What is going on in China is extremely troubling. The air is bad. The water is polluted. Animals are suffering. And people are suffering. And reports indicate the government is looking the other way.

We’re seeing greed rule the day in China. The only things standing in the way of the US becoming the environmental equivalent of China are the somewhat thin environmental and animal welfare standards that have managed to make their way through the greed in our system.

Yet, we still have a segment of elected officials and pundits who want to gut the regulations we do have. I don’t want to see the US bow completely to the greedy and I don’t want to see the US become the cesspool that China’s environment has become.

We had the news that 16,000 dead pigs have been found in the Haungpu River. And now we have the news that 1,000 dead ducks have been found in the Nanhe River. Officials are swimming around this muck to come up with excuses and to minimize the health implications.

I wanted to look into any recent news about China’s environmental regulations. Maybe things have gotten a little better – and if so, I wanted to know about. It took only one quick search to uncover the troubling status.

The Wall Street Journal reports the regulatory system is a mess there. One sentence in the article tells the tale:

The problems in Nantong are a tale of environmental protection gone seriously wrong in a country where money clearly talks.

The article uses phrases such as “racket” and “scandal” in its reporting. And then we have this description:

… the China Business News argued that rapid economic development had created fertile ground for official corruption and pollution.

This is the door that some politicians want to open – even wider than it is already open – here in the US.

 

PACK MENTALITY BLOG: Compassion - teamed with Science and Logic