What do you think are some of the ways to improve air quality in the long term?

This writing is about Fine dust problem in South Korea which has been lasted for few years. This essay is mainly covering how to deal with whether some measures that the government announced are working well or not. On top of that, I add some opinion about how we can improve the current situation. Note that this is just my personal opinion not related to other purposes. 

Topic)

What do you think are some of the ways to improve air quality in the long term? Is waving public transport fees during peak commuting hours is a good way?

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 There are growing concerns over an air pollution problem caused by fine dust coming from China. Fine dust issue is very critical in that it directly affects people’s health and well-being which should be the government’s top priority when it comes to policymaking. However, the Korean government is taking a ​quite passive stance over the issue and people are calling for more proactive stance to handle it promptly.

To begin with, it is urgently required to officially raise the issue to China and build cooperation in order to root it out 

in a long-term strategy. It is well-known that China has a responsibility with a current fine dust problem in Korea. Since it is complicated with industrial developments, political and diplomatic relations*, we should work together with China in various ways to tackle the issue.

The Korean government’s recent policies are focusing too much on "quick-fix" measures. Waving transportation 

fees, Wearing high quality masks, and encouraging new technologies to alarm level of dust are just useful to keep myself from direct exposure to air pollutions, but far from fundamental measures. 

 In my point of view, it is useless to put our energies to hide from huge air-pollution which blows in from China. We 

should face China and demand immediate actions to improve it. Without China’s actions, we cannot solve this problem.

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 On top of that, we need to prepare an economy growth model change. A fine dust issue has proved that natural environment is getting worse and it’s the time to seek a nature-friendly growth model away from a heavy industry-led growth model. Although the Korean government and businesses have accelerated toward nature-friendly environments with advanced technologies, many factories and cars on the road still emit a large amount of air pollutants). Besides, destroying forests for development has weakened nature’s self-air purification function.

 Even though many people say the fine dust problems stem from China,  I believe that lack of green spaces in South Korea has also contributed to today's high concentration of fine dust. In an attempt to resolve it fundamentally, we should keep an eye on efforts to improve Korea's natural environment.

 As a conclusion, I can suggest two ways to improve air quality* - cooperation with China and change the growth model into nature-friendly one instead of leaning on heavy industry-led growth. Although both two measures are important to react curren fine dust problem, building cooperation with China should come first given that the current fine dust problem is mainly caused by China. It could be difficult and take a long time to settle​, but we cannot skip it for fundamental solutions.

<Vocabulary>

*relations 

= (국가, 큰 조직 간의) 관계 

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*relationship

(특정 개인 간의) 관계

*공기질을 개선하다 / 공기오염을 줄이다

1) reduce air pollution

2) improve air quality