This assignment was slightly difficult for me. We were asked to write about a time when we or someone we know experienced a stressful situation such as
- war
- poverty
- racism
- natural disaster
- isolation
- hunger
- noise
- chaos
- disease
- environmental pollution
- violence
and how we/they coped/survived the situation. Well, I can't personally think of anyone who has experienced any of these things as a child. As a child, I didn't experience of any these stressors. However, as an adult, I know the effects of these experiences all too well. But, if anyone comes to mind (or if my memory improves), I'll be sure to update this post.
The other half of the assignment was to research how some of these stressors are dealt with in other parts of the world. I chose to look at environmental pollution in China because they have high levels of pollution and I was curious about how it's all being handled. In 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported estimates that diseases triggered by indoor and outdoor air pollution kill 656,000 Chinese citizens each year, and polluted drinking water kills another 95,600. Even with China having a large population, that's a large number of people dying each year. The air in China can actually be deadly. The damaging air pollutants include sulfur dioxide, particulate matter—a mixture of extremely small particles and water droplets—ozone, and nitrogen dioxide. China accounts for roughly one-third of the global total for these pollutants. It is amazing that the air quality is so bad, yet their population is so large. Why isn’t anyone doing anything about this problem? It is estimated that air pollution causes approximately 2 million premature deaths worldwide. In the United States, it is estimated that 41,200 premature deaths are from toxic air pollutants. Something clearly has to change!!
Not only do they have to worry about air pollution, they also have to deal with water pollution. Unfortunately, after all that I read, I didn’t see any information on how they plan to fix their pollution problems. These pollutants are seriously harmful to children and can have lasting effects. I wonder if they have a “Go Green” initiative in China…
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Ryan, your post was very interesting. I did not realize that there was that many deaths because of air pollutants. That is an astonishing number. I do not think that not having any of these stressors as a child is a bad thing.
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