Are we more or less "green" in China?

Introduction: Since I was an environmental science teacher and very interested in the subject, I thought I should evaluate the quality of our "green" lifestyle - or lack thereof - since coming to China.

PRO: De-centralized heating and cooling. It takes a lot of needless energy to heat and cool all the rooms of a house at once - especially when Rachel and I rarely are in different places. Here, each room has a separate unit. When we want A/C in the summer or heat in the winter, we simply use a remote to turn that individual unit on. When we go to a different room or leave, it is turned off. Also, we tend to avoid using them until it is absolutely necessary - as opposed to setting a thermostat and leaving it on all the time.

CON: No insulation. All the construction here, other than the absolute fanciest, follows the same pattern: reinforced concrete buildings with plaster walls. No insulation, no dry wall. That is a big reason why central air would be useless - so much air would leak. Add to that single-paned windows without any weather-stripping, and you have a leaky house.

PRO: Continuous flow hot water heater. We do not have a tank. Our water heater has a gas-powered flame that heats water in a metal pipe, which then travels to the faucet. It only turns on when we turn the faucet on. That means that we do not waste energy keeping a tank of water hot all day, and we never run out of hot water.

CON: Coal-fired electricity. Despite some grand plans to expand renewable energy in western China, the vast, vast majority of electricity is from nasty coal. (a sizeable portion here is from hydroelectric, though that has other issues) In Chicago, we were getting a good amount of electricity from nuclear, which I would say is comparatively better.

This lone windmill stands outside a large (but empty) building near our home. It does not actually turn - and there is very little wind in Chengdu - making me wonder why it is there.

PRO: No plastic bags. Well, less plastic bags. Across the country, no grocery/convenience/big chain store can give out plastic bags for free when you check out. You can buy them for a nominal fee, but the fee provides enough motivation to buy a few canvas bags and reuse them. We did this in Chicago, too...but we are more consistent here and I like the extrinsic motivation that this law gives to other people.

CON: No composting. I do not think vermicomposting is quite as popular here. However, we eat out at restaurants a lot more here, and they do keep table scraps. All the food waste gets shoveled into buckets, which I am assuming is collected at the end of the day, to be used. For what, I can only guess....

PRO: Electric scooters. Gone is our car, which faithfully brought us around Chicago. Now we have non-polluting electric scooters and car pool to more distant locations. We are not as mobile, but it works.

CON: Pollution everywhere. There is a lot of air pollution - nasty black smoke can be seen coming from something more often than I would care to admit. It is probably taking years off my life.

This open sewer flows into a ditch across from our school. Not a good smell on the way home from work!

PRO: More trees. Yes, we live in a city in China, but we happen to live in a city that puts a premium on greenery. Compared to the south side of Chicago, we live in a tropical paradise! In addition, many of the trees and grasses keep their leaves year-round, so we get lots of green.

CON: Eating more meat. Believe it or not, we eat more meat now in China than we did in the US. There, meat (and food in general) is more expensive and we cooked more for ourselves. So, our diet was decidedly more carb-laden. Meat is far more taxing on resources and the environment, so...

PRO: Local fruits and vegetables. All of our produce is local - no flying in strawberries in January from Chile. I would guess that most everything comes from within the province, which has the arable land of 2-3 Midwestern states. This has taught me the value of seasonality. When I go to the fruit or veggie market, I look for whatever I see a lot of - that means it is in season, and it is probably good.

PRO/CON?: Unlike America, there is no market for "green" products. So we cannot buy off our guilty conscience at the store by choosing the product with the environmentally-friendly label.

CONCLUSION: As far as the lives of Chinese go, it is plain to see that the average Chinese person lives a far more environmentally sustainable life than that of an average American. No contest. When you compare the life of an affluent Chinese person to an average American, it probably equals out. (That's why it is frightening to an environmental science teacher to think of half a billion middle class Chinese living the American lifestyle one day soon, which is a realistic possibility)

Unfortunately, we live lives closer to that of rich Chinese, so it is hard to judge which of our lifestyles is better in this regard. If I had to choose, I would give the nod to our Chinese life because of the lack of a car and less overall energy use. But it's close.

-alan