Urban,Rural and Suburban wind velocity change in the troposphere

Different values are to be expected in different environments, systems such at net temperature rise and fall and factors such as roughness are changed in each environment. Wind is a fluid, although we can’t see it, by looking at how water reacts we can get a brief idea to how wind interacts with cities. In rapids, water has (symbolises a city) lots of turbulence as it bounces off the rocky floor, in an estuary (rural area) the water is generally calm but fast moving because the river bed is very smooth creating little turbulence.

In high velocity conditions, cities have on average lower wind speed (S. Mertens 2006), due to increased friction with buildings creating a loss in energy. Rural areas have smaller structures creating less resistance for wind to flow over therefore increasing wind speed, with suburban areas sitting in the middle of the spectrum. However at high pressure conditions, cities have a higher wind speed on average due to atmospheric instability created by urban heat islands, and increased turbulence due to roughness from buildings, this causes an increase in vertical mixing creating higher wind speeds in urban and suburban areas compared to rural areas (D.O Lee, 1979).

All 3 areas have a contrasting wind standard deviations, standard deviation of wind speed relates to the fluctuation around the average velocity in the given study area. Cities have the greatest standard deviation figure due to the design, size and urban heat island effect, (A. Bharat 2012) collectedly all these factors cause turbulence, channelling of wind and a higher urban roughness area (this is the area that roughness created by buildings have a direct influence on the flow of wind) meaning that there is greater possibility for wind to fluctuate. Rural area have a lower standard deviation due to less verticality, smooth areas and lower temperature average which all creates a more aerodynamic environment and consistent resistance level meaning that wind speeds deviate less from the mean on average compared to cities (R.D. Bornstein, 1977).

Suburban areas fit in the middle of this spectrum, having manmade structures with rough edges and unnatural channels (often roads surrounded by rows of houses) along with the effect of urban heat islands causes standard deviation levels to be much greater than rural areas. However, because suburban areas lack the verticality of cities they have less surface roughness area to create turbulence and therefore have a smaller standard deviation than cities (S.Oikawa. 1995)

References: 

Bharat, A. and Ahmed, A.S., 2012. Effects of high rise building complex on the wind flow patterns on surrounding urban pockets. International Journal of Engineering Research and Development, 4(9), pp.21-26.

Bornstein, R.D. and Johnson, D.S., 1977. Urban-rural wind velocity differences. Atmospheric Environment (1967), 11(7), pp.597-604.

Lee, D.O., 1979. The influence of atmospheric stability and the urban heat island on urban-rural wind speed differences. Atmospheric Environment (1967), 13(8), pp.1175-1180.

Mertens, S., 2006. Wind energy in the built environment: concentrator effects of buildings.

Oikawa, S. and Meng, Y., 1995. Turbulence characteristics and organized motion in a suburban roughness sublayer. Boundary-Layer Meteorology, 74(3), pp.289-312.

The Modern Food Industry

Before the settling of hunter-gathers food was not regular and extended periods of fasting were common if the prey was not caught. Eventually, people began to become more stationary and agriculture started to develop. However, the food was still very hit and miss and consisted mainly of subsistent farming, farmers would have a very small herd of animals and any extra produce would be traded for other essential items. 2000 years later we now have huge monocultural and industrial farming systems which help feed the 7 billion people on planet Earth. With such a large population farming technique have been drastically changed with many systems becoming automated, cows no longer eat grass they consume food pellets and growth hormones to speed up the development process, so they can be brought to slaughter.

Fertilizers consisting of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium have allowed us to have two harvests a year, while pesticides have made the yield very efficient as insects are no longer able to wipe out crops. This use of chemicals was introduced to allow our huge population to eat, the overuse of chemicals has had huge bioaccumulation issues within the food chain with the species most at risk being humans because we are at the very top of the system (1).

There are many environmental issues that surround the food industry but perhaps the most relevant is soil degradation. Without soils life on earth would not exist, the nutrient rich part of the soil is the upper two layers, the O layer (organic matter layer) and the A layer (topsoil), the overuse of our soils and bad farming techniques has created soil degradation making it susceptible to soil erosion from aeolian processes. Bad farming techniques like non contour ploughing lead to high levels of surface runoff, this washes the fertilisers into nearby rivers which eventually leads to the sea, over time this excess nutrients causes eutrophication. Eutrophication is the bloom of algae caused by over nutrient waters, this algae then uses up all the oxygen in the water killing all life and also any fauna on the sea floor, the Gulf of Mexico experiences bad levels of eutrophication due to the Mississippi river and its inability to flush out into the ocean(2).

Monoculture is the agricultural practice of producing or growing a single crop, plant, or livestock species, variety, or breed in a field or farming system at a time, although this has helped us support our exponentially increasing population and till now prove wrong the Malthus theory is has also created many problems. In order to produce such high yields plant species are grouped together making them easy to harvest, similar or the same strains of wheat are grown for hundreds of miles at a time because, the demand for a product is far greater than what the other less common strains of wheat produce. This means they have similar genetic makeups which leads them susceptible to diseases wiping out millions of acres of food. This could lead to a similar situation as played out in the movie Interstellar.

However it's not the farmer's fault, it's down to human culture and over consumption. Capitalist businesses such as fast food giant MacDonald’s and human lifestyle has created this need for such intensive agriculture and 99% of this issue is down to the global north where only 20% if the world's population lives. 10% of our world population is classed as undernourished (3) while 30% are classed as obese(4) this huge variation in calorie intake needs to be sorted as there is no point in reducing our food production when people still go to bed hungry in the world.

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have allowed food production to prosper in climates where they were previously unable to, however, there are pros and cons to this amazing invention. The pros are obvious, the ability to feed millions if not billions of people on earth. One of the many cons is that GM seeds are patterned meaning that the farmers that grow the crops are not allowed to keep the seeds for themselves, this has resulted in huge profits in companies and the loss of livelihood in many small farms due to debt or cross contamination of seeds.

What is shocking is after all this progression in the food market there are hundreds of food deserts in the US, a food desert is defined as parts of the country scarce of fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthful whole foods, usually found in impoverished areas this leads to undernourishment and obesity. Another huge issue is the collateral damage from pesticides sprayed on crops. The numbers of bees have dropped by around 30% (5) its said by scientists that without bees we would have only 4 years remaining on earth due to the lack of pollination, things need to change and quickly monocultural farming (predominantly in the US and the great plains of Europe because of the huge extent of land available to farm) needs to be reconsidered and pesticides need to be controlled.

References

(1)   Colborn, T., Vom Saal, F.S. and Soto, A.M., 1993. Developmental effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in wildlife and humans. Environmental health perspectives, 101(5), p.378.

(2)   Rabalais, N.N., Turner, R.E., Gupta, B.K.S., Platon, E. and Parsons, M.L., 2007. Sediments tell the history of eutrophication and hypoxia in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Ecological Applications, 17(sp5), pp.S129-S143.

(3)   Max Roser and Hannah Ritchie (2018) - "Hunger and Undernourishment". Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment' [Online Resource]

(4)   Bleich, S.N., Cutler, D., Murray, C. and Adams, A., 2008. Why is the developed world obese?. Annu. Rev. Public Health, 29, pp.273-295.

(5)   Goulson, D., Nicholls, E., Botías, C. and Rotheray, E.L., 2015. Bee declines driven by combined stress from parasites, pesticides, and lack of flowers. Science, 347(6229), p.1255957.

How to succeed with Modafinil

Disclaimer everything I talk about here is from past experience, I am no doctor, and you should always consult your doctor before taking and especially microdosing modafinil. 
Remember any prescription drug without a prescription is a class B offence in the UK. 

Microdosing Modafinil 

I have tried various types of modafinil and my personal favourite is Wakealert, this is because it can be broken into halves and still have nice initial 6-8 hour period where you are "in the zone" altogether a half lasts around 10 hours of stimulation. 
Modafinil (Provigil) has a unique structure and is not a stimulant like Adderall (because it's not a stimulant it's not addictive in the same way), modafinil comes with the effect of alertness but not happiness and therefore has less addictive effect, but it does have stimulant-like effects and improves alertness, enhances thinking and perception, in addition to helping to keep people awake.

Depending on how busy I would be with my day I would take different levels of modafinil but never more than a half as its just not necessary. Remember modafinil will not make you magically work you have to be self-disciplined and eager to do well in work school and generally life.

How to succeed with modafinil

Modafinil is not some magical brain controlling drug you have to be self-disciplined and organised to effectively take modafinil, modafinil if done correctly can massively increase your productivity but done wrongly, and it can make you develop insomnia and be very unproductive.

The dos and dont's to modafinil, if you follow this list you are well on your way to becoming a productivity machine:

Make to-do list - I have a todo list daily on modafinil and or not, todo lists make you more organized, it stops you getting distracted and gives you the satisfaction of crossing of your tasks for the day. So when you look back on your day, you can feel proud of yourself.

The 12-hour rule- take a modafinil at least 12 hours before you intend to go to bed so if you plan to go to bed at 22:00 take it at 10 in the morning. Personally, I try to aim for 13/14 when I am in my crunch exam revision period I would wake up at 7 go to the gym and take a modafinil when I got back at 9 and id go to bed at around 11 aiming for 8 hour sleep a day because any more than that is not needed. 

Leave you phone in your room -  this is a best case scenario but not always ideal so either leave you phone in your room, give it to a friend, hand it into the library reception or just turn it off. if you can nail this, then you have already won half the battle.

Don't take after 10 - modafinil aims for you to be productive but there is no point in being extra productive one day and then a sloth the next day because you took the modafinil at 3 in the afternoon and then using the 12 hours rule your not going to sleep till 3 in the morning. This has happened to me a few times, and it's not a nice feeling because you are physically tired so you want to go to bed, but your brain is racing due to the increased dopamine and serotonin. 

Drink water - I would aim to drink a minimum of 3 litres of water in my revision session which around a 7 hour period (usually from 11-3 quick dinner then 4-7). We should all try and drink more water anyway your brain and body function better when hydrated, a common side effect of modafinil is dehydration, therefore you can develop a headache, simple stuff really.

Minimise distractions - Modafinil is fantastic, but more than id like to admit what I thought was going to be a quick glance at my phone has turned into an hour long search into the theories of 9/11. Some quick advice I would give here are:
Do any small tasks like cleaning washing emailing at the beginning of your day
listen to long revision music mixes
revise alone or with someone who is focused as you, I often get irritated when people distract me.

Work in the library- go in the quite room for the library is makes concentrating a lot easier here

That is the key point into being successful of modafinil here are a few small extras that allow you to really maximise your time efficiently. 

Bulk cook food- I go to the gym daily so calorie intake is something that I take quite a lot of time doing. Bulk cooking food makes your day easier as my dinner (lunch) meal is already made for me.

Exercise - sitting on your ass all day is depressing make sure you fit some exercise in there, try doing it in the morning because once you have done a task like going to the gym at 7 in the morning, you feel like you can take on the world.

Socialise - again sitting in silence for days on end is depressing to make sure that you spend time with friends or family when you get home or allocate a certain amount of time every other day to doing something social. Mental health is no joke and spending time laughing with friends is a great way to relieve some stress. 

Use the app "sleep cycle" - track your sleep and generally research sleep this is a such as important part of being productive and generally being healthy, people have no idea on how much sleep they should have and need.

In crunch time ( my life becomes very systematic and routine so I'm able to make my time management very efficient) on modafinil i am able to go to the gym twice a day and do around 7 hours of revision a day, socialise with my friends for around an hour and a half and get 8 hours sleep a day. I go to bed at 11 and wake up at around 7 in the morning. I have had no side effects from modafinil however it has made me more organised as a person, this is because my revision techniques like making a list becomes a habit (habits take 29 days to form) so after doing it for a month or two it becomes natural.

Every one of us students drinks coffee daily to keep awake and be more productive so how is modafinil any different? 


Bibliography 

Dave Asprey on CNN Modafinil talks about side effects long term effects how it benefits him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaZp6XfqYf8

Wakealert information (personal favourite) 

https://nootriment.com/waklert/


Reddit post on microdosing 

https://www.reddit.com/r/microdosing/comments/6mul9r/microdosing_vs_modafinil/

Very interesting sleep podcast 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

Ethnic enclave Cambodia town

Cambodia town Long Beach LA

The term Cambodia Town refers to an ethnic enclave of people from the country of Cambodia, Cambodia called the kingdom of Cambodia, is a country situated in the southern tip of the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia. It has a small population of just over 15 million people and a relatively standard population density of 92 people per Km squared. Cambodia has been troubled by war and poverty from its interdependence in 1953 to the end of the Cambodian Vietnamese War in 1991.

After the coup of Khmer Rouge in 1975 the Cambodian genocide occurred, this lasted from 1975 until 1979, most Cambodians left their country after the regime in the 1980s, but many within this genocide period fled as refugees, most of these refugees arrived in the United States. The Cambodians who had previously settled in Long Beach in the 1950s and 1960s due to there time spent there as students, provided services such as counselling to assist refugees with adjustment to American culture. Long Beach became a destination that allowed many refugees to start their own businesses, this area is now what we know as Cambodia town.

As of 2007 Cambodia town is the official name for the 1.2 mile long business corridor along in the east side of Long Beach, California. The area has numerous Cambodian restaurants, clothing stores, and jewellery stores, as well as places of worship and service centres for Cambodian-Americans. There are many other businesses in the area, such as car garages that are Cambodian owned. This is what is knows as an ethnic enclave, “an ethnic enclave is a geographic area with high ethnic concentration, characteristic cultural identity, and economic activity”.

 2012-2016 5-year American Census Survey

 

House prices in California 

The ethnic enclave first began to grow in this area because of the pull factors generated by the educated Cambodians who had graduated many years ago, these Cambodians were probably very keen to offer their services to fellow Cambodians, who were going through such a terrible experience. House prices were also astronomically cheaper in the 80s than they are now, this immediately attracted the poor Cambodians who even in 2017 had a GDP per capita of only $1,390 (comparing to the USA GDP per capita of $53,128) over the last 20 years GDP per capita of Cambodia grew substantially, from $268 to £1,390, so it’s no surprise that Cambodian people generally were only able to live in cheap areas. Today however, the area has seen a huge property value increase, but not gentrification as such,  the average price of a one bedroom house in long beach is $350,000 as seen in figure two the price of housing in the last 20 years has fluctuated but overall increased dramatically, the dip around 2008 was a result of the 2008 financial crisis but the market shot back up due to social media influence, demand for houses as the population increased and amazing weather.

As figure 3 explains long beach has seen a healthy increase in population, immigrant households in long beach contributed $3.4 billion in taxes in 2016 with the Cambodian community being the 3^rd highest majority with Mexicans at 1^st and Philippines at 2^nd.

Figure 3 Long beach demographics

Unfortunately, as in many ethnic enclaves gangs are still very prominent with lots of drug territory battles and tit for tat shootings being fought. This type of activity halts development and gives a bad name for areas like Cambodia town. Property developers are wary of gentrifying these areas for the same reason that big corporate companies avoid setting up here and providing jobs, I couldn’t find unemployment rate for just Cambodia town but Long Beach is at 4.7%, I would assume that Cambodia town is slightly higher. These gang activities make it a very hot topic for politics. It's obvious that police presence needs to be increased to reduce gang activities but its very difficult to draw the line at harassment, oppression and law and order.

What’s clear here is that Cambodia town is an amazing slice of Southeast Asian life with a successful economy and overall probably very nice place to live, but as with many ethnic enclaves that consist or are surrounded by other ethnic background the presence of violent gangs will continue to be a big issue until the state of California provides jobs, out of school activities to reduce the number of young men being influenced by gangs and general financial backing to the area Cambodia town will continued to be a step behind the rest of long beach and California.

Bibliography

1 - http://southbaycompass.com/cambodia-town/

2- http://www.asian-nation.org/headlines/2007/08/newest-ethnic-enclave-cambodia-town/#sthash.kGBjbNEz.dpbs

3- https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Long_Beach-California/market-trends/

4 - https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-per-capita

5 - http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/california-housing-history-real-estate-market-trends-30-years-of-data/

6- http://www.longbeach.gov/globalassets/finance/media-library/documents/city-budget-and-finances/budget/budget-documents/fy-06-adopted-budget-webpage/understanding_the_city_s_budget/

7- Inside the Asian Crip Gangs of Long Beach - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDh5IdQH9S0

Seven Mindbogglingly Easy Ways To Help The Environment.

I have studied geography all my life by while undertaking a people and environment class at the University of Tennessee I've really began to look at things differently. 

Here are seven things that we can switch off from our daily routines. Every little helps! 

1. Use Ecosia, this is a search engine basically identical to google but instead of helping Google make £145,205,479 a day Ecosia uses 80% of its profit to afforest areas in developing countries.

2. Reuse plastic bottles If you must buy bottled water, despite the fact that there’s plenty of perfectly drinkable water in the tap, at least reuse the bottle. Plastic bottles use oil in their manufacture, they’ve got to be shipped around on carbon-chugging vehicles, they’re very rarely recycled and they take hundreds of years to "biodegrade" but actually they just get broken down into microparticles and then we eventually eat them.


3. Reuse plastic bags Stop killing so many dolphins. There are more than five trillion pieces of plastic in the world’s oceans – of which plastic bags account for a large proportion –  and they strangle sea animals and wreak havoc on the food chain.

4. Buy second hand Stop being a sheep-like slave to capitalism and look to eBay, charity shops and second-hand stores when you need to buy something. Chegg is a great website which rents out used books. If you're lucky they will already have your quotes highlighted too.

5. Only boil the water you need. Do you overfill the kettle when making tea? My mum definitely does and being born in Yorkshire we consume about 5 liters of (Yorkshire only) tea daily. So stop before you fill the kettle to the top and save yourself energy and time. 

6. Turn things off if you’re not using them. Do people still do this? Of course, we all do so next time take the effort to press another button or switch and save energy. If you love technology invest in an Amazon echo and connect it to your lights.

7.Eat less Meat.  Eating is the second biggest environmental hazard facing the planet after fossil fuel vehicles, says the Union of Concerned Scientists. PETA points out that producing just one hamburger uses enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 20 miles. If you’re not ready to go full vegetarian yet, why not cut down at least? To get started try meat-free Monday.


Bibliography 

How does google make money 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z9x6bk7

How kids can help the environment 
http://footprintseducation.org/kidz-zone/how-can-i-help.php

Africa's biggest city, Largos

Africa’s biggest city, Lagos

pmnewsnigeria.com

Lagos is the seventh fastest growing city in the word, found in Nigeria, Africa, its home to more than twenty-one million people. Africa is the second largest continent just after Asia, its four times bigger than north America, south Africa which is one of Africa’s fifty-four countries, is five times bigger than the United Kingdom. Africa covers 20% of Earths land area and has a total population of 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it also accounts for about 16% of the world's human population(1).

Nigeria is a country situated in west Africa unlike many countries in Africa part of the country boarders the ocean (Gulf of Guinea) its total population is 186 million in 2016 which is the largest out of any African countries. Nigeria is just over twice the size of California(2).

Largos Is a megacity which means to have a population greater than ten million people, largos actually has a population of 21 million. Largos generates forty % of Nigeria’s Internally generated revenue, if largos was a country in Africa it would be the seventh largest economy with a gross domestic economy of ninety billion dollars (3).

CNN.com

So Largos is obviously one of the upcoming cities in Africa and the world so how is Largos doing so well when its in one of the most deprived and corrupt continents in the world? One reason that Lagos has developed so well is because of its geographic location. The port of Lagos has allowed Nigeria’s huge oil resources to be transported worldwide bringing further investment into the city, starting in 1999 with the election of Bola Tinubu who was previously an oil company executive and pushed for three administrations which allowed the private sector to turn Lagos into the city it is today creating a state output of one hundred and thirty six billion dollars which is more than a third of Nigeria’s GDP(4).

Lagos had one million and four hundred thousand people in 1970, by two thousand and eight this was eleven million, now twenty-one million, thousands of people arrive in Lagos every day to search for a better standard of living. It’s this urban pull factors such as better wages and more opportunities which have significantly contributed to Lagos huge population growth. In two thousand and ten, sixty-nine % of the eighty million rural people were living below the poverty line in Nigeria. In urban areas only forty-two % of people have access to clean water and only twenty-eight % have access to proper sanitation facilities along with the fact that only forty % have access to electricity meaning that they are limited to subsistent farming or cash crop lifestyle which earns them a fraction of the money they could earn in Lagos. So it’s very easy to see why people would want to move to Largos(5).

Lagos although thriving in a sense is experiencing huge issues such as overpopulation, pollution, traffic and unemployment leading to crime. Many developing world megacities come across these issues they have not got the proper infrastructure to support the huge population it has which in turn leads to informal settlements whose underground economy can often undermine that of the cities.  The government is very aware of these issues, to combat the overpopulation huge tower blocks are being built to accommodate people(6). In my opinion one of the most important things to establish is transport infrastructure, this is because people generally cant afford to live in cities so choose to live in suburban areas. Apparently up to twelve million people use public transport however Lagos has still one of the worse traffic issues in the world and people can often be stuck in traffic for 6 hours a day this reduces the productivity in cities and means that people are forced to live in squalid inner city houses(7).

Rferences

1-      http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/africa-population/. Population of Africa (2018) - Worldometers [Accessed 18/09/2018]

2-      https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ni.html. The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency [Accessed 18/09/2018]

3-      https://qz.com/africa/676819/lagos-is-africas-7th-largest-economy-and-is-about-to-get-bigger-with-its-first-oil-finds/. Nigeria's Lagos is Africa's 7th largest economy and is about to get bigger with its first oil discovery — Quartz Africa [Accessed 18/09/2018]

4-      https://www.ft.com/content/ff0595e4-26de-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d57a0. Nigerian economy: Why Lagos works | Financial Times [Accessed 18/09/2018]

5-      https://tradingeconomics.com/nigeria/rural-population-percent-of-total-population-wb-data.html. Rural population (% of total population) in Nigeria [Accessed 18/09/2018]

6-      https://www.cfr.org/blog/nigeria-faces-crippling-population-boom. Nigeria Faces a Crippling Population Boom [Accessed 18/09/2018]

7-      https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/12m-lagos-residents-use-public-transport-daily-ambode.html. 12m Lagos residents use public transport daily – Ambode – Daily Trust [Accessed 18/09/2018]

Economic Sustainability Versus Environmental Sustainability

Sustainability means to meet the needs of today populations without compromising the needs for the future generations, in this article we are looking at examples of economic and environmental sustainability.

An example of environmental sustainability is the PPosada Amazonoas eco-lodge in the Amazon rainforest Peru, environmental sustainability has been achieved here by maintaining a low level of development, only small numbers of people are allowed here at once here in the groups of 40-50, instead of cutting down the rainforest is used for adventure and education, the lodge its self-has been created using local resources that are biodegradable.

However even though environmental sustainability has been achieved is has come at a cost, the level of development here is is very low and people still rely on subsistent farming to survive, to develop further economic development may have to be improved which may have hindered its environmental sustainability in order to see an increase in things such as GDP per capita and a general improvement to standard of living.

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/09/f8/f3/c0/refugio-amazonas-main.jpg

http://www.viaja-peru.com/images/photos/refugio_amazonico.jpg

Video on the Lodge 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BD-uwrvCbs


China is an example of economic sustainability, in the last 50 years china has gone from a poor communist country to the seconds largest economy behind the USA however i will soon overtake the Unites states to become the world leading super power some say that by 2018 it will overtake USA china's economy has grown at a staggering 8 to 10% each year compared to the USA which in 2012 grew by 2.2%, it has undergone rapid urbanisation and around 140 million Chinese people have moved from rural to urban areas in hope of a better life with higher wages.

https://nexvucapital.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/china-gdp-1980-to-2012.jpg

China has become economical sustainable with only 12% of its population living in poverty compared to in the 1980s where this number was at 88% also between 1981 and 2008, the proportion of China's population living on less than $1.25/day is estimated to have fallen from 85% to 13.1% its per capita income in increased fivefold between 1990 and 2000, from $200 to $1,000. Between 2000 and 2010, per capita income also rose by the same rate, from $1,000 to $5,000, moving China into the ranks of middle-income countries, these numbers are evidence that China has allowed its people to have a better standard of living.

HOWEVER china hass developed and created economic sustainability at a cost, the cost is its environment, therefore, china is not environmentally sustainable, 7 of the 10 worst polluted cities are found in china cities such as chongqing  which is the world fastest growing city, 70% of chinas rivers and lakes are polluted and 30% of china is effected by acid rain caused by coal burning power stations realising sulphur into the atmosphere, this lack of environmental sustainability will later hider its ability to develop further as its finds it hard to find the resources in order for it to move on. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

China is so low on resources that it is beginning to by up land in other countries and source its resources there, places such as Australia have banned China from purchasing land in its country however in the developing world and LICs countries such as south Africa but these countries welcome the income even though it is damaging it in the long run.

Countries in Africa where mining interest of China-based companies exists, the evolution from 2006 to 2015. 

Evolution of major mining/mineral processing assets in Africa with China-based companies’ interest, cumulative numbers. Source

To conclude whereas the pasta amazonian eco-lodge has managed to become environmentally sustainable it has done this at the cost of development to the local people, they could easily chop don the rainforest in there land and make a much larger income, unlike China which has increased its countries livelihood but in the process destroyed much of its beautiful environment which will later take its toll as it wants to develop further.

By Ben Garrett  

Cool fact the 3 gorges dam in China stores so much water behind it (39 trillion kilograms of water) that it slows the rotation of the earth and increase the length of day by 0.06 microseconds making the Earth only very slightly more round in the middle and flat on the top. It would shift the pole position by about two centimeters (0.8 inches). This effect would extremely small.




reference 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2016/04/29/global-economic-news-china-will-surpass-the-u-s-in-2018/#747cccff224a

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-04-13/once-and-future-superpower


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions