed nations are still found in China's water and air. Prior research has shown a direct correlation between industrialization/mining and levels of poisonous heavy metals in water. As a result, an air pollution app has grown in popularity and you can see the pollution from space. China has also released a twelve-year plan for environmental protection."

Typo Last Sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

China has also released a twelve-year plan for environmental protection.

Should read:

China has also released their twelfth five-year plan for environmental protection.

My apologies!

Re:Still waiting..

[chrylis]

Because I just can't resist feeding trolls, a free market is dependent on property rights. In a free market, those whose air, water, or land was polluted could take the polluters to court [probeinternational.org], and in fact government protection of polluters [ssrn.com] has been a consistent feature in wide-scale environmental problems.

Re:Industrial revolution standard procedure

[Jeeeb]

Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong are all East Asian nations (or special administrative areas) which are to varying degrees culturally similar to China and provide good examples of this. South Korea and Taiwan are particularly dramatic examples of moving from autocratic to democratic government. Although it is not in East Asia, you could also add Singapore and Malaysia to this list. Singapore interestingly still has an autocratic government, while (less developed) Malaysia is in a kind of transitional phase towards proper democracy. They all have cleaned up their environment a lot as citizen awareness and sensitivity towards environmental problems has increased.