Suffocating: 2nd Place, Essay Memoir

Yuhang Gao is our second-place winner in the Climate Change Memoir Writing Contest in the Essay Memoir category. This piece discusses pollution taking place in China as a result of its industrialization, the negative impacts it is having on the population, and the broader effects of industrial pollution across the world.

By Yuhang Gao

            Let me tell you about my personal experience. Sort of empirical evidence. More than a decade ago, around 2005, my family was located in a remote area of the countryside in the southern provinces of China. The road in front of my home was the only way to the dock. Before the restrictions, coal trucks were incessant. The dust on the road was full and thick from vehicles passing through, and from standing on either side, your nose would become very uncomfortable. Most of the leaves on both sides were covered with a thick layer of dark, gray dust. Typical of coal trucks, they were often far overloaded, uncovered, and left bare. The car rubbed on tree branches, which rubbed off a lot of cinder.

            One of my neighbors that I had known for a long time, one who accompanied me for most of my childhood, died from multiple diseases. He suffered from bronchitis, bronchial dilation, sinusitis - lower respiratory tract infections. His family members often had dry coughs, phlegm, and other mild respiratory infection symptoms. There was no definite study that showed this was related to the environment. However, in my review of information, air pollution is often one of the main triggers of respiratory diseases. Our neighbors did not contribute to pollution by smoking or burning coal, and if we are talking about genetics, my neighbor's family is not a common target for respiratory infections. Apart from the environment, I can't think of any other reason for the frequent occurrence of respiratory infections in the family.

            This is the atmospheric pollution that was once almost everywhere in China. A secondary negative effect of climate change, like two sides of the same coin. Starting at the end of the last century, China began to develop rapidly, at the cost of the environment, just as London did during the industrial revolution. At the same time, the topic of global warming was raised and promoted.

            But the problem is that, as the majority of the world's "developing" countries, they are also affected by climate change and various environmental issues. In other words, they cannot maximize industry in exchange for economy as developed countries did 200 years ago. It is difficult to shift the focus to fighting climate change without economic development. This seems to be a paradox. China was once deeply held back.

            Today, humans are using resources on a far greater scale than ever before, both in terms of production and consumption, all while emitting huge amounts of greenhouse gases. I'm not trying to complain about anything; this is unavoidable. So I’m saying that there is something we can do as human beings. Climate change is not just an Earth thing, and that climate change is something that has global human consequences. In this process, the distribution of responsibilities between developing, and developed, countries also need to be carefully considered.

Edited by Silver Lindberg