Impacts Caused by Burning Coal Within China

Essay Proposal                                                                                                            

1. Resource: Air      Country: China      Activity:  Coal Burning
2. Statement of aim.

The aim of this essay is to figure out the impacts caused by burning coal within China to provide household heating during winter and to discuss the possible solutions to ease or eliminate those impacts.

1. Three key issues.

• The severe air pollution damages people’ health and a number of Chinese have died because of this. (Social-economic environment)
• Heavy smog caused hundreds of flights to be cancelled and highways to shut in the north of China during this winter. (Social-economic environment)
• Smog blocks natural sun light and slow down the photosynthesis for plants.              (Biological Environment)

1. Solutions

• Set policies to control air pollution. “Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan” was introduced in China, 2013, committed the proportion of coal in total energy consumption in China would be reduced to 65% of that in 2012 by 2017.
• Use more clean energy to replace coal. Natural gas instead of coal is used to improve Urumqi’s air quality during winter heating period since 2012 in China.
• More trees can be built to filter the air and reduce the smog. Like Mexico City plans to plant 18 millions trees to reduce air pollution because air pollution became extremely serious since last year. Also scientist found air pollution was significantly reduced in Huston because of its 1,000 acres of grasslands.

      5. Annotated bibliography 

• Haynie, D. (2017, January 13). The Clear Thing About China’s Smog. Retrieved January 22,     2017, from http://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2017-01-13/the-health-effects-of-beijings-smog

The specific health problems caused by air pollution are described in this article. In my essay, these short-term and long-term impact on body will be used to explain why smog is harmful.

• Griggs, M. B. (2017, January 6). Why is the smog in China so bad? Retrieved January 22, 2017, from http://www.popsci.com/why-is-smog-in-china-so-bad

Several reasons that cause heavy smog is listed in the article and I will use the main reason to explain why the severe air pollution always appear during the winter in the north of China.    

• Sun, C., Yuan, X., & Xu, M. (2016). The public perceptions and willingness to pay: from the perspective of the smog crisis in China. Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol.112,1635-1644. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.04.121

Contingent valuation method is introduced in this article. I will use this method to calculate economic value of air pollution and how much Chinese government would pay for it.