Recognizing the Full Costs of Pollution in China

In the article Official warns environmental pollution no longer acceptable, I saw the strongest statement to date that officials and agencies are finally understanding the tradoff of full costs between economic growth and the environmnet:

Yangzonghai Lake, famous for its springs, was found to contain arsenic in June in the Yuxi City section. A local company named Jinye Industry and Trade Co. Ltd. was blamed for the pollution.

Zhou said the company, since it was opened three and half years ago, had paid 10 million yuan (1.5 million U.S. dollar) in taxes, but “its pollution cost billions and affected the lives of 26,000 people”.

and

“If people have to drink polluted water while driving BMWs, that’s a bitter irony of modernization,” he said. “We definitely don’t want such development.”

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