Outrage grows over air pollution and China's response

Link of article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/world/asia/beijing-journal-anger-grows-over-air-pollution-in-china.html?_r=1&ref=airpollution

Paul's Wheels Of Reasoning

Points of view: 3^rd person point of view, citizens of Beijing.

Purpose: To express their anger and disappointment about the officials not making efforts to level with them about air quality or make any improvements to the environment.

Question at Issue: The government are not making great efforts to ensure the safety of the population.

Information:

1. “As a Chinese citizen, we have been kept in the dark on this issue for too long,”
2. “The government is just so bureaucratic that they don’t seem to care whether we common people live or die. And it’s up to us, the common people, to prod them and to put pressure on them so that they can reflect on their actions and realize that they really just have to do something.”
3. That was the case in 2008 when parents vented anger over deadly school collapses in the Sichuan earthquake and over adulterated milk.
4. An announcement at the airport made no mention of pollution, attributing the cancellations and delays to “the weather condition.”

Implications & consequences: If the government did not inform the citizens about the air quality, this might affect the citizens’ health. There will be a disease outbreak and this will affect the country’s economy as more people will not be able to work and could not go out due to bad quality of air.

My opinions:

I think this article is useful in raising awareness to the government about the citizen’s feelings towards the action that is carried out by the government. The citizen felt that the government fail to update them about the air quality which can allow them to plan things ahead and also made improvements to the environment. One issue raised was the air pollution coming out from the non stop churning of factories and automobile engines around Beijing which causes smog in the air. Now, the citizens are relying on United States Embassy that gives hourly update on air quality. This might be bad for the government as the citizens will not trust them and follow the laws implemented anymore. Therefore, I think the government should think of solutions on how to solve this matters before the life expectancy of Beijing will decrease because of this air pollution.