RUSSIA
The CIA Factbook says of Russia’s ‘Environment – current issues’ that “air pollution from heavy industry, emissions of coal-fired electric plants, and transportation in major cities; industrial, municipal, and agricultural pollution of inland waterways and seacoasts; deforestation; soil erosion; soil contamination from improper application of agricultural chemicals; scattered areas of sometimes intense radioactive contamination; groundwater contamination from toxic waste; urban solid waste management; abandoned stocks of obsolete pesticides”
Toxic Dzerjinsk
The CIA says Russia’s land area covers 16,377,742 sq km. Arable land covers 7.17% of that area while permanent crops cover only 0.11% with irrigated land covering 43,460 square km.
As one of the most polluted cities in the world, “Dzerzhinsk, Russia’s toxic groundwater contamination has reduced the average life expectancy to 42 for men and 47 for women.” Source: World Resource Institute
Pollution Issues.com says says, “An area of Karabache, Russia, where soil has been poisoned by high concentrations of lead, arsenic, nickel, cobalt, and cadmium.”
The City That Kills It’s People
Wikipedia says of Russia’s environment and water, “While Russia possesses vast mineral and energy wealth, this does not come without some price both to Russia and to the greater globe. Particularly, oil and gas extraction exacts a heavy cost to the health of the land and people. Drilling waste water, mud, and sludges are accumulated, annual volumes have been estimated at 1.7 million tons of chemical reagents contaminating 25 million cubic meters of topsoil.”
Crude Oil Pollution Exposure Kills Whole Families with Cancer in Russia
Country Data.com says, “Russia devotes about 10 percent of its land to agriculture, but land quality is declining. Erosion carries away as much as 1.5 billion tons of topsoil every year. In the past twenty-five years, Russia’s arable land area has decreased by an estimated 33 million hectares, with much of that loss attributable to poor land management. Experts fear that agricultural land management may deteriorate further under Russia’s new land privatization as individual farmers try to squeeze short-term profit from their new property
“In Russia an estimated 74 million hectares of agricultural land have been contaminated by industrial toxic agents, pesticides, and agricultural chemicals. Considerable land also is lost in the extraction of mineral resources. Unauthorized dumping of hazardous industrial, chemical, and household waste takes land out of production. Flooding is a problem near the Caspian Sea and in Stavropol’ Territory, where the construction of reservoirs has removed land from use.”
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This comment was originally posted at Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 6 on January 31 at 23:34 by an anonymous reader called Bosshard.
Deceit upon deceit?
Dear author, what we find most annoying in the behavior of others are those same behaviors of which we are equally guilty. You appear to dislike: lies, half truths and manipulation.
Regarding water-
You have much to learn. Boiling water is good for killing bacteria and the like but does nothing to stave off the ill effects of heavy metals like copper, lead and the like. According to the BBC, at least 10% of all Chinese land is contaminated with heavy metals, which are not rendered inert by boiling. Thus, boiling water in China does no good when these elements are present.
When you made your comment, were you engaging in ““willful deception and a refusal to play by the rules?” when you state that boiling Chinese water is an anti-dote?
And an aside, do you personally drink the same water as the folks in Guizhou or Gansu, or do you purchase bottled water, a thing many of them cannot do?
As for your forgone conclusion that the need for water is greater than that of religion, I would disagree. Freedom of religion is paramount to many souls, just ask the Tibetans who will take their own lives in order to achieve such an end. If I were forced to give up my religion for water, I would not do so.
Please do not pretend to know the mind of the masses when yours may not be as open as you may believe.
This site has much information, but the author, like the Jesuits of old appears to have conjured up a China that he wishes us to believe in. The brutal reality of the communist regime and havoc it brings to its people can best be understood by reading books like Empire of Lies, The Beijing Consensus, Poorly Made in China, The Party, and a host of others.
I will not return to this comment nor website but would like to offer this question:
If you have lived in China, and all of your readers, then you truly know the truth of this place. And if you truly know the truth of this place, then do you think it’s right to knowingly deceive the people about it?
God bless and keep all His children safe and informed.
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Note from Blog Host: And when China announced that 10% of its agricultural land was contaminated with heavy metals and the CCP plans to do something about it, the critics (such as Bosshard) condemn and criticize. It is a shame!
Return to Contaminated Water and Soil is a Global Problem – Part 5 or start with Part 1
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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