Tough times, tough world

Well, what can I say, school is killing me, pollution is killing me, the exchange is killing me, everything is killing me, even my computer has been acting up.

However, things are looking up. Beijing is not filled with smog today, we can even see the blue sky above us. It's probably the winds blowing the poison away to some other poor student in some other city somewhere in China. School this week has been, fun actually. The homework has been manageable, classes have been entertaining and challenging. All in all a good week.

One thing I've learned while in Beijing is how tiny our environmental problems in Norway are compared to the Chinese problems. (However, we all share one globe, so we share the problems) I had never imagined how pollution could physically influence a person this severely, I am couching regularly, I have started making the "Chinese-sounds" that all foreigners visiting Beijing can't stand(snorting, spitting etc.), my eyes hurt and my body feels heavy. All this can be credited the smog that we all live in. I've heard living in Beijing is like smoking 20 cigarettes a day. I'm no doctor so I don't know if it's true, but it certainly feels like it.

Of course Norway is an oil producing nation, we have our subsidized aluminum factories and our old cars. So it's not like we are innocent. However, the car fleet of Beijing is approaching 4 million, let alone the car fleet of the rest of China. Tokyo in comparison has about 3 million cars. The car fleet of these two cities together is approaching double the population(!) of Norway. You have all heard the famous statistic that China builds one coal-fired power plant each week. I recently read a report from MIT painting an even grimmer picture:

"China's power sector has been expanding at a rate roughly equivalent to three to four new coal-fired, 500 megawatt plants coming on line every week"

Read the report, it also talks about how Chinese coal-fired power plants is a problem not accredited to poor technology, but to poor management and difficulties handling the balance between the market and government subsidizing. (Another valuable source is Greenleapforward.com which in this post comments the report and outlines some of the problems and possibilities around Chinese coal-fired power.)

Now, the economy.

After attending a pub quiz at The Bookworm were one of the questions was towards which two areas the Chinese government was directing it's 4 trillion Yuan aid package I got curious and decided to dig a little. In this article by the China Daily the package is well described.
What caught my eye was this chart:













Notice the two areas, infrastructure and welfare, and also a third being environmental investments. The Chinese government seem to be trying to maintain growth without forgetting its poor people and the environment. You might say it's just politics, you can't get around the fact that we are talking about 14.65 billion US dollars being invested into todays economy, while keeping in mind that the development must be sustainable. Can this be said about the aid packaged launched in the western world? It will be interesting to see how the aid packages around the world is spent, how each government decides to heal their economy. This is not a glorification of Chinese governing policies(which definitely has it's faults), but a recognition that they do try, and their goal is quite obviously to balance growth, and humanitarian and environmental aspects.

As a note to this, what is the effects of spending government funds on infrastructural projects in times of economic "depression"? For those of you who are Norwegian, or just care, should these kinds of investments be done with our "Pension fund"? Thereby saving for future generations by building lasting infrastructure.

I leave you with that, please comment.