When Americans think of China, right now I think two things come to mind: the Olympics and pollution. When I moved to China last October I promised myself that I would make an impact on the environment while I was here. Specifically I had some grand idea that I would somehow impact the how the Chinese as a whole, both individuals and companies, treat the environment. Needless to say, this fantasy has not materialized. Instead I’ve been surprised by how environmentally conscious individual Chinese people seem to be. I’ll be talking more about this in future blogs. But first I want to begin by giving a brief picture of the reality of which countries are the most detrimental to the environment.
The Olympics are done and gone, so you might be wandering… is China going to continue to combat the pollution and environmental problems that were a major concern before the Olympics. As an American living in China (and as a citizen of the world) I certainly hope so. In this and future blogs I will be providing updates on how China is combating environmental issues and sharing what I’m personally doing to “be green” in China.
Even though China as a whole is a large contributor of industrial pollution, per capita it has a very small carbon footprint. According to the World Resources Institute (WRI) in 2000 China ranked 99th with per capita greenhouse gas emissions of 3.9 tons, compared to the US which ranked 7th with per capita emissions of 22.9 tons. My personal carbon footprint has decreased by at least 400% since moving to China. There are three main reasons for this dramatic decrease.
The most obvious is that I don’t own a car in China, I live in a city with good public bus service and our apartment is conveniently located to both where I work and shop, so I walk the majority of the time. When I say conveniently located, I mean there’s a market with fresh produce, meat, and seafood in the first floor of my apartment building. It doesn’t get more convenient than that.
Also I now live in a studio apartment as opposed to the two story, two bedroom, two bathroom apartment I had in northern Virginia. Heating and cooling costs are much lower, especially since the Chinese government controls your heat in the winter. By that I mean that you pay a heating fee at the beginning of the winter (sometime around the end of October or beginning of November; we had to pay it when we moved in) and you have constant heat until the beginning of March. Most apartments also have a supplemental electric heat source. But we only used ours twice, both times after the main heat was turned off in March and only because we had a newborn baby, for a few hours.
The next biggest energy saver is in the area of cleaning. Specifically, showering and doing laundry. Our bathroom has its own small hot water heater that is just for the shower. You turn it on for a few hours in the morning, take your shower and then turn it off. Ours in electric powered, but many are solar powered. As for laundry, our washing machine is only hooked up to cold water, so no wasted energy heating water and dryers are very rare in China (not to mention there isn’t room for a dryer in our apartment) so we aren’t using one of the most energy inefficient appliances that most people own.
As you can see life is different, being green in different here in China. I’ll share more as time permits! (I have a new baby boy who keeps me occupied!)
