880 foot long Chinese bridge collapsed

[mrcrow]

Witnesses heard a rumble and saw stones fall from the structure Monday afternoon after construction workers removed scaffolding from the 140-foot-high, 880-foot-long vehicle and pedestrian bridge across the Tuo River in the southern town of Fenghuang.

the glue hadnt set properly...my guess..
better with steel and rc for bridges
masonry is tricky and needs a lot of jointing

[NeonVomit]

i sense some corporate suicides on the horizon

 

 

That's a Japanese thing.

[NeonVomit]

I can't comment on the other topics of conversation in this thread, but the fact that China is a communist country, I think that is what allows more problems to slip through. There's fewer people in control, and not as many people looking over their shoulders (checks and balances), so there's apt to be more deals going on behind the scenes. I'm not saying this doesn't happen in the US and elsewhere, but it's more likely to happen in communism and a dictatorship: just look at what Chavez is doing.

 

 

China is communist in the same way American cheese is called cheese.

 

Anyway, what's a collapsed bridge to them? Mao once said something along the lines of 'Who cares if we lose 400 million people to a nuclear war? We'll still have 400 million left' or something like that.

 

Face it people, America and the EU will be replaced by China and India as the world's biggest economic and political powers, within the next 30 years.

[Perfessor]

I think China will undergo the usual renewal in inward thinking once they have too many problems dealing with urbanization and keeping up with the Jones's. Problems with water, with pollution and food production will eventually put a damper on all the growth. What goes up must come down.

[hawkhuff]

This is the country that's going to have it their way in the "Asian Century"? The thing was 140 feet high and 880 feet long and the whole thing went at once as soon as it was "done". http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/08/13/china.bridge.ap/index.html?eref=rss_world

It's W's fault 'cause he's diverting all the money to the war in Iraq. China's too.

[hawkhuff]

i sense some corporate suicides on the horizon

Actually, it is a good way to keep the business world moving.

Maybe we should have more of that in government.

[Markee]

We, the U.S, are in no position to embargo China in any way. They hold 190 billion dollars of US bonds and are threatening to cash them all in at once as we read. Talk about another economic depression. China's breakneck race to be the new super power will comsume them I believe. The fatter they get the more they'll corrupt then they'll have to deal with the 60 million man Army who hasn't got clean water to drink, much less indoor plumbing and poison food. By the way, China passed the US years ago as the top polluter. America is behind China, India, and Brazil and that's taking into account population.

[Jazz Ad]

Depends on what you call pollution.

USA is still way on top when it comes to fossil fuel use, CO or CO2 emissions, with or without considering population.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_pol_car_dio_199-environment-pollution-carbon-dioxide-1999

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_pol_car_dio_fro_fos_fue_200-carbon-dioxide-fossil-fuels-2000

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_pol_car_dio_fro_fos_fue_200_percap-fossil-fuels-2000-per-capita

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_pol_car_dio_per_cap-pollution-carbon-dioxide-per-capita

 

When it comes to nitrogen emissions, 1st world countries still take the top, USA being third.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_pol_nit_oxi_per_cap-pollution-nitrogen-oxides-per-capita

USA also are on the top list of wasted water ressources.

 

I'm actually surprised

that France doesn't rate even higher when it comes to nuclear wastes.

[sludgebass69]

.....Not that human life has ever been very important there.

Unfortunately, it's becoming less and less important here, also.




(hey, if you're gonna only post once every few months, might as well be in a politically charged thread....)

[Craig Vecchione]

 

Exactly. So it's really a moral issue. Does money allow one to pollute and buy other people/countries' health ? It's not like the carbon offset idea was new, this is just the same.

 

 

 

But who's morals are brought into question? The US's. And IMO, it's much less forgivable for the *governments* of the countries that allowed US *business* to move dirty ops to their shores. Businesses can't ever be counted on to do the right thing...their focus is on profit, no matter what the commercials try to brainwash us into believing. But governments are supposed to be loking out for their population's general well being. This clearly isn't happening.

[Fireball_73]

never mind they are hosting the olymipcs next year - in Bejing - a city where people with breathing difficulties are told to NEVER go to, not just to minimise their stay, because the smog is that bad!

Think what the air is going to do to all those extremely fit atheletes

[hawkhuff]

Depends on what you call pollution. USA is still way on top when it comes to fossil fuel use, CO or CO2 emissions, with or without considering population. When it comes to nitrogen emissions, 1st world countries still take the top, USA being third. USA also are on the top list of wasted water ressources. I'm actually surprised that France doesn't rate even higher when it comes to nuclear wastes.

We burn lots of coal. We also install lots of stack scrubbers on the coal burners to reduc pollutants (chiefly sulfur). They are required by law. The rest of the effluent goes to Canada.

Nitrogen emissions? Nitrogen is not a pollutant. In fact, it comprises 78% of the air we breathe. Did you mean nitrates?

What does wasted water resources mean?

What do you do with your radioactive waste? I hear tell you sell some to the Iranians. True?

Right now, the only way to reduce fossil fuel emissions is to build nuke plants, wind farms, and solar arrays. All have their up and down sides.

However, any time anyone tries to build one they need government permits. Once they apply for them the environmentlist wackos file class action law suits and the thing is tied up court for years.

As I recall, there was a wind farm closed down in California because birds were flying into the blades. There went about a million bucks down the drain.

Bobby Kennedy filed a law suit against thoe who were going to put up a wind mill near the Kennedy compound in Cape Cod. What a monumental hypocrite.

Coal = cheap energy source for those 'addicted' to oil'

[Zebra]

But who's morals are brought into question? The US's. And IMO, it's much less forgivable for the *governments* of the countries that allowed US *business* to move dirty ops to their shores. Businesses can't ever be counted on to do the right thing...their focus is on profit, no matter what the commercials try to brainwash us into believing. But governments are supposed to be loking out for their population's general well being. This clearly isn't happening.

 

 

I don't know what your reasoning is behind thinking that it worse for the governments to accept dirty business.

These high pollution levels, contamination and slave labor are all really just byproducts of budding capitalism, because that's what's really going on in China. China is desperately trying to thrust their country in to the modern age through massive industrialization. Capitalism's the best way to make it happen, and they're buying cheap, outdated, polluting, hazardous materials and machinery from western countries that we used before we knew it was so bad. Why would a country playing keep-up be concerned with pollutants? We can bitch and moan about them all we want, bu their response will always be "you got to do it. We need to industrialize too, why should we care?"

 

Moral fiber in a government is idealistic, and no half-baked politician or economist would expect a country like China, or any other industrializing country, to reject those opportunities that are thrown at them because of moral issues.

[Craig Vecchione]

 

Moral fiber in a government is idealistic, and no half-baked politician or economist would expect a country like China, or any other industrializing country, to reject those opportunities that are thrown at them because of moral issues.

 

 

Regardless of how it affects the very people they supposedly represent. Makes little sense.

 

 

All I was pointing out is that there is some expectation of a government to protect its citizens. No such expectation is ever made of a business.

[Bluescout]

I just hope we won't have a collapsing bridge. We tend to make ours pretty big.

Sounds like trying to compensate for something...

[Mudbass]

Prolly too much lead in the paint.

[Jazz Ad]

What do you do with your radioactive waste? I hear tell you sell some to the Iranians. True?

Wrong.

You're a bit late on this actually, we're doing worse.

Lastly our beloved president (yeah right) helped French companies contracting with Lybia to sell "nuclear water desalination plants".

I kid you not.

I understand that our economy needs to work but obviously leaders don't learn from the past.

[Zebra]

So we should be excused for allowing our budding capitalism. Just because we industrialized first, we should be singled out? At what point does a budding capitalist country have to start acting responsibly?

 

 

We were fortunate of having the excuse of ignorance when we were going through that necessary phase. China is going through that same, necessary phase, but they're getting dogged on it because we know better now. But that doesn't make the phase any less necessary for them. They'll argue that we're just trying to hold them back by throwing fits about contamination. They're not really doing anything different from what happened in the west, and they think it's unfair of us to act high and mighty about it, so they won't stop. I'm not trying to take sides on the issue, I'm trying to say that their argument has some sense in it, and you can't just simply say "they know better, they should do better."

[Craig Vecchione]

 

Wrong. You're a bit late on this actually, we're doing worse. Lastly our beloved president (yeah right) helped French companies contracting with Lybia to sell "nuclear water desalination plants". I kid you not . I understand that our economy needs to work but obviously leaders don't learn from the past.

 

 

 

Gotta wonder what Sarkozy is thinking.

[Craig Vecchione]

 

I agree with this concept. The only thing is that this concept doesn't exactly exist everywhere. Western governments could have done something to prevent doing dirty business in foreign countries, but it's not like it doesn't really benefit us. It's bad that these corrupt governments will {censored} on their populations, but it's also bad that we're pretty much ok with exploiting it. We were fortunate of having the excuse of ignorance when we were going through that necessary phase. China is going through that same, necessary phase, but they're getting dogged on it because we know better now. But that doesn't make the phase any less necessary for them. They'll argue that we're just trying to hold them back by throwing fits about contamination. They're not really doing anything different from what happened in the west, and they think it's unfair of us to act high and mighty about it, so they won't stop. I'm not trying to take sides on the issue, I'm trying to say that their argument has some sense in it, and you can't just simply say "they know better, they should do better."

 

 

There's no sense in their argument; "you were ignorant of what you did, so that makes it okay for us to do the same, in full knowledge of what we're doing".

 

It is not necessary for them to pollute with reckless abandon in order to grow.

[Zebra]

It is not necessary for them to pollute with reckless abandon in order to grow.

 

 

Maybe not, but it's the best way for them to do it. Complaining that they should do better is like complaining that there should be more unicorns in our national forests.