I see this as a difficult to fake signal that China's economic growth is more real than some folks in the West would like to believe. It is similar to the challenges faced by industrial cities in the West as they exploited the massive production capacities created during WW II. Generally the reasoning goes, high pollution from lots of power plants / factories is a function of production of those power plants / factories.
You can fake GDP numbers but its not as straight forward to fake this sort of environment.
That said, it would be unfortunate if China doesn't get their act in gear soon and start putting scrubbers on plants and cleaning up their act here.
> China's economic growth is more real than some folks in the West would like to believe
i know that people in general are racist against the chinese for all sorts of reasons, but this is the first time i've heard this one.
does anyone actually doubt china's economic growth? i mean all you have to do is go there and see it. (granted, very, very few 'experts' on china have ever actually been there)
The global interest in China's actual GDP on a comparative scale is to help estimate things like their future consumption of natural resources, their threat to global stability, and to evaluate global recessions/growth more accurately.
The problem with "seeing it" is differentiating what you are seeing with what is. So for example a city in the US that has a lot of large buildings being built is a clear sign of economic growth because the market dynamics are structured so that people don't build buildings unless they believe they can rent them out profitably, so they 'lead' in the sense there is demand for that space, they go up, it gets rented, and now there are a bunch of new jobs in the city which brings in workers with wages etc etc etc.
But in China there are buildings that were built simply because the government said "Build a building." There are buildings that are totally empty (see this link http://io9.com/chinas-brand-new-abandoned-cities-could-be-dy... which has some fascinating pictures).
So people don't trust the economic statistics the government produces and seek out other ways of either confirming or denying what is said. Energy consumption is one such indicator which, when combined with a technology sophistication index, can provide another data point on China's economic strength.
As comments to your first comment have already pointed out, pollution per unit of primary energy produced in power plants can vary wildly among different parts of the world. Yes, we know that China is putting up a lot of buildings. We know that China has huge amounts of air pollution. We don't know if China would be doing either of those things to the same degree if China had a freer market and more effective rule of law. That's why observers like me think that China could still stagnate at its current level of economic development, and lose the growth magic that it (undeniably) has enjoyed during most of our adult lives.
China's growth is being sustained by a development bubble, where they are accumulating the infamous ghost towns. But I've never heard anyone deny the fact that they are doing these things. And, of course, everyone in the US already knows that China makes everything. So I don't know who you are referring to here.
China has a lot of ghost towns, but remember that the ghost towns from 2008 are full of people now, so I'm guessing that the current ghost towns will up sooner or later. China has way less square footage of housing per capita than Europe, much less the US so building lots of housing is a pretty reasonable investment even if it doesn't pay off instantly.
But is it sustainable? Heavy thick smog (indicating the prominent use of coal to generate power) are certainly a negative signal when we have much better power sources.
Of course it is, (sustainable that is), it is just more expensive. I don't believe there is anything currently cheaper than a pouring fresh out of the mine coal, down a chute into a burner, which is making steam to drive a turbine. And there are a number of plants in China that seem to be just that.
You can pre-process the coal (remove impurities, create more uniform pellets, etc) to reduce random by products, and you can post process the exhaust plume through particulate and catalyzing filters to remove pollution by products. Much like a modern automobile a modern coal plant does all of that and more.
The down side is that it is more expensive to build, and to operate, and to fuel. Which is why generally government regulations are used to enforce it.
You can fake GDP numbers but its not as straight forward to fake this sort of environment.
That said, it would be unfortunate if China doesn't get their act in gear soon and start putting scrubbers on plants and cleaning up their act here.