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Scientists Fear Impact of Asian Pollutants On US
During the Olympics we discussed the international monitoring effort as China shut down factories and curtailed automobile travel in an attempt to reduce pollution. Now reader Anti-Globalism sends in a story that reveals that monitoring effort to be ongoing, with a bigger mandate: assessing the impact of China's pollution on the US. In fact the problem is bigger still because, as one researcher put it, "It's one atmosphere." Scientists are finding that pollution from, for example, Europe can travel right around the globe in three weeks. "By some estimates more than 10 billion pounds of airborne pollutants from Asia — ranging from soot to mercury to carbon dioxide to ozone — reach the US annually. The problem is only expected to worsen: Some Chinese officials have warned that pollution in their country could quadruple in the next 15 years. While some scientists are less certain, others say the Asian pollution could destabilize weather patterns across the North Pacific, mask the effects of global warming, reduce rainfall in the American West and compromise efforts to meet air-pollution standards."
Asian pollutants come to the US without a penny in their pocket. Within a year, they usually have a thriving business.
Their exports are pretty skunky, too. Would you care for some lead paint with your toy, junior?
Oh, but there I go being all liberal and gay and shit. Really, we should let the free markets decide what an acceptable level of poisoning should be for our children. "But they're using asbestos as a padding for the cushion in this crib!" The free market decided it was cheaper than foam. I'm sorry, but the market's decision is final, you'll just have to accept that.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
... the solution is simple. Just forbid imports from polluting Chinese factories.
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
America only pumps pure clean oxygen into the atmosphere.
Deleted
kettle.
For years US states have fought over which way the wind blows and as China ramps up *of course* its going to effect everyone down wind. What I found amusing is how they are saying a quadrupling of Chinese pollution (including co2) will 'mask' global warming?
How, exactly, does on mask global warming? by making it cooler? umm thats global cooling, ...
So were set:
If its gets warmer its because of co2, if its gets cooler its because of co2.... that about covers everything..
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
Our handsomest politicians will come up with a half assed last minute solution!
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
Gotta love the unwitting parochialism in this story- Those polluty old Asians are making all out cheap stuff!
This is our pollution. If you outsource industry, you outsource the concomitant waste. So do we wash our hands (in increasingly filthy water), or step up to the plate and deal? (A rhetorical question, I know....)
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
Nuke 'em for orbit. It's the only way to be sure!
It's not just China's pollution. It's the world's pollution. We consume the product, and we should be responsible for the process waste.
Some portion of the purchase price should be allocated to r&d for minimising process waste. Whether taxed by manufacturers directly, or by participating governments.
Isn't the US still number one polluter or did China overtake recently? Either way the per capita pollution is still worse in the states by a hefty margin. Talk about being hypocritical.
Or there's no pollution in the US, never has been. The rest of the world has nothing to worry about from US manufacturing or transport. The greenhouse gases in the atmosphere now are someone else's fault; probably the French till the Chinese came along.
Is an administration that has some intestinal fortitude, that will NOT sell out to private interests, and start making demands to curb such behavior in order to be a part of our economy, a partner.
It is as simple as saying "Look. We do not appreciate your pollutants effecting us in the manner they currently are, and as such, we will curtail our trade with you until something is done.".
It is our right to do so. The only thing that stops us is corruption and spinelessness. Both curable maladies.
You've mentioned the effects of China and Europe on poor innocent America. Now, who's monitoring the effects of the USA's pollution? You know, that one developed country that still hasn't ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
Acknowledging and investigating the global effects of local pollution is a worthy endeavour, just as long as it's done in a balanced and open manner. We don't need yet another of the US's "Do as we say not as we do" hypocritical standpoints.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
If the US wants another country to cut their pollution, then it has to deal with its own.
It has refused to sign up to a commitment to reduce its own pollution, yet would like others to do so.
Ok, the US may not be the worst offender, but still 'do as I say not as I do' is hardly a philosophy fit for the world stage.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
partisans on the left, partisans on the right, nationalists of every nationality...
please shut the fuck up
the earth is our planet, and we must steward it
this applies to you on the left: a hands off attitude to mother gaia is complete bullshit in a world of 6 billion technologically inclined homo sapiens
this applies to you on the right: yes, human activity actually has an impact on our planet's climate, and yes, we must do something about it. we are sorry you are in denial on this subject. please learn to adapt to reality
furthermore, it does not matter who fucked up our environment, it simply matters that we must manage it, all of us. talking about blame is simply a desire to avoid responsibility. we all have the responsibility for our planet
we must must find ways to turn up the thermostat, we must find ways to turn down the thermostat, and then, we must actively do this. we have plenty of time to adjust and anticipate and counteradjust our manipulations. the scaremongers wish to talk about run away processes, but we are very much in the middle of a fluid and forgiving climate model. no atmosphere would have survived this long on earth were it so fragile and susceptile to runaway change. millenia of abuse from volcanoes and sun cycles and life processes has proven our atmosphere to be quite rugged
but not invulnerable, and certainly totally indifferent to our well-being and our need to grow crops. the earth has no problem turning into tundra or desert. but we have a problem with that. so let us actively manage the atmosphere to stay within comfortable parameters. this is of course completely artificial. the natural evolution OR human-made greenhouse gases migth dictate that the atmosphere go to a hellish extreme at some point. who cares WHY it might drift to an uncomfortable fringe state, natural or man-made, are we to simply sit back and suffer and wait for things to get comfortable again in a couple of thousand years?
no. we are mankind. unlike other animals, we do not adapt to our environment. we wear clothes, build huts: we adapt our environment to us. in this way, we conquer the taiga, and conquer the sahara. therefore, we must begin to actively engineer and manage our atmosphere to our liking, to homo sapiens comfort level. which is, pretty much as the climate is right now globally. freeze the status quo for all eternity
who CARES who is to blame, if anyone. active management is simply what we must begin to do. obviously, this should be a world body, something attached to the un. meanwhile, if we simply sit around passing the buck, blaming something else, nothing gets done, and we all go to hell. literally, in the case of climate change
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
first they say pollution is bad and causes global warming. now they're saying it masks global warming? really? how can it do both at the same time? i'm getting tired of the double-speak
The eastern part of canada receives pollution from the United states. So before you start crying about how others can make your place more horrible, please consider that you too are making a part of the world less habitable. Not everyone likes acid rain you know?
http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/progsregs/usca/index.htm
more than 10 billion pounds of airborne pollutants from Asia
While this certainly is not a good thing for the environment, I wonder how this compares to pollution coming from the United States. According to wikipedia the US produced the most CO2 of any country in 2006. China might top the list this year, but I'm sure the US isn't far behind. I guess my point is that it seems hypocritical to criticize China for sending pollution to us when we've been doing it to the rest of the world for a long time. We should be leading by example and cleaning up our own industries first instead of trying to place blame.
Ethnocentric? The fact that pollution from europe can reach the US in 3 weeks is just illustrating that pollution travels. Presumably, thats just based on a study that found that. No one is saying pollution from the US never goes to china, it's just likely that hasn't been specifically tested and would therefore be illogical to use to support the argument.
Why is it you're so anxious to see ethnocentrism? You really had to distort things to come away with that conclusion. Are you a lawyer who has found a way to sue scientists for ethnocentrism?
Or, alternatively, you could understand that different pollutants do different things. Just throwing that out there, you know. Sorta like CO2 absorbing EM waves in the IR band, and particles reflecting light back into space. Not that anyone would know anything about this.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Stuff like this has always been happening... Pollution from one country going into another. Just think of a large river, like the Danube, which goes through 5 or 6 countries, each of which used to dump a lot of trash in it. There's nothing that the downstream countries could do about it.
The US is guilty of stuff like this as well. The Colorado river had a huge delta in northern Mexico. After the dam was built, the area where the Delta was is now a desert. What could the Mexicans do about it? Nothing.
It's ok the US an UK will declare war on them soon enough for it.
So, I frankly think that pollution wafting its way from the PRC to the USA only serves the Americans right, and they I think the chinese should can all their pollution and send it to the states (or whoever else hired them to make te crap in te first place) and be done with it. This is not Chinese pollution. It is american pollution coming home where it belongs.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Have these people never farted in a room and had someone across the room, complain of the smell.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
We can't even produce good old American pollution anymore.
Have gnu, will travel.
No wonder we haven't ratified the Kyoto protocol yet! We're biting the bullet for China..
Well, I wouldn't say biting the bullet, they're still bad enough as it is...
And don't respond with all the technical bullshit. Learn to sense a joke!
So is that what they mean when the French say "I fart in your general direction?"
[badum-ching]
A Human Right
That the US wasn't buying the crap that pollutants had a impact?
If you consider pollutants as a consumption issue, rather than as a production issue, then USA, being the largest consumers, should take some of the environmental responsibility too: That electronic gizzmo cost you $100 + your share of environmental "guilt".
Engineering is the art of compromise.
It's just a case of US versus us.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Let's build a giant fan to blow it back.
Every time you call tech support, a little kitten dies.
I agree entirely. Environmentalism is obviously a red herring. Its impossible for China to pollute because they are not imperialists. Only imperialists pollute, and if they aren't polluting, its still their fault.
Lets be clear here, just because the imperialists are hypocritical polluters doesn't mean that China is not, nor that China doesn't need to stop it.
Let me say this again. China needs to stop polluting, and so does everyone else. If that means that China's crypto-fascist government needs to shell out for some scrubbers on their chimneys and maybe only grow at 6% a year, then they should pony up. This isn't 1908, China missed its chance to innocently screw up their environment and claim to not know what was going on.
You appear to be arguing that just because the West fucked up their environment and everyone else's that China should now get their chance to fuck themselves up and everyone else too, I'd suggest that you just take up a habit of Chinese unfiltered cigarettes and let us get on with our lives.
The US didn't like pollution from making stuff at home so it had it made in China, from where it could import the stuff and leave the pollution. Now the Chinese make so much stuff for America that the pollution is coming home by itself anyway. The irony is almost tangible...
Let's start manufacturing the hell out over here. The Chinese can pollute? They've got NOTHING!!! My buddies didn't die face down in Vietnam just so that our country gets overtaken by buncha commies!!!
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Don't single out China/Asia. Countries have a massive effect upon each other. I live in far north Texas, and have seen haze/smoke from fires in central Mexico. I've always felt a large part of Texas's pollution problem is pollutants coming North. I've heard engineers talk about offering sulfer scrubbers to Eastern european coal-power plants to reduce smog here in the US.
Part of the problem is different countries worry about different types of pollution. In the US, we are more concerned about visible/long-term pollutants than invisible/short-term ones. Some other countries are completely unconcerned about things like leaded gasoline, which is still used in many countries but has been out of the US for decades. America has a bad record, but has gotten some things right in the end. Europeans make a big deal about CO2, but many European
beaches have incredibly toxic water, or land which is unfarmable. Thanks to American pollution reforms, life is even returning to New York's harbor.
Everything is a give/take. People are worrying about energy inefficient bulbs, replacing them with their more efficient fluorescent cousins, but are ignoring the problems those bulbs have with mercury. Or with LED bulbs, gallium aresenide. For example, the life returning to New York's harbor happens to be devouring all of the wooden structures built since they last died off.
Here's to losing my Karma Bonus again....
The US delegation at all those Global Warming summits was constantly saying over and over that the rest of thew world can cap emissions and lower pollution but if China and the like don't join in then it will be pointless. In response for this common sense information the US delegation was boo'd and jeered until they finally gave in an allowed a consensus to come forth that didn't demand anything of China and third world countries.
Though I think it says somewhere that Slashdot is an american/USA webpage and although there are international visitors such as my self that's still true so we just have to accept that here means USA, that us means americans and that your english grammar have to be perfect because if it's not you're considered less intelligent or assumed to have a weaker argument by default.
Implement a tariff based on pollution levels. Countries that have stricter rules and can produce things cleaner then get on equal cost-footing with massive-polluting countries that can produce things cheaper due to no (expensive) standards.
All proceeds go toward helping domestic companies reduce pollution in the form of interest bearing investments. For example, the US Govt will back a loan to my company for $100k at 1% interest to upgrade the office's insulation levels and install solar panels with the requirement that services and products be rendered only by domestic companies.
As much as I wish the free market could fix this, it can't. Free markets depend on the intelligence of its most basic users -- in our case, the general citizen consumer -- who cannot possibly have enough information to make the best choice.
The only challenge is coming up with what pollutants to base the standards on, and how to measure them fairly.
San Fransisco, Sept. 2 - For years, Americans in this picturesque city have been able to follow their dreams of selling their bodies to strangers on the street. Prostitution has always thrived here, and has always provided a means for men and women from all walks of life to support their cocaine habits. That is, until the recent wave of Asian prostitutes decimated the local industry.
Asian prostitutes, unlike their American counterparts, don't have an expensive crack habit to feed on top of paying off a pimp; instead, they are essentially indentured servants, with all of their fees going directly to their handlers. This efficiency means the savings are passed on to the customer, resulting in competition that local prostitutes consider unfair.
"Who do these gook bitches think they are? They come here to our country, with their little tits and their slanty eyes, and all the johns go apeshit. I've been doing this for seventeen years, and all of the sudden I don't even have enough in my pockets for a couple of rocks", a local prostitute who wished to remain anonymous griped to researchers.
Especially hard-hit has been the transvestite prostitute community. "I put a lot of work into making myself look fabulous", said Candy, a local tranny prostitute who was born and raised in San Fransisco. "I used to do allright on the street. Now, you have these Oriental Ladyboys with tiny waists, effeminate cheekbones and no body hair. How am I supposed to compete with that?"
...I'm less interested in pointing fingers. Besides, the US has a habit of shooting at fingers with hellfire missiles. Instead of "naming names", it would seem better to have a close to global tracking and monitoring of pollution in general, to show WHERE different types of pollution are a problem (regardless of source). You could then add in solar-powered UAVs to collect air samples at random points, where the isotope ratios are calculated and the pollutant sources (not necessarily the factories, just the sources) are derived. The factories can be inferred from plotting the pollution clouds, if anyone is genuinely concerned, but frankly I'd have thought that cleaning fuels and raw materials would have a bigger impact, as there are likely far fewer sources than factories, factories see cleaning as expensive, but higher grade fuels and materials are worth more to their producers. Ergo, cleaning at source will be seen as making money, cleaning at point of use will be seen as spending money, even though the end result (in terms of pollution, money-flow, profits, etc) should be absolutely identical.
Industrialists are, by and large, not very bright and highly prejudiced towards green-stuff feel-good factors. Which means that something that is good won't be accepted no matter how good it actually is, unless it is presented as something that'll feel good to their accountants. Being honest isn't worth a damn thing, but it isn't necessary to be honest to be accurate. This is why politics is a scam. Politicians don't sell you what you want, they sell you what they want dressed up to look like it's something you want. But you're quite capable of giving as good as you get.
Honest environmentalists go nowhere, although they usually get some recognition AFTER the disaster they predicted has swept through. Why? Because their phrasing makes it sound like people have to put in hard work and money for something that isn't 100% predictable anyway. Completely the wrong move. Think like Dogbert, not Dilbert, on this one. Dilbert always gets ignored, Dogbert always gets things done. The difference is not in what they're doing, but in the psychology. Dilbert assumes people are basically bright, compassionate and thoughtful. Dogbert assumes people are manipulative, deceitful, corrupt and 100% gullible. Environmentalists need to listen to Dogbert. Dilbert is correct, but will never go anywhere. In mythological terms, he represents the Wise Fool - he knows a lot but his attempts to explain make him sound like a complete fool.
Saving money has never worked, any better than saving the planet, but if the first part of the "food chain" decides cleanliness is next to richness, it gets imposed on everyone else regardless. They have no choice but to go green. They won't even be aware they've done so. Things'll cost more, but as gas prices have demonstrated, customers ignore that until the last possible moment, and then blame it on anyone they happen to dislike at the time. Use that self-inflicted blindness to make consumers green, and the world will be cleaner within a year without the consumers ever noticing what you're doing. If they say anything, it'll be to flame the environmentalists for doom-saying about pollution and greenhouse gasses, same as they did with Y2K after several trillion dollars were spent in fixing flaws across the world.
(And, yes, for those who care, Y2K did strike older electronic credit-card readers, older banking systems, and many home and office products - including many of Microsoft's. If they'd done nothing, the world might well have ended. Instead, the fixes were imposed on an unwilling and ignorant population in such a way that they remained unwilling and ignorant. And that is the SOLE reason you are still breathing today.)
What Y2K demonstrated was that the masses are dumb, but that really doesn't matter. You can fix what does matter without ever concerning yourself with the widespread ignorance in the world. In this case, you can fix mines, quarries, power stations, oil, coal, and all kinds of other resources, with the help of a handful of executives who can make a mint off the deal. Do that, and national follies will be of no importance whatsoever.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
http://slashdot.org/faq/editorial.shtml#ed850
Slashdot seems to be very U.S.-centric. Do you have any plans to be more international in your scope?
Slashdot is U.S.-centric. We readily admit this, and really don't see it as a problem. Slashdot is run by Americans, after all, and the vast majority of our readership is in the U.S. We're certainly not opposed to doing more international stories, but we don't have any formal plans for making that happen. All we can really tell you is that if you're outside the U.S. and you have news, submit it, and if it looks interesting, we'll post it.
It is worth noting that there is a Japanese Slashdot run by VA Japan. While we helped them a little in their early days, they essentially run their own content without any real involvement from us... none of us can read Kanji! There are currently no plans to do other language or nation specific Slashdot sites.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
I recall hearing that airborne pollutants from China were found in Lake Superior in the 1980s.
Advice: on VPS providers
The fact that some Americans are now worried about the effects of OTHER countries' pollution on the local American environment seems hypocritical, at best. I wonder: did the Chinese press publish articles in the past century decrying the effects of American and European pollution on their local environment? The globe was first awash in American and European pollution for nearly a century (or more, depending on whether one assumes pollution only began with the industrial revolution). How can we expect them to not repeat our actions when we've never shown sufficient remorse or reparations for those actions? This article sounds a bit like the ex-Hippie parent trying to convince their child not to try LSD.
One might consider this pollution to be a clear and present danger to the health of loyal Americans.
Environmental over-regulation in the US drives up prices for manufacturers and other businesses. This leads them to move to China and other developing countries with very lax environmental standards. Pollution is increased a lot.
Just setting environmental standards at a rational level in the US might allow these companies to stay here. They could run a clean operation. It might not be perfect or "sustainable", but it would be clean and suitable by any rational standard.
Environmental over-regulation and utopianism actually results in greater pollution in these cases. Carbon cap-and-trade schemes will just increase this phenomenon. And it shifts pollution to poorer, less-empowered populations.
I agree with your statement entirely. However: who better to convince a kid to not try LSD than someone who has already tried it? The old dude who taught woodshop in high school and was missing a couple fingers was *way* more convincing when he talked about safety, than the safety movies.
I'm not defending being a hypocrite. I'm just saying that if people learn from their mistakes, they're good teachers with respect to those mistakes. To be a hypocrit is to *keep* doing something (like burning 1/4 the world's fossil fuels) while complaining about other people doing the same thing. Ex-hippie parents probably aren't being hypocrites about the LSD, while the USA being pissed about Chinese pollution, is indeed being a hypocrite.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
and clogs up the whiney presses there. You aint seen nothing yet. Wait until China sbecoems the worlds largest economy in 15 years. And it still grow much larger.
That reminds me of something I heard way back when they allowed smoking on airlines.
"Having a smoking section in a plane is like having a peeing section in a pool."
The US has been the largest polluter for awhile. China has only just over taken the US. Where was the outcry about what US pollution is doing to Asia?
What is worse yet, imo, is what western society's computer waste is doing to other countries. It should be illegal to dump that sort of stuff outside of your own country. Then people will think twice about it.
Of course this is nothing new. Not long ago, Japan was "the place that produced cheap crap". Now Japanese labor is relatively expensive and Japan offshore their work. Same thing is happening in Korea and many other places too.
What really has to change to ward of fear of diminished resources is for people to stop linking quality of life with material consumption. When you're starving then it makes sense, but right now obese people outnumber starving people so there is no food shortage, there is a consumption problem. It really needs people to stop using excessive consumption as a pill for their social ills. Getting a new cellphone every year != a high quality of life.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Lol... I wish I had MOD points +5 funny.
Can we stop giving Anti-Globalism so much attention here? He's such a negative nancy.
It isn't.
It pretty much has never been.
Per person countries like Trinity & Tobago and the UAE pollute a LOT more. The US is something like #10-#30 per person.
Ever since the rise of Neo-Maoism (Stalin-communism hold the communism) the chinese have been ramping up to be the #1 polluters. I think in 2000-2004 they surpassed the US, or got very close.
That is a nice graph and all...
How do they measure pollution?
How accurate is it?
Are the graphs a reflection of actual pollution, or a measure of better record keeping?
I had a friend complaining how the U.S. "uses the most energy per capita." I asked him how they measure it. (yup, I read Feynman)
Do they only count only coal, oil, and electricity?
What about locally produced energy? Do they count all the (inefficient) cooking fires in 3rd world countries?
What about countries where the government officials fudge the statistics to get a bonus or make their boss happy?
Not trolling, just honest questions.
How can we expect them to not repeat our actions when we've never shown sufficient remorse or reparations for those actions? This article sounds a bit like the ex-Hippie parent trying to convince their child not to try LSD.
... remorse? What has that got do with anything? This is completely irrelevant and clouds any meaningful discussion. You're also demeaning the untold millions of human beings affected by the poor decision-making of China's leaders. They don't care one whit about your whining: all they know is that they can't see the Sun and their kids are sick. These are real problems: sitting around deciding who should say they're sorry is just stupid.
{sigh} enough with the complaints about hypocrisy and what the hell
Fact is, we aren't talking about hippies or kids or LSD. We're talking about the effects of an unregulated industrial economy which has already caused immeasurable harm to the population that runs it, and is poised to caused even more death and infirmity.
Another factoid for you, America has done more to clean up its industrial and manufacturing output than pretty much anyone else. Yes, we're still polluting, but there haven't been too many Love Canals lately (look that up if you want to see how far we've come.) I deal with companies working to comply with EPA (State and Federal) regulations all the time: they're strict and compliance is expensive. Non-compliance is even more expensive. China has nothing on the U.S. when it comes to environmental regulation and enforcement. Period.
We're not going to deal with what's going on unless people face a few facts: America got past its period of unregulated industry, and the consequences of the period are plain for all to see. China deliberately chose to ignore our history, our example, and they have no-one but themselves to blame.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I have noticed that the maples were starting to turn in early august. In addition, the aspens here started about 2 weeks ago. Normally, both start about 2 weeks later. Deciduous trees drop their leaves based on amount of light, not on temps. As such, they are fairly predictable. The fact that they are dropping early indicates that less light is reaching here. I do wonder what will happen if China clears up their air of hard core pollutants while still pushing loads of CO2 (IOW, become like America and EU)?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I remember two decades ago (and still ongoing) that the US is pumping pollution into the Red River (among others) which travels into Canada. We complained and they said tough. But, apparently it's a horror if it's done to them.
Perhaps it is this that forces the US to realise that the world map doesn't end at its borders.
Here we go again, 10 billion POUNDS. I would say that I just farted, injecting nearly 10 gatrillion nano-ounces into the precious atmosphere.
But let's put 10 billion POUNDS into perspective. That's 20 million tons, or, roughly 2E7 / 5000 teratons or 2E7 / 5E15 or really 0.0000005% of the atmosphere.
It's NOTHING.
This is my sig.
Might change the meaning of "Pollution Credits".... This crap is coming home to roost because executives didn't want the pollution onus in the form of liabilities and responsibilities...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
We STILL have companies spewing chemicals into the air. Even in the marine industry, engineers cheated on pollutions regulations by simply running a bypass or disconnecting polluted discharge lines from sensors meant to measure and log the overboard discharges (which the US Coast Guard caught wind of and brought charges against such owners/operators/masters/ and engineers).
When I worked with liquid toner copiers in the late 80's it was our common practice to take the liquid toner (ink) and dispersant bottles and simply dump down the drain if we could, and if there was nowhere to pour it, then place the bottles in the customers' waste bins. Failing that (in the hip/environmental offices), we'd have to take it with us and dispose elsewhere. I am glad i got out of that job. Doing that dumping gnawed at more conscience. Working with the chemicals eroded my health. Fingers clean by Sunday night, dirty by Tuesday... a year of that shit.
We still have gasoline leaks. We still have major post-product pollution. Why do we not have ordinances compelling fast food restaurants provide drain bins to collect the unfinished drinks and ice the customers otherwise dump in the garbage? When I in Dec 2004 - Feb 05 was in Tokyo area cities such as Roppongi and Miyamaedaira and Shimbashi, I ate at McDonalds that had marked recepticals for separation of plastic, paper, non-recyclables and liquids. That's easy for "typically conformist" Japanese to do. Asking 'merkun public to do it by request, backed up by fines or risk shut-down of their favorite location eatery would spark insurrection. So much for "a kind, gentle, peace-loving people"...
Yeh, and people, don't tell me that the liquids in the garbage help speed up the composting/decomposition of the waste. It could also be argued that pre-separation of liquids in restaurant waste might make it easier to separate recyclables such as the papers and food that animals might otherwise eat if not broken down by soda and coffee and such.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Hey ass-hat, why don't you be the 4% that gets shaved off of that equation, why don't you go live in a fucking dumpster for a year to save all that carbon you obviously care so much about. Why don't you let your kids starve because you need to protect the fresh air in a country where they drive cars bigger then many homes in China instead of posting about how everyone else needs to change according to your whim.
Heres a concept that I'm sure you never thought of with your head so far up your ass: maybe the west didn't innocently fuck up it's environment, and maybe China isn't doing the same, MAYBE poor people just don't give a fuck about the environment. You ever think of that while siting in your high chair extolling the virtues of your wisdom from 10,000 miles away? Maybe, and this is a crazy idea, living in a polluted city and working in a sweat shop is a better option then starving in a dirt field! crazy I know, but it seems there has to be something to this whole industrializing thing since almost every country is getting on the band wagon.
hay, maybe I'm biased since I've had to live with Chines and Korean immigrants in school, who have basically told me that developing nations like exported labor and don't really care about the pollution if it means work and the only ones who do care are people like you with skewed agendas who have no problem condemning people in other countries to die for hazy ideals. I guess you'd be one to comment on crypto-fascists, it takes one to know one.
Climate change is still the greatest global environmental threat, by far. And the cumulative mass of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere, the major cause of global warming, is still overwhelmingly American. Why not do something about it?
I'm not saying that the US's total irresponsibility about what it's doing to the climate of the Earth absolves the Chinese. But Americans would look far less like hypocrites if they solved their own problems -- or at least made some sincere effort to start solving them -- before lecturing other countries so aggressively about theirs.
Ethnocentric? The fact that pollution from europe can reach the US in 3 weeks is just illustrating that pollution travels. Presumably, thats just based on a study that found that. No one is saying pollution from the US never goes to china, it's just likely that hasn't been specifically tested and would therefore be illogical to use to support the argument.
Why is it you're so anxious to see ethnocentrism?
Ok, how about this?
Black people like fried chicken and are really good dancers.
That's not racist! Nobody ever said whites don't like fried chicken and aren't good dancers, it just hasn't been tested and therefore it's an illogical argument.
Why are you so anxious to see racism?
Nobody ever wants to admit to being ethnocentric, xenophobic or racist. That doesn't mean they aren't any or all of those three.
Why isn't there a study showing how much US pollution affects China? Don't tell me it's because you need Chinese scientists to study that. If anything, it's the country of the pollution's origin who should have the most interest in where that pollution goes, and I have no doubt the Chinese government would love to see a study show how much of their pollution comes from outside of their borders. So they're not the problem either.
If there is such a study, why hasn't it made the front page of Slashdot as this one did? Seriously, these things are not down to chance.
Logic.
China.
/.'ers seem to forget where the investors that made China what it is today came from.
Somehow
China is a problem because they do the laundry without complaining about the skid marks.
"Violence is the last refuge of the competent, and, generally, the first refuge of the incompetent" - Thing_1
i lost interest when i saw the link to corrupt.org. that website is a fucking load of nonsense anti business propaganda. they wouldn't know a balanced assessment if it slapped them in the face and raped their mother.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
"And it's All the US's Fault!"
No, but its part of the problem...
People refuse to pay extra for non polluting production methods because of the free-rider problem. You waste time complaining about the concern of businessmen for their "bottom line" when you should be talking about the U.S. consumers who actually buy the products. The problem is there is no incentive for a US consumer to buy environmentally friendly products because their purchase, averaged over the entire atmosphere, has only a very, very small net effect. 300 million people make the same decision, and here we are.
The solution, somewhat ironically, is to do what we are doing right now, namely complain about the problem until we get together to enforce regulations that benefit everyone. Unfortunately, people like you seem to prefer the status quo because you are upset by the lack of altruism exhibited by your peers. Less moralizing, more problem solving, please.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
this year in Power emission pollution. Consider China is less efficient, and has 5 times population than the U.S., it consumes less energy, pollutes less, and makes most of the goods, until today. Guys got the nerve to complain. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/26/AR2008082603096.html
As a whole, has more renewable energy than anyone else.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I don't like making statements like this, but my gut instinct says that it's a really bad idea to fuck around with the Environment to the degree that it's noticeable on a global scale, even if there are some positive effects.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
consumer crap.
If the US would produce stuff that works for a decade, no one would replace their stuff each year. (Yeah, China isn't any better).
And one more word: Kyoto.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
The US has clean water and air. That's why all the nut jobs have jumped onto the "global warming" wagon.
And did you ever see a pick-up truck in europe as means of personal transport?
I drove from Denmark (Copenhagen) to Switzerland (Bern) recently. I was in Frankfurt am Main before I ran into the first American style 'big ass' SUV pickup. Europeans often drive smaller hatchbacks. The VW Fox/Polo/Golf, Opel Corsa and Peugeot 107/207 seem to be particularly popular in Germany and so are bigger saloon cars from makers like the BMW, Audi, Mazda, VW, Opel, Skoda, Citroen... the list goes on. You also get some CUVs. Subaru and Suzuki are popular in rural areas because they build even small hatchbacks and saloons with a 4x4 drive. Gigantic American style SUVs are pretty much a rarity. You probably wouldn't have an easy time navigating something like a Dodge Ram through many European cities, towns and villages (especially the model with the double rear wheels that requires two parking spaces). In many of these places the streets date back to medieval times and are very narrow. Another point is of course the fact that gas prices are high and people can generally think of better things to spend their money on than quenching an SUV's thirst for fuel. I drive a small 3 door diesel hatchback. On may way through Denmark the clerk at a Statiol station got the pumps mixed up and tried to bill me for the Diesel tanked by a small SUV. I was really shocked to see the size of the bill which was about 4 times what I had just tanked for (about 180 DKR and the tank on my car was 2/3 empty). I shudder to think what it wold cost to fill up the tank on a Dodge Ram.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
There's a lot of blame to go around for the pollution problem in the world. Yes, Asia is certainly a large part of it. But so is the US and Europe.
WE are the ones buying all the cheap crap made in China et al.
If WE demand (with the help of import restrictions) that any imported products come from industries with proper pollution controls, the industries will obey, because they have no other choice.
No, the oil is not being pulled out of the ground as fast as possible. Countries that produce oil deliberately limit the amount the extract to limit supply; if we used less, they'd extract less.
(Can you blame them? If I had oil, I'd sell it at the highest profit, too.)
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
Yea, the US is kind of hypocritical. It was ok for us to give Canada acid rain, but China has their revolution and "Oh noez, acid rain, teh horrorz".
ROFL
We haven't got a leg to stand on. You can't say that we don't have as much industry, it's just in third world countries running unregulated now in sweat shops and un-unionized factories.
-Viz
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
The very fact that they want to study the effects should be a matter of concern. Who said something about 'Los Angeles' in reference to US defense policy in reference to Taiwan? Think The Art of War.
I'd rather be xenophobic because the alternative is suicide.
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
Brilliant. What a load of shit you pile on. You lived with immigrants, whoopty fucking-do. Basically all you are saying is that you know they are poor, and that being poor sucks, and they would really like to have a job. That's great. People work in coal mines to have a job too, that's not what I would call a plan for anyone's future. People work in the US in coal mines to this day, and so do their kids. Its not like these crappy, dirty jobs mean that they are going to live a better life.
Here's some more wisdom from the 10,000 mile away high chair. Do you know who gets their ass kicked when environmental issues cause diseases and quality of life issues? Not me, and most likely not you. We get to do things like: move, buy air filters, etc. The immigrants you appear to care so much about? They fucking die unpleasantly. Maybe not today, and possibly not tomorrow, but it happens usually after chronic illness. They can't prevent the problems. Chances are that the very jobs you extol for them expose them to that crap every day. And usually, their medical care sucks once they have something. Frequently their kids end up with that stuff too, because its environmental. I guess that's okay in China, because they have people to spare, apparently.
Carbon's just the tip of the iceberg, sweetheart. If you are pumping that much carbon in the air, you're definitely pumping things out that have a lot more of an effect on your standard poor person, like heavy metals for instance. Global warming may or may not be a load of shit, but pollution is the real deal. It affects you, me and them. All of us, but particularly them.
In the end, as I said before, this isn't a century ago. We know first hand what this stuff causes, and what's more we have the ability to deal with it. China is on its way to putting a man on the moon, but they don't have the ability to use existing techniques to keep stuff clean? Bullshit. They are using imperialism as an excuse so that they don't have to pay any attention to lessons that other places have already learned the hard way and you want to give them cover for that. Yeah, it'll slow them down... a little, but I'll give the Chinese government some credit, if they want to upgrade these plants and manufacturing locations they could. Having a boot on the face of your people can get stuff done expeditiously if they want it done. The problem is, they don't want to, because they are more concerned with being number one.
So please, don't use poor people to defend what is simply greed and nationalism. There was never a good reason for the West to do it, and there's no good reason for China to do it, either. You're not helping your acquaintances or their kids or anyone else by effectively using them to apologize for the Chinese government and their industrialists.
This has possibilities. For each shipload of consumer goods that comes here the Chinese have to accept the presence of a couple of treehuggers from this part of the world. It would be an education for both parties.
partisans on the left, partisans on the right, nationalists of every nationality...
Who's obstructing action on any if the things you mentioned? Not those on the left. Complain about politics all you want, but the reality is that the right wing is the obstacle to progress on pollution and global warming, and they have to be overcome if we're going to accomplish anything.
...
If you want to address a more discerning crowd, write for New York Times.
Oooooooh, That's harsh.
Are you working on such a study? No? Then please go do that or complain about something else. And there you have one likely answer: no one did the study because no one is really interested enough.
The europe study alone supports the fairly obvious conclusion of "pollution travels." That's a second reason why it hasn't been done: it's conclusions would be fairly redundant.
A third potential reason is that we don't know the circumstances of that europe study, or at least I don't. It's possible that there was some specific event that allowed that study, as is often the case with those atmospheric studies. You can imagine the difficulties involved in figuring out where pollutants in the air came from: did this CO2 come from industry in europe or from down the street? So it may have been something like a gas that wasn't normally emitted that could be detected above the noise. Like a paint plant exploded and there was a highly detectable component of the vapors that were picked up three weeks after the event. Maybe nothing similar has happened in china.
A fourth could be that China has no interest in cooperating with a study that is going to conclude that the rest of the world has a reason to be concerned with all the coal they're burning. This is china we're talking about. I have no doubt that the chinese government would love to break the legs of anyone doing a study of their pollution, they know that a study showing pollution could go INTO china is going to draw attention to the pollution OUT OF china issue. They don't want that.
Racism is among the dumbest and least logical reasons you could come up with. Again, why jump right to that? Because it's the juciest explanation.
Your black people and fried chicken example is ludicrously stupid, by the way. And why wouldn't a study of that make slashdot's front page? Think for a minute, there are dozens of reasons that aren't about racism.
Ah, a classic example of European myopia. China produces 1/5 of the world's pollution which the US sees as smog and acid rain all over its western half. China is developing as we speak. They are forgoing the use of, "green" technology that is now available and affordable. China is taking an already delicate situation and making it worse as fast as possible.In the US that's felt as the west coast getting smoggier, acid-rainier, and just plain more polluted. The US pollutes too, but they have an entrenched infrastructure that was created at a time when pollution was less of a concern and are working, however perfunctorily, to change that. What validates this article is that China is tipping the balance in the wrong direction and will continue to heedlessly do so even after the EU, US, and rest of the world should have gotten their act cleaned up.
I suppose China is very disappointed over its 0.0000000255 Gmpp (Gold medals per person) in the recent Olympic games.
And I don't agree, you absolutely did take it out of context.
So now what?
You also failed to address my point, which completely refuted your attempt at drawing equivalence, but that's no surprise, you resort to paraphrasing quotes out of context so you're not exactly someone I'd expect rational debate from.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
Your other point was a deliberate red herring, which I had the right to ignore. But I'll address it anyway.
The world laughed at Bush's initial statement:
Notice that Bush did not say or imply anything about the legality of invading democracies versus dictatorships. He added the qualifier days later, in a typical Bushian revision of history, after the world ridiculed him for his hypocrisy.
When told you were wrong and that I disagree, your best attempt at an argument is to call me a liar?
Yes, when I said you weren't capable of rational debate, your "nuh uh you did not" was definitive proof I was right.
And just so we're clear, you don't know what a red herring is. If you did, you'd realize that your total failure to address the obvious dissimilarities between a dictatorship, and a democratically elected government is as far from a red herring as one could get.
By your logic, Nazi Germany or Pol Pot is no different than a freely elcted government.
I have to wonder why you'd try to pass off such a stupid assertion.
I also have to wonder why you think you can dismiss a point you can't refute by pretending it's a red herring.
Again, so we're clear, it matters if a country is a dictatorship or not. Whether Bush mentioned it is irrelevant, as anyone who isn't retarded understands there's a difference.
Your opinion changes nothing.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
It is hypocritical to point to China where US pollute per inhabitant a lot more.
... total levels of pollutants by category are relevant. That's the only measure that is of consequence: anything else just allows countries to play statistical games and weasel out of doing anything about their mismanagement.
A worthless argument. Hypocrisy is irrelevant, pollution per inhabitant is irrelevant
You want hypocrisy? Go talk to Russia about all the natural gas they're just flaring off because they're too damned cheap to buy the requisite cryogenics equipment. It's hypocritical because they complain about everyone else's emissions.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Because I wasn't wrong.
You, however, cannot use the same reason for not admitting you said a bunch of stupid shit that demonstrated you're not very smart.
I do like that you admitted I destroyed you though.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS