China Launches Satellite Monitoring System Of The Ecosystem, Natural Disasters

China has set up more than 2,000 stations to monitor the air, rivers and lakes, and 'the overall ecosystem'. The monitoring network is connected via satellites. The Chinese say the satellite system will be more efficient than ground monitoring networks.

“Great initiative by the Chinese. Nevertheless, it is yet to prove its vitality”, says one commentator at the Ecofriend blog. Right on. It is not immediately clear which kind of ground networks the Chinese are alluding to, but it’s most likely natural disaster networks, because they are boasting that the satellite system will be able to ‘save lives’; “China has decided to launch its first satellite to monitor the environment that is expected to give a bigger and more reliable picture of the environmental changes, especially natural disasters.” Hey ho, why not save lives as you save the environment. Or vice versa. Some messages take disasters to ‘sink in’.