Reports

In our series Social Entrepreneurs, we report this week on Javier Gonzales from Colombia who has made it his role in life to help those who are illiterate. And he does it through play. Over one million Latin Americans have learned how to read and write using his methods.

Australia lives from the exploitation of its raw materials. However, the technology used to do so comes from abroad. Australia itself has no technology worth mentioning. It could produce its own steel - it has coal and iron ore - but instead Australia has chosen to content itself with the role of raw materials supplier. This makes the country dependent on world markets.

Children pay the highest price: two thirds of all the city's children are affected. The municipal environmental agency is now under tremendous pressure from Beijing to take action. However, as soon as one coking plant is shut down, another one opens up illegally. Coal is needed to power the ongoing economic boom, a lucrative but dirty business.

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When Jiang Yafeng comes home from her morning exercises, she needs to wash the dirt off her hands and face. She seldom uses white hand towels, because where she lives, the dirt shows after every short walk. She explains: "Filth everywhere, it’s the soot and emissions from all the factories. And if I blow my nose, the handkerchief is black. It’s even worse without a face mask. Every day we breathe in another portion of poison."

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Welcome to Linfen – the world’s dirtiest city, where you can’t see the hand in front of your face. Instead, clouds of pollution billow from the smokestacks of the iron, steel, and coal plants. Not ten of them, or hundreds of them, but thousands of them. British experts have even compared their effects to that of the meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear plant. Except that in Linfen, four million people live in the immediate vicinity.

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Inspector Yi Weihua of the city's environmental agency is under pressure. Beijing has discovered the idea of environmental protection and wants results. So we accompanied Mr. Yi to a showcase factory. The Lingang coke and steel plant used to be the city's biggest polluter. Now it is proud of its new emissions filter. The plant employs 11.000 laborers. Mr. Yi says the government is giving polluters only a few months to change – or be shut down. "Our government has already done a lot to get rid of this shameful reputation as the dirtiest city. For a long time we didn’t pay enough attention. Now things are improving – we’re down to SECOND dirtiest city in China."

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Jiang Yafeng doesn’t believe these statistics. Her grandson doesn’t want to take his medicine. For a 3-year-old, he has an incredibly long medical history. First his tonsils were removed; now he’s got bronchitis again. The children’s ward at the district hospital. Two-thirds of Linfen’s small children suffer from respiratory diseases. Antibiotics drip through the intravenous tube. These children’s life expectancy is ten years lower than the Chinese average. Jiang Yafeng says: "Our whole family is constantly ill. My husband and my two sisters all have trouble breathing. And I often feel a burning in my throat. And this dry cough is almost normal in the meantime."

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Linfen’s environmental agency is under pressure. Yi Weihua returns from his inspection tour. He has to show results and stop the worst polluters. About 100 illegal coking plants have already been destroyed. But for every demolished smokestack, two new ones go up elsewhere. "This measure alone means an economic loss of 200 million yuan, or about 20 million euros. But we will continue to close the factories that are worst for the environment. But protests are inevitable; after all, people’s jobs are at stake," Yi Weihua states.

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Many factories are illegal. In China, bribery opens lots of doors. Without coal, there would be no economic boom. So it is a lucrative if sometimes deadly business. When they see a camera, the security personnel get tough: filming is forbidden! Not 100 meters away is Mr. Li's farm. He says he used to have twice as much acreage, but it was confiscated to make an access road to the factory. He and his family can hardly live from the remaining land. "The cabbage leaves are black with soot. At the market, who would buy it?" That’s as far as he gets. A factory spy interrupts us. The man flees when he sees our camera. It isn’t the first attempt to intimidate our interview partners.

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The Fen River near Linfen, the source of drinking water for millions, is an open sewer. Half of the wells in the province are contaminated. But the laboratory analysts at Linfen’s environmental agency aren’t excited. They’re used to it. They even have to brush the soot and dust from their measuring devices before they can analyze the drinking water for impurities, which they do once a month. International studies show that the rate of arsenic poisoning is very high in the province. Inspector Yi says this is hysteria: "So far the water here was always in order. The stipulated limits have never been exceeded."

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Jiang Yufeng has heard it all too often. She is afraid that, in China’s dirtiest or second-dirtiest city, her grandchildren have no chance for a clean future.

Yucatan's isolated location and minimal infrastructure might normally be seen as a huge disadvantage. But in this case the opposite is true: the unspoiled countryside is one of the beekeepers' biggest selling points. The price of their organic honey is already nearly 50 percent higher than that of conventional honey.

He is excited by globalisation because it gives his company access to a much wider range of products. It also allows him to meet people all over the world.