Which country wins when it comes to daily practices?

The American media enjoys pointing the finger at China and its government on a variety of issues – how it handled the Sichuan earthquake in May, its human rights record (including its controversial role in Tibet), how it controls its currency, whether or not it is ready for the Olympics, and of course its lack of environmental accountability.

Last December, for instance, at a summit in Bali, Indonesia, US reports focused on the claims of a Chinese official that wealthy nations should take on the task of slowing global warming and curbing emissions while China and other developing nations are permitted to catch up. More recently, China and several other countries reiterated this sentiment at the recent G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan (See G8 Summit Climate Policy). The May edition of National Geographic cited China for a variety of behaviors and policies harmful to its environment including increased construction of coal-fired plants, indiscriminate dumping of pollution in waterways, sharply escalating car ownership, and near destruction of the Yellow River.

The US record on environmental issues not withstanding, certainly some of the criticism of China is warranted. Indeed, I was in Beijing in January, and again a few weeks ago, and found myself choking on thick smog and chemicals from the flurry of pre-Olympic construction. The whole city reeked of industrial-strength glue and paint thinner; I certainly understood why some international athletes have decided to train elsewhere (See Athletes in Beijing)

Nevertheless, on both my trips, I was impressed to observe how conservationist the Chinese could be when it came to some really basic daily practices and use of resources. So...just for fun, let’s look at how the two countries compare when we examine some simple aspects of daily life, a friendly pre-Olympics Olympics!

But before the competition begins, I offer a few important caveats.

First: Environmental issues in China -and anywhere else - are complex and connected to so many other ones – policies, agricultural practices, topography, transportation, industry, etc. Any observations I've made admittedly are not based on a thorough investigation of everything that is at stake.

Second (and connected) I am only making a contemporary comparison, not examining long term trends. This would be necessary to truly compare which society is more conservationally oriented. For instance, I'd have to figure out whether Chinese per-capita use of resources has gone up exponentially in the past decade, and - if so - do projections call for that to continue to happen?

Third: My comparisons are spatially as well as temporally limited. If I addressed factors such as region, urban vs. rural, middle class vs lower classes, then I may have come up with different conclusions.

Now that those are out of the way, let's start!

Event Number One: Use of Plastic Water Bottles:
Granted, more and more Americans are buying their own refillable water bottles - Nalgene®, Kleen Kanteen®, and Sig® in order to avoid those hideous plastic ones, you know the ones that require lots of oil to manufacture, and clog dumps and landfills. But Americans, despite access to potable tap water, still feed a billions-of-dollars-per-year bottled water industry that has been growing exponentially since the turn of the 21rst century.

I was surprised in June, when in Beijing, I delivered a speech on environmental issues to a large audience of rapt Chinese university students. As I brayed self-righteously about the virtue of reusable water bottles, I swept the audience and realized that each and every of the several-hundred students had their own reusable bottle - colorful, made of hard nalgene®-like plastic and-in some cases – whimsically personalized with decals. I had a brief uncomfortable moment; was I preaching to the choir? I dealt with it by complimenting them and noting that they were a good example for American youth.

Regardless, China’s use of non-reusable plastic bottles is growing and this is, of course, not good. But in terms of hard statistics, it still seems that the US still generates more bottles per year than China (see Plastic Water Bottles)

The Winner?

China!: 2 points for widespread use of reusable bottles and for simply using fewer bottles than Americans despite that their population is 5 times as great.

US: 1 point for having better developed recycling programs than does China.

Event Number Two: Public Bathroom Paper Conservation

I started my “research” on this topic in Beijing last January when I was in a public bathroom stall, reached for the toilet paper and realized I’d forgotten the cardinal rule of visiting Chinese restrooms. Bring your own toilet paper! Maddening though it is to discover this the hard way, the bring-your-own system seems a good way to go. People tend to conserve more and use less of something if they are paying for it and toting it around. Moreover, public bathrooms in China generally either have no towels at all or electric hand dryers which are arguably more environmental than disposable towels.

The Winner?

China!: 1 point, but keeping in mind that for the Olympics, more and more public bathrooms are enhancing themselves by supplying toilet paper.

US: 0 points.

Event Number Three: Long Distance Transportation

When Americans travel, they usually fly or drive. In 2007-2008, according to a conservation calculation performed on
Terrapass, my flights have been responsible for emitting over 25,000 lbs of CO2. That’s a pretty pathetic carbon footprint I’ve left! Mile for mile, driving is worse. If I’d driven (alone) as far as I flew, I would have emitted over 50,000 lbs of CO2! In China, although car ownership is on the rise, only nine Chinese of every thousand residents own cars compared with 450 of every thousand in America (National Geographic, May 2008). Furthermore, most young Chinese cannot afford to fly. They take trains instead. While trains in China are cheap and convenient, their carbon footprint isn’t that great. To travel the same distance by train, I would have emitted about 23,500 lbs of CO2, only 1500 lbs less than from flying.

The Winner?

China!: 1 point
US: 0 points

Event Number Four: Use of Water

Not too long ago, most urban Chinese had minimal indoor plumbing in their homes, meaning only a sink, but no toilet or shower facilities. The result was that most people would visit a public bathhouse once a week in winter and a bit more often in summer. While people didn’t choose to live this way, not having easy access to bathing cannot help but limit the amount of water being used. This situation is rapidly changing although this past January, I was still struck by the number of Beijing homes without plumbing. In the US, most of us are fortunate enough to have bathing facilities in our homes and we sure use them! Most Americans take at least one shower or bath per day. But water is scarce and we could all stand to follow the example of those Chinese who only bathe a couple of times a week reduce.

But the water table in Northern China where much of the population resides is dangerously low, hazardously so. Although we have some water shortages here, they are much more serious in China.

The Winner?

A dismal draw!

China: 0 points (1 point for more conservative bathing habits offset by -1 point for horrific water resources)

The US: 0 points

Environmental Olympics results?

China wins the gold medal!, beating the US 4 to 1.

Of course my comments above are based on casual observations. However, they do bring up two important points. My first point is, as China rapidly changes, many of its admirable, more environmentally responsible daily practices will likely die out. As I see it, many Chinese still cling to habits leftover from a day when resources were a lot more scarce and the economy was much less developed (And if we look at our own history, we can also pinpoint a time when we were more careful). Maybe the Chinese are unintentional conservationists, but at least they are conserving! The key is whether they are becoming intentional conservationists – more on that in later posts. My second point is that we Americans should be careful about pointing fingers too much, especially if we don’t really know how people elsewhere in the world are really living. A small point, but an important one.