Ma Jun Quotes
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We firmly believe the environmental issues cannot be addressed without extensive public participation, but people need to be informed before they can get involved.
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The situation is quite serious - groundwater is important source for water use, including drinking water, and if it gets contaminated, it's very costly and difficult to clean.
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Urban residents, most of them middle class, have a much better sense of their environmental rights, and they're willing to take to the streets.
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It has been shown that public participation can limit powerful interest groups, while competing interests can help find a reasonable balance between development and environmental protection.
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In the future, officials will feel more pressure to protect the environment. But how to assess the officials' efforts to protect the environment is still a pivotal issue.
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In China we need to do our own part to try to combat global climate change.
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China leads the world in energy consumption, carbon emissions, and the release of major air and water pollutants, and the environmental impact is felt both regionally and globally.
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What we aim to do, through public pressure, is help the environment protection bureau to enforce the law.
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If you publish something in traditional media, it's one-way. With social media, we get all this info coming back from those who read our posts.
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Beijing was such a different city. There were so few cars, I could walk in the middle of the road. In the summer, the streetlamps attracted swirling bugs. I loved those bugs: crickets, praying mantis, all kinds of beetles. I also have a vivid memory of dazzling sunlight coming out of the sky.
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When I look at China's environmental problems, the real barrier is not lack of technology or money. It's lack of motivation.
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If major companies sourcing in developing countries care only about price and quality, local suppliers will be lured to cut corners on environmental standards to win contracts.
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Globalisation has powered economic growth in developing countries such as China. Global logistics, low domestic production costs, and strong consumer demand have let the country develop strong export-based manufacturing, making the country the workshop of the world.
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Multinationals are more sensitive to public pressure because they have bigger brand names, and they have made commitments to be environmentally sensitive. Chinese firms are not used to this kind of pressure yet.
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In America, you complain about job losses because of China, but here, we carry all of the environmental costs.
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Pollution is a serious one. Water pollution, air pollution, and then solid hazardous waste pollution. And then beyond that, we also have the resources issue. Not just water resources but other natural resources, the mining resources being consumed, and the destruction of our ecosystem.
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Like in those cancer villages, a group of old ladies kneeling down in front of me, you know, holding a bottle of polluted water and hoping that they would get help, this is the voice that got drowned in this complex, globalized supply chain system.
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Everyone else has some interest in economic growth and development, which often happens at the expense of the environment and community. We need the other side to join this to check and balance.
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Some of the areas in China have been under very grave water scarcity: for example, the north China plain; they are facing a very serious water shortage. Per capita levels have dropped to very serious levels, including in Beijing.
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It's true that hydropower exploitation can bring economic development, but not necessarily to the benefit of local people.
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Regulatory failings mean that the cost of breaking the law is far below that of obeying it - businesses are happier to pay fines than to control pollution.
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China's energy is very much focused on coal, and the economy is very focused on heavy industry, which is carbon intensive, so restructuring won't be easy.
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There is a growing recognition of the importance of really bringing pollution under control.
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I know the government needs to ensure economic growth... we just hope it takes care of the environment, too.