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One Tenth of China's Farmland Polluted With Heavy Metals
eldavojohn writes "A report form China's Environmental Ministry reveals that one tenth of China's 1.22 million square kilometers of farmland are polluted with heavy metals and other toxins. The AFP lists 'lead, mercury and cancer-causing cadmium' and points to the rapid pace of China's industrialization as well as factories and their operators flouting regulations and laws. Cheap batteries and lead refineries are slowly turning China into a land where whole villages are poisoned (11 incidents so far this year). According to Human Rights Watch the government's response to this scourge is laughable. The poisoned are denied treatment and China's Environmental Ministry offers no possible help: 'The report documents how local authorities in contaminated areas have imposed arbitrary limits on access to blood lead testing, for example by permitting only people living within a small radius of a factory to be tested. When tests are conducted, results have often been contradictory or have been withheld from victims and their families. And children with elevated blood lead levels who require treatment according to national guidelines have been denied care or told simply to eat certain foods, including apples, garlic, milk, and eggs.'"
Thats not the kind of regulation hes talking about. He didn't say anything about import regulation. He's talking about pollution and environmental regulation within the US that prevents our farmland from being poisoned with heavy metals. L2comprehend
Implausible. Heavy metal poisoning is only modestly fatal, either at alarming doses or if you draw the short straw in the carcinogen lottery; but has a huge band of unpleasant but nonfatal effects at lower doses.
With uncontrolled emissions into the environment, you would likely see a uselessly small die-off, largely among people with occupational exposure, and a huge number of subtly to seriously impaired people with cognitive issues, chronic health problems, or both. Killing nearly nobody and creating a large number of chronically sick people is not exactly a clever population control strategy, even if you don't have any ethical reservations about it...
Do you mean my computer or monitor? My monitor was largely made in Korea. It is an LG Displays IPS panel, which are made in Korea. The electronics were made in Japan. final assembly was done in China but could easily be done elsewhere.
The computer is made from parts all over the place, few from China. The power supply is the only component I can think of that was made in China. The CPU was fabbed in the US, packaged in Costa Rica. The SSDs were made in the US, the HDDs in Malaysia. The memory was made in Taiwan. The graphics card was fabbed in Taiwan, assembled in the US. Final assembly of the system was done in the US since I put the thing together myself.
I'm not trying to argue that China isn't a massive producer of goods but please let's stop the stupidity of "China makes everything the US makes nothing!" Computers are largely NOT made in China.