现在的发达国家在发展时期就没有经历过像中国一样的环境问题吗？ [美国媒体]

Did the developed countries not experience the same pollution incidents as China when they were developing?

现在的发达国家在发展时期就没有像中国一样经历过相同的污染问题吗？



Tran Khanh Nong, studies Environmental Engineering at National University of Singapore (2018)
Answered Tue
Both the mentality and the situation for China, as a superpower, are much different from smaller countries in terms of development pressure. It’s OK for smaller countries to take it slower in economic and technological development, and with that, slower rate of pollution. China however requires rapid evolution to become superpower both in terms of economy and military. Pollution is a big price to pay to catch up with the Western counterpart but it is definitely worth it.

中国作为一个超级大国，他对于发展的心态和状况和那些比他小很多的国家比起来是完全不同的，中国面临着更多的压力。一些较小的国家在经济和技术发展中可以允许自己放慢速度，自然他们所面临的污染等级也会小一些。然而中国却需要在经济和军事方面迅速地衍变成为一个超级大国。他们想要赶上西方国家，污染就是一个必须付出的代价，但也绝对是值得的。

Why do you think during the 1960s famine in China, the government still spent the majority of its fund into research and development of atomic weapons? Those money could have been spent on the people to save them you say? Ask yourself, in the next few years it would be signing the Non Nuclear-Proliferation Treaty, if at the moment it did not hurry up to have some stocks, then how? A superpower without nukes and ICBMs? China manages to have an equal standing as a superpower along with Russia and the US during the last decades exactly because it managed to produce some nukes before signing NNPT. Nowadays, when nukes are not the norm anymore, economic development replaces the importance of nukes to boost China’s standing as a superpower.

你们认为为什么中国会在上世纪60年代的饥荒时期把大部分的资金用于核武器研究？你们是否觉得这些钱原本可以花在人们身上对吧？问问你们自己，在接下来的几年里中国就要签署防止核扩散条约了，如果当时他们不抓紧研制的话又会如何呢？一个没有核武器和洲际弹道导弹的超级大国？中国能在过去的几十年里在国际上有着与俄罗斯和美国同样的地位，就是因为他们能在签署防止核扩散条约之前成功地研制出了一些核武器。时至今日，核武器已经不在是国家实力的量尺了，而经济发展成为了中国重振成为超级大国的重要标准。

If you can answer the above question in view of Chinese welfare, you will easily understand why economic development has much higher priority over environmental protection. The UK, the US, Russia was there, did that, and now is China’s turn. As for those countries where people claim they can develop nicely without much pollution created, are those even superpower or just small countries?

如果你能站在中国的角度上回答上述的问题，你就可以很轻易地理解为什么经济发展比环境保护重要得多。英国，美国，俄罗斯都经历过那些，而现在轮到中国了。至于那些声称自己可以在不产生大量污染也发展的很好的国家，这些国家是超级大国吗？还是只是一些小国？

And talk about recovery, the new batch of government is quite determined to bring back a clean environment. Why now and not then? Because the economy, after all these years of sacrificing environment for rapid development, has finally been established. The profit can now be used to bring back environmental welfare to the people without affecting economic growth as much. And with modern environmental technology and capital capacity, China can definitely take much shorter to return a clean environment to the people, than how the UK, the US and Russia managed in the past. Maybe in the next 10–20 years, big cities in China will not be very much different from those in the West in terms of environmental welfare.

谈到环境改善的问题，新一届的政府已经决定要还中国一个干净的环境了。为什么是现在，而不是当初？因为在牺牲了环境取得了多年的快速发展以后，他们终于建立起了强大的经济体系。现在他们可以将一部分的利润用于为人们带来更好的环境的同时，也不会影响到经济的增长。在现代环境技术和雄厚的资本保障的情况下，比起过去的英国，美国和俄罗斯，中国可以用更短的时间将自己的领土恢复成一片干净的土地。也许在未来的10-20年内，中国大城市的环境就可以和西方相提并论了。

Harvey King, born in Taiwan, grew up in US, family rooted in mainland China for centuries.
Updated Nov 10
Do you really think “Fog of London” was really “fog”? And here is a photo of London in 1952:

你真的以为“雾都伦敦”的空气里真的是些“雾”吗？下面的图片是1952年的伦敦：



It took London almost 100 years to get its act together.

伦敦花了将近百年的时间才变得有所好转。

Manhattan, 1973

1973年的曼哈顿



North Birmingham, Alabama, 1972

1972年的阿拉巴马州北伯明翰



Cleveland, Ohio, 1973

1973年的俄亥俄克利夫兰



Ogden, Utah 1974

1974年的犹他奥格登



and I have not touched upon some of most horror industrial incidents Japanese went through in the 1960/70s.

而且我还没有提及日本在20世纪60年代和70年代所经历过的一些最恐怖的工业污染事件。

In other word, yes, all developed nations went through the same thing. China is only “special” in the sense that China is big. On the other hand, India is going out of its way to make sure China is not that special by going on the fast track of out-polluting China in the immediate future. :)

换句话说，是的，所有的发达国家都经历过相同的事情。就某种意义而言，中国之所以“特殊”仅仅是因为中国的巨大。在另一方面，印度也走在自己的路上，他们会在不久的将来在污染方面超越中国。

It is unfortunate, but economists haven’t found a good business model for developing nations to become industrialized without going through this phase.

经济学者们始终没有找到一种好的商业模式可以让发展中国家在工业化的同时不受污染的困扰，这是非常一件非常不幸的事情。

Fred Schlimm, High Risk International Business Consultant
Answered Sat
Yes. Developed countries experienced similar pollution incidents when growing as China experiences now.

是的，发达国家们都在发展时期经历过中国正经历着的污染问题。

I am an American born in 1964 and grew up in Baltimore City.

我是一个1964年生的美国人，我在巴尔的摩长大。

This is a famous picture from 1971 called “The Crying Indian”. It was a US Government TV and highway billboard add to make people aware of their role in pollution.

这是一张1971年的着名图片，名字叫做“哭泣的印第安人”它是一个美国政府推行的电视及高速公路公益广告，目的是让人们意识到他们自己在污染问题所应具备的责任。

The TV add showed a Native American riding a horse on a hill looking at modern Americans driving their cars on a highway at the base of the hill and throwing trash out of the car windows. The “Indian” cried a single tear. His land was being polluted by Americans.

电视广告中展示了，一位美国原住民在山上骑着马，他看着现代美国人们驾驶着自己的汽车行驶在山脚下的高速公路上，车里人们把垃圾扔出了车窗外。那个印第安人泪眼婆娑。他
的土地正被美国人污染着。

That add shaped how my generation viewed the common problem of trash.

这个广告重塑了我们这一代人对于乱扔垃圾这个普遍问题的看法。

A Government “Keep America Beautiful” campaign was focused on three significant issues. They were litter prevention, waste reduction and recycling, and community beautification and greening.

一个政府组织的名为"让美国保持美丽"的活动聚焦了三个重要的问题。它们分别是乱扔垃圾的预防，减少废物和回收利用，此外还有社区美化和绿化等。

Every job I do overseas, my clients are embarrassed by pollution. They say, “America is not like this.”

每次我在海外工作时，我的客户都因为自己的国家污染问题而感到尴尬。他们会说“美国肯定不是这样的。”

I say, “It was when I was young. You’ll do fine.”And China is doing fine.

我说，“当我年轻时候，美国也是这样的，你们会好起来的。”而中国也同样如此。

Yes, developed countries experienced similar pollution problems to what China is facing today.

是的，发达国家们都在发展时期经历过中国正经历着的污染问题。

Alberto Zan, Partner
Answered Nov 8
I don’t know if “the same”, but pollution in Europe in the ’60s and ’70s was deadly. Not to mention the more recent Exxon Valdez accident or the Chernobyl disaster…

我不知道是否是“相同的”，但是欧洲在60年代和70年代时面临过致命的环境污染问题。更别提后来的埃克森·瓦尔迪兹号漏油事件或者切尔诺贝利的灾难了...

Jerry Mc Kenna, Avid birder and amateur astronomer
Answered Nov 9
When I went to college in NYC in 1969, I would wipe my head at the end of the day and the cloth would be covered with coal dust (from coal fired power plants). Many of the rivers in NJ, where I lived, were polluted from industrial waste or organic waste of some kind. When I was a child in the 1950s, I got oil spots on my body when I went into the Atlantic Ocean. Before I was born in 1948, one city in Pennsylvania experienced a dangerous level of air pollution. 20 people died. 1948 Donora smog - Wikipedia

1969年的时候我在纽约读大学。我在结束一天的行程之后用毛巾擦拭自己的头发，然后毛巾上就会布满着粉尘。（来自烧炭的火力发电厂。)在我居住的新泽西的许多河流都被各种工业废料或者有机污水等污染了。在我出生之前的1948年，宾夕法尼亚州的一个城市的空气污染达到了致命的程度。20个人丧失了生命。1948年的多诺拉烟雾--维基百科

The levels in China seem worse in the highly industrialized cities but in the West things could be quite bad. My examples are from the US.

在一些高度工业化的中国城市情况可能更加坏一些，但是当时的西方也是十分糟糕的。我的例子来自美国。

Steven Mathews, studied Securty Policies Studies at The George Washington University
Answered Nov 10
Yes, most of them did… But at the same time people didn’t used to know the dangers of long term exposure to pollutants or just how poisonous things like mercury, asbestos and many other things were. Additionally, there weren’t the many alternatives that we know of today. These things are common knowledge today so would it be to China’s advantage to ignore them?

是的，大部分发达国家都经历过这种情况。但是当时的人们还并不了解长期接触污染对人体造成的危害，也不知道水银，石棉和其他一些物质对人体有如此严重的毒害作用。此外在当时并没有像今天这样有一些其他的代替方案。这些知识在今天都已经成为常识了，所以忽视环境污染的危害对中国并没有什么好处。

Hey, I did a lot of really ridiculous things when I was a kid, but should I stand back and let other kids make those same mistakes? I have to admit that learning from some of those mistakes made me what I am today, but I sometimes scratch my head wondering how I survived some of them.

嘿，我在小时候做过许多荒唐可笑的事情，难道我就应该站在远处看着其它孩子们犯着同样的错误吗？我不得不承认，从那些错误中吸取的教训铸就了今天的我，但是有时候我也会挠头，想要知道自己在当初究竟是如何从那些错误中熬过来的。