Industrial Activity and the Environment - Article Example

Besides some economic benefits, industrial revolution produced much environmental impacts in a shorter period of time. However, it will be impossible to close all the industries to cut down the pollution. There is a need to find some ways to enable economic growth as well as reducing the environmental pollution. The article that I have selected is “Industrial Activity and the Environment in China: An Industry-Level Analysis” written by Matthew A. Cole, Robert J.R. Elliott and Shanshan Wu.

The article discusses the economic aspects with respect to the environmental perspective. However, China is considered as the reference country to depict the industrial growth and the concentration of different harmful pollutants to the atmosphere. As China has the world’s biggest population, the number of industries in China is increasing day by day and with the increase China has become the biggest producer of carbon dioxide. It is estimated that with this massive amount of air pollution about 300, 0000 people die annually.

There is a need to consider the environmental health with the economic growth. Despite the fact that the China has the world’s biggest population, the average air pollution decreased due to the certain efforts of China’s environmental regulatory authorities. Results show that the average atmospheric SO2 levels decreased around 1997 to 2002, while, a little increase was seen in 2000. However, an increase in the average atmospheric SO2 is seen around 2002 to 2004. Similarly the average level of soot emission also decreased around 1997 to 2002 and a minor increase was seen around 2002 to 2004.

The similar case is with the dust emissions from industries. These are the three major components of air pollution. The decrease in these three components consequently lowered the pollution intensity, which was at the recorded level in 1998 and now it is on the lowest level. The major producers of the pollutants are the China’s manufacturing industries like the steel/iron industries in China. Thus the industries are considered as the dirtiest industries among all other. Besides the Steel and iron manufacturing industries, chemical industries, Non-Metallic Mineral producers and Paper and Products industries are also considered as the industries that are producing risk for the environment.

It can be noticed that Iron and steel industry, which is considered as the dirtiest industry, is growing with a rapid pace. However, the intensity of the SO2 emission decreased, the similar case is seen with dust and soot emissions. There are several determinants of industrial pollution in China, the first and the most important is the Pollution demand that may involve the energy use, factor intensities, size, efficiency, vintage and innovation. As the demand for energy is rising day by day there is need to generate more energy and generation more energy may involve the utilization of more fossil fuel resources and thus emitting more pollutants into the atmosphere.

Factor intensities of an industry may influence the emissions of more pollutants into the atmosphere. Factor may involve the material and human factors. Size of industry may have some relation with the production of the pollutants. As, more productions may give rise to more pollution emitted into the atmosphere. The other important factor that may have inverse proportion with the amount of pollution is the efficiency of the industry. More efficiency means more products utilizing less amount of energy. Newer