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NASA Data Reveals China's Industrial Air Pollution
eldavojohn writes "China's skyrocketing industrialism comes at a price to the environment, according to Canadian scientists who used NASA data to publish a report on worldwide air pollution (PDF) in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. The biggest problem appears to be a bright red mass in Northeastern China around the Yangtze River Delta — a rapidly developing piece of China's explosive economy. There doesn't seem to be a lot of acknowledgment from the state media, but blogs are picking it up as one of the few sources of data on air pollution for the area. The sad fact is that particulate matter in the air less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter is not classified as pollution by the Chinese government, so they have no official measurements to provide. If you're in Shanghai and looking for a breath of fresh air, you've got quite the journey ahead of you."
This is more evidence supporting the "Race to the Bottom" argument. China isn't known for environmental protections.
By the way, on the diagram, the northwestern region showing elevated levels is the Gobi desert, but that isn't where the highest levels are.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
They're talking about PM2.5 - the really small particles, which apparently China doesn't classify as pollution (they're not listed on that site).
Apparently the really fine particles can be the worst for you, since your body has a hard time filtering them out.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
It's interesting to see that in Australia the highest concentrations of particulate matter are in the desert where nobody lives as opposed to the eastern coastline where the majority of industry is. This makes me a little suspicious of the low-end of the scale, but it could be due to airborne particulates from soil erosion.
While it doesn't exactly refute your argument, I do think that it's important to point out that China, the world's biggest polluter, is also the world's largest producer of solar panels (see Suntech). So while China's cheap labor costs and lax environmental policies are certainly helping to push the world toward the brink of destruction via global warming, they are also working toward a solution by making solar power prices more competitive with traditional forms of energy.
I do agree completely after watching the recent (and ongoing) conflict between China and Japan that the US seriously needs to take measures to be less reliant on China for.. well.. everything.
Remember People.
This is a particulate map. Not a noxious gas map.
The reason for the apparent high levels of pollution over the desert regions is due to dust from well, the deserts.
This doesn't mean China gets a break on this one tho since China isn't an arid region and they don't have the deserts to blame the particulate levels on.
Recently a Chinese delegation visited one of Australia's woolgrowing areas. At the end of an interview conducted by ABC Radio the interviewer asked, "What most excites you about this trip?" The reply was, "The fresh air." If you're interested you can download the four minute interview as an MP3 from http://www.abc.net.au/rural/content/2010/s3017529.htm (see the sidebar).
The only reason China is cranking out solar panels like there's no tomorrow? The answer is two-fold:
1) there was a HUGE and growing global market for them starting in 2007-2008 (when many of these solar companies were founded/bolstered) and
2) the Chinese government is subsidizing the unholy hell out of these companies at the same time, so as to under-cut international pricing.
Taken together, the overall plan (and reason for the subsidies) involves cornering the market on mass-produced 'green energy' goods. Notice that they're also pushing like mad to become the top wind-turbine manufacturer as well.
Long-term, its a smart strategy - when the industrialized world finds oil too pricey, guess who will be around selling them cheap and plentiful solar panels, wind turbines, etc? Meanwhile, the company owners are still making money like mad thanks to the subsidies.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
My dollar is on them starting to enforce environmental controls once their economy has become self-sustaining. Their long-term strategy is to rapidly industrialize now to raise the general standard of living to be on par with or even surpass first-world countries, and figure out what to do with the nasty side effects afterwards.
As far as the government's concerned, losing a few million or a few hundred million people to those side effects is just an added population control bonus. As long as nobody's too worked up about it, they'll continue as they were. The populace is both kept ignorant of the issues by the government, and too busy making money to care. By the time the populace does get around to caring, that in and of itself is the signal for when the government won't need to push for growth and can start pushing for stronger environmental (and other types) of control.
The one thnig which makes this an actually feasible long-term plan, unlike the idea of deficit spending in the 30's, is that the Chinese government is totalitarian, which means it is actually able to turn on a dime. So while in a democracy, it might take fifty years to go from a fossil-fuel-based economy to entirely renewable-energy-based, it'll take China five, perhaps even less.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
My first time to visit Shanghai was back in 2004. My flight approached Pudong Airport (PVG) from the north (came from Chicago), I could see what looked like hundreds of spires sticking out of the clouds in the clear blue sky. It was so beautiful... ...until we landed that is. The sky quickly turned orange/brown as we descended through the clouds and landed. The moment I walked outside the airport, but lungs felt itchy. What little did I know about those "clouds". Nasty!
Life is not for the lazy.
It could have been dust storms. Eastern China suffers some pretty bad dust storms from sand blown out of the Gobi desert and it gets as far as Japan sometimes.