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Pollution From Asia Affects US Climate

sciencehabit writes "China and India are some of the world's top polluters, with countless cars, factories, and households belching more than 2 million metric tons of carbon soot and other dark pollutants into the air every year. The pall hanging over the region has come to be known as 'the Asian brown cloud.' These pollutants aren't just bad news for the countries themselves. A new study reveals that they can affect climate thousands of kilometers away, warming the United States by up to 0.4C by 2024, while cooling other regions (abstract)."

6 of 209 comments (clear)

  1. What blows around comes around by petes_PoV · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And all the pollutants created in the USA gets dispersed on the wind to other places - as does the pollution from Europe and everywhere else on the planet. It's not that america is therefore suffering unduly - it's just that we should recgonise the world is a closed system and it's not a good idea to crap on each others doorsteps.

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
  2. What a bunch of bullshit by aliquis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Rather pollution from US consumption affect the global climate.

    Whatever it's pollution or animal slaughter it is the consumer who make the demand and got the power to choose.

    The people in the US (and hence you could say the US) is the biggest polluters by far. And it make no sense to compare countries with differences in population size (I'm from Sweden so we never have to worry about pollution because we're such a small nation anyway?) but rather per capita.

    If the Chinese and Indian people would live as the average person in the US I assume we would more than doubled the pollution? But they don't. And why should they who are far behind restrict themselves then people in the US doesn't?

    I hate these kind of posts. The US consumers are the filthiest and they are the one who order all (well, not all..) that crap from China for instance. Stop complaining on people in China and India damnit.

    You don't want global warming, pollution, ecological disasters and what not? Consume less. (Or rather just what nature provides on a local scale and take care about how you do it.)

  3. Pollution in Asia... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's always a misconception from people in the U.S. that China and India are the polluters of the world. Please understand that they are the ONLY countries left that can manufacture all the stuff we need at bargain basement price. They are the reason why we can have a RC car for $24.99 or $5 for a 4GB USB flash drive. The majority of the factories and cars in these countries are used to make stuff and deliver for us. The average citizen of these countries use about 1/10 of the energy and resources of any developed countries. If only that the rest of the world stops consumerism and start paying more, please don't bitch about the pollution. We made it happen.

  4. this is how you convert climate change deniers by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Funny

    How do you defeat oil indistry propaganda that climate change isn't real for the faux news set?

    Appeal to their nationalism and xenophobia:" China is forcing climate change on you and your beautiful country"

    Now there is no question climate change is real: it's a dastardly Chinese Communist plot to destroy Amurrica!

    The power of low IQ tribal paranoia.

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  5. Re:Its a blessing by oiron · · Score: 5, Informative

    And its a gift to the rest of the world. Our emissions are actually quite clean; I"ll bet first world car exhaust is safer to breathe than 3rd world standard air.

    Did you just literally say that your shit smells like roses?

    The US is in the top bracket of polluting countries! Check this out...

    Taking just CO2, the US is four times higher per capita, but China's higher overall. Same story with Sulphur... Here, the US is about 3 times as much as China.

    In both cases, India is far behind both the US and China.

    Again, let me repeat that our country is so clean that our piddly bit of pollution is cleaner than daily life in these countries.

    Its a blessing to them to get our exhaust gasses. Its like manna from the gods.

    The highest per-capita emissions, and the second highest totals - that's some pretty interesting mana you gods are giving us!

    And now don't switch tactics and try to claim that it's necessary for your standard of living; just look at the UK and Germany with far lower levels of both CO2 and Sulphur per capita. It's possible, as long as you give your SUVs up.

  6. Re:Its a blessing by oiron · · Score: 5, Informative

    Every time you deniers "call us on it", we link again and again and again to the real science. You ask for the data, the data is available. You cast aspersions on the data, and it's independently verified. You fund studies meant to show that there's no warming, the study shows that there really is warming.

    When we "call you on it", you disappear into the woods.