What are the medical availability for Brazil?

Why do we hear so much more about China's crazy-fast economic development taking a rising toll on the environment while Brazil and USA are doing way better than China at the impact on the environment?

• I am amazed by the fact that when I searched "environmental problems" in google news, 5 of the top 10 are about shit happening in China and 2 are from USA with 1 talking about how complicated sustainable development is in general (duh!) and 1 about how environmental issue favoring Conservatives (ATT: politics just butts into everything!). We all know that China is not the only place where shit is happening. The list of world's 10 worst environmental performers (relative to resource availability) doesn't even have China. Brazil and USA perform way better than China on the worst impact in absolute global terms. (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100505092006.htm) I am still recovering from the shock of learning that the average American individual consumes 100 to 176 gallons of water per day while average water consumption in developing country per person per day is 2.Check http://fi.edu/guide/schutte/howmuch.html if you need some reference of scale. It's really scary to think about the next WW is gonna be fought over water if you take showers more than 3 times a day! SCARY! Anyways, point is, two words: attention and priority! The double-digit economic growth in China is all the oos and aahs boil down to. It's going too fast, so fast that I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna recognize the best route to get home from the airport in a year. When you are running this fast, people lay eyes on you and wonder "how and why?" and then we find out about all the shit that my motherland has done to our mother earth. (Need I say "but shit happens everywhere!"?) Why is it going so fast? Because it is the top priority of the country's development. Why is it the top priority? Because it has 1 frickin' point 3 billion (and counting) souls to feed and god knows how many more unregistered souls (thx to one-child policy). Wanna know how many people are living below poverty line? http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=ch&v=69 (ignore y2012, not-enough-data problem) Notice what's happening there? It's dropping! By 7.5%! That's almost the entire population of Mexico! (my math could be off but you get the gist) And what is China's GDP growth rate? 7.5%! AHA! The fast development of China's economy is not only China's but also, dare i say, the biggest contribution to the world! You can find many many examples on the internet of what the world will be like if China's prosperity declines abruptly and miserably. Last but not least, sustainable development! Chinese people are a lot of things but dumb. When the development is getting revenges from the environment, actions are being carried out! FAST! This most-recent news which almost nobody liked or tweeted or g+'d says "China’s new Prime Minister Li Keqiang said on Sunday that ensuring sustainable economic growth was the top priority for his government."Apparently, google's top news says that Shanghai is the most sustainable development region and Beijing ranks No 2. Let's have some faith?

• Answer:

  Ok you have got some really odd facts there that need to be straightened out first. The question rambles and it is hard to follow your thoughts. For the record I run a green company and I am an environmentalist so I take these things very seriously. However bad reports like this do nothing to help the cause.   1)      Water consumption varies by local availability and the technology required to process and purify it. The water that you refer to as "Wasted" is processed and returned to the local water supply via condensation and rain. Most of that water that is consumed per person comes in the form of irrigation for crops. The average person probably only uses 20 gallons a day at most (still way higher). In areas with water shortages in the US water consumption drops dramatically.  Wars will not be fought over water because the cost of creating or distilling water is much less than the cost to go to war in most developed countries. 2)      The US shows up as being higher on the list because the study is using horrible selection criteria to support a biased theory. “The indicators used were natural forest loss, habitat conversion, fisheries and other marine captures, fertiliser use, water pollution, carbon emissions from land use and species threat.”   Also “The world's 10 worst environmental performers according to the proportional environmental impact index (relative to resource availability) are: Singapore, Korea, Qatar, Kuwait, Japan, Thailand, Bahrain, Malaysia, Philippines and Netherlands In absolute global terms, the 10 countries with the worst environmental impact are (in order, worst first): Brazil, USA, China, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, India, Russia, Australia and Peru.”   So what do these two things mean when taken together? That the absolute impact ranking is stacked against the USA to start. I find the proportional impact much more telling as it shows who squanders resources. Forest loss and Habitat conversion: The USA is a large country that has a low population density. We have the 3rd highest population in the world, but 82% live in cities and suburbs. In absolute terms we cut down a more acres of forests then some countries have in total land area, but it is a smaller percentage of the total number of acres available. It also doesn’t say if those acres were from sustainable operations or if they were cut down for land development or for wood. Water pollution:  The USA has some of the largest fresh water reserves in the world. The Great Lakes account for 21% of the world fresh water. In absolute terms that mean that anything that affects the Great Lakes even marginally has a massive effect on the worldwide fresh water supply. Also add in the huge population and that only gets worse in absolute terms. Fisheries and other marine captures: The USA has not just the Great Lakes but tons of coast line. The EE) off the coast of the United States gives its fishing industry special fishing rights and It covers 11.4 million square kilometres (4.38 million sq mi). This is the largest zone in the world, exceeding the land area of the United States. Even then we only account for 3.8% of all fish caught in the world and are ranked 5th in fishing. However in absolute terms we are a lot higher than countries that are landlocked or have smaller fishing areas. Fertilizer use: The USA accounts for 25% of the world’s food production. We can do that because of things like fertilizer. So we use a lot of it so the world’s people don’t starve. Again in absolute terms we use a lot because we grow so much. Carbon emissions from land use: This is a fancy way of saying cars, trucks and trains. Again the relative wealth of the population in combination with the vast distances between where food is produced processed and consumed means that we have more vehicles than most countries. In absolute terms there are about 200 Million vehicles on the road in the USA, more than most countries have people. Species threat: This is a serious one. The USA probably does poorly on this just because of sheer number of species that exist in the multitude of different habitats in the USA.