City Guide
Answers
Login
Home
/
Community
/
Forums
/ Post a Reply
Post a Reply
Thread: China publishes energy white paper
Title:
(100 characters at most)
Content: ( 3,000 characters at most, please )
You can add emoticons below to your post by clicking them.
[quote=JCNILE123,263339]SHIJIAZHUANG, China: Hundreds of feet below ground, this provincial capital of more than two million people is steadily running out of water. The water table is sinking fast. Municipal wells have already drained two-thirds of the local groundwater. Above ground, this city in the North China Plain is having a party. Economic growth topped 11 percent last year. Population is rising. One new upscale housing development is advertising waterfront property on lakes filled with pumped groundwater. Another half-built complex, the Arc de Royal, is rising above one of the lowest points in the city's water table. "People who are buying apartments aren't thinking about whether there will be water in the future," said Zhang Zhongmin, who has tried for the past 20 years to raise public awareness about the city's dire water situation. For three decades, water has been indispensable in sustaining the rollicking economic expansion that has made China a world power. Now, China's galloping, often wasteful style of economic growth is pushing the country toward a water crisis. Water pollution is rampant nationwide, while water scarcity has worsened severely in north China - even as demand keeps rising everywhere. China is scouring the world for oil, natural gas and minerals to keep its economic machine humming. But trade deals cannot solve water problems. Water usage in China has quintupled since 1949, and leaders will increasingly face tough political choices as cities, industry and farming compete for a finite and unbalanced water supply. [/quote]
characters left
Name:
Get a new code