A Dream for a Better World

When we talk about pollution, we always associate it with urban districts. At present, as technology and economy develop so fast, the environment in urban district has been indeed seriously polluted. However, the environment in rural area has also been polluted but people always ignore it. In recent years, people living in rural area have got higher income but the environment still remains the same and in some areas, the environment has become worse. According to some data, about 3 billion people in rural areas could not get clean water and more people suffer from cancer due to dirty water.
There are mainly three kinds of pollution in rural areas of China. First, modernization of agricultural production has caused some pollution. China has a large population and inadequate land. In such case, people have to improve the productivity in order to obtain good yield and they always make use of fertilizers and pesticides to get more output. At present , China has become the leading country for fertilizers and pesticides use in the world. On one hand, fertilizers and pesticides can bring more output to farmers, on the other hand, they have also destroyed the land. In fact, much land has suffered from acidification and people can not get any output from it. In addition, when it rains, fertilizers and pesticides are taken into rivers and people have to use the contaminated water which will cause diseases. Fishes and other creatures living in rivers will also be killed. In a word, the whole ecosystem will be destroyed. In Tai Lake, 1300,000 ton fertilizers and pesticides are put onto farmland every year but only 1/3 of them was absorbed. The rest is taken into rivers and agricultural products. As greenhouse agriculture develops rapidly, plastic film pollution is very terrible. Much plastic film has been remained on the land and output of agricultural products has also decreased. Second, pollution occurs because of unreasonable infrastructure construction and environmental management in rural areas. In many regions, the construction is not reasonable, for example, factories are set up next to people’s houses. In addition, daily contaminated water is directly discharged into rivers without treatment. Third, distribution of factories is not reasonable and some enterprises produce terrible pollution when they arrange production. At present, COD and some solid waste discharged by factories in rural areas takes up more than 50% of total industrial pollutants in the country. In addition, the treatment methods for waste in rural areas are not as advanced as that in cities. That solid waste has also terribly polluted the land in rural areas.
As for the pollution, there are some reasons. The government has not paid much attention to it and makes related laws for pollution prevention. People living in rural areas do not have good awareness to protect environment. Local government does not have enough capital to deal with the pollution and they can not get enough technical support for pollution treatment. therefore, how to deal with the pollution in rural areas mainly depends on what the government will do.

Five years ago, I interviewed a man.  This guy brought a bottle of water on the train, which costs 1.5 yuan. And then he asked fapiao for the cost from the train attendant. The train attendant laughed and said: “There is no fapiao for the cost on the train ever.”

The guy sent the Ministry of Railway to court afterwards.

He said people always choose to accept when they are facing strong and powerful rules.  But if we give up the right to ask fapiao for 1.5 yuan today, tomorrow we may have to give up the landright, property rights, and even the right to live… If we don’t fight for our rights, these rights will just be a piece of paper.

He won the case at last.  I thought him and the Ministry of Railway will be angry from then on.   However, when next time he ate in the restaurant car on the train, the chief conductor deliver his food in person, and asked him if he wants the fapiao right away or after meal.

I asked him, how you win the respect?

“By the perseverance to fight for my rights.” He said.

His name is Hao Jinsong, a 34 years old lawyer.

I heard the story from a journalist in her speech competition yesterday.  I appreciate Hao Jinsong’s courage to go against the powerful government branch for his legal right.   I also appreciate the journalist’s work to record the small but powerful stories like this and broadcast them.

A nation consist of different idividuals. They create and define the nation.  Only if a nation have the people who has independent thinking, who strives for the truth, who filghts for their constitutioanal right, who knows the world is not perfect but never gives up trying, the nation can have its future, a better one.

Ps: Fapiao is an official receipt. It used for calculating the in-comes, so that the government would know how much that one earns, and then easy for tax.

Government corruption is a problem that people in many countries are jostling with for a long time now. Although there is no overnight solution to the problem, it can be gradually eliminated over a period of time through persistent efforts of the people in a country. For instance citizens living in a country can always make a firm resolve that they will not tolerate corruption any longer and therefore throw out corrupt government officials or even the government itself. Voting out corrupt governments is another way to bring about a change, especially in the case of democracies. Bringing government corruption to a standstill depends would therefore involve a united effort by the people living in the particular country.

A lot of the attention for AIDs prevention focuses on sexual contact. But we can’t forget the medical factors. Last year in Peru, litres of donated blood were destroyed because they found the medical blood bank had blood infected with HIV. The first question this should makes all think is “how did the blood pass screening tests?”- if there were any. AIDs prevention, doesn’t just start with condoms and educational programs. It also begins with governmental responsibility and their ability to protect their citizens. Regulations and directorates need to implemented to avoid outrageous situations like in Peru last year.

Aids prevention begins with better education about the risks and issues involved. But when we are misinformed about a subject as important as aids prevention, things can only go from bad to worse. As in the case of South Africa, the Health Minister once said that the cure for aids was eating “garlic and beetroot”. This is outrageous misinformation, from a governing body no less! And now, the next expected President in the ANC party, Mr Jacob Zuma has sexual relations with an aids infected girl – and his response? “I took a shower”. More needs to be expected from a government of a country suffering an aids epidemic.

Nowadays, the pollution becomes a big problem of the world. People should realize this serious problem. The air pollution is very serious now. People in Nanjing, too many people have cars. The tail gas does a lot of harm to the air. But people think cars are very convenient, so people don’t want to reduce the use of the cars. The government of Nanjing finds this is a big problem now. So they forbid the citizen can’t drive a car one day. On this day, people can’t drive cars on the streets. They just can walk if they want to go somewhere. Another pollution is the ground pollution, now people don’t realize the environment problem. So they also litter the rubbish without care. This makes the pollution more serious. People also use the plastic bags. These are poisonous. The plastic bags can’t be biodegraded.  

So the pollution becomes more serious now. People should realize the environment problem. And we also should take some actions to protect the world.