万花筒 Kaleidoscope 2007-01-19&20, 脏和乱----城市(在线收听

It's like some vision of hell, an environmental apocalypse happening right now. This is the place where the coal fires burn throughout the night, and where there is still darkness at noon. This is the place with the worst pollution, collects the worst of the polluters--the coal processors, the power plants, and steel factories. Welcome to the most polluted city on the planet--the city of Linfen.

This city stinks—the assessment of one young boy. His mother hopes the face masks they wear offer at least some protection. Here you'll will find the cheap goods China sells to the world as well as this nation's least welcome export: the green house gases their industries pump out.

If China is the new workshop of the world, then this place is its engine room, pretty much everything you can see here is fueled by coal. This nation burns an amazing 2,000 million tons of it every year.

By the time the children of Linfen No.2 School are grown, China would have grown too, bigger than America in terms of Carbon Dioxide emissions.

This is a nation learning that their economic boom also means environmental bust.

What do you know about global warming?

I only know that the ice at both poles will melt and the sea waters will rise, and there will be less space for human beings to live.

First of all, Linfen is very polluted. We need to clean up our own city.

ITV news obtained these exclusive pictures of the city council destroying they claim the 200 dirtiest factories. But you wonder their efficiency when their pollution monitoring kit is kept under wraps, and covered in a thick layer of dust. It didn't look like it'd been used for weeks. And on the outskirts of town we found this, a huge coking plant belching out unfiltered clouds of smoke.

How dirty would you say this place is?

So I think it is not a small coal maker. It's very big, and very dirty. That's the dirtiest that I've ever seen.

China has set itself tough pollution targets and missed them dismally. Coal is bringing wealth to this country but adding a literal meaning to the phrase "filthy rich".

John Ray ITV news, Linfen in China.
  原文地址:http://www.tingroom.com/lesson/wanhuatong/2007/41969.html