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US To Monitor Air Quality In India and Other Countries
mdsolar writes with news about a U.S. plan to monitor air quality in countries like India and Mongolia to help raise awareness about the dangers of pollution. "The United States says it will expand air-quality monitoring at some overseas diplomatic missions, following several years of reporting pollution data in China. The goal is to increase awareness of the health risks of outdoor air pollution, which easily spreads across borders, Secretary of State John Kerry said in announcing the program on Wednesday. The program is intended to help United States citizens abroad reduce their exposure to pollution and to help other countries develop their own air-quality monitoring through training and exchanges with American experts, he said. "We're hoping that this tool can also expand international cooperation when it comes to curbing air pollution," Mr. Kerry said. The program, run in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency, will begin to operate in India in a few months. New Delhi has some of the world's worst air pollution, and residents there are becoming increasingly concerned about the dangers. American diplomatic missions will also monitor air quality in Vietnam, Mongolia and elsewhere, Mr. Kerry said."
There is a long tradition of US diplomats making scientific observations abroad. Franklin discovered the existence of sunrise in Paris, for example: http://www.webexhibits.org/day...
First you deregulate trade, and you use that to pressure your suppliers to have the lowest possible cost. In order to achieve this, the suppliers must crush workers in remote countries and fuck the environment... and suddently you discover that there is only one single ecosystem and that pollution affects you.
It is nice to see a US government that acknowledges there is general interest linked to environment. What will come next? They should push international environmental regulations that trump trade deregulation. I wonder if I will live long enough to see that.
Sounds like a convenient excuse for the USA not to clean up its own act.
"We are encouraging India to reduce emissions, therefore we will not sign this global environmental treaty."
Nice to see the US continue the well worn tradition of meddling in other countries internal affairs.
Make no mistake, this stunt is really meant to embarass and humiliate other countries in the name of awareness. The US has no problem exporting their polluting industries to poor nations but now to put the blame on them is too much.
Shame on the US government. This is why terrorists crash planes into their buildings.
How about monitoring the chemtrails here first?
oh that's right, human beings are dumb animals who love inhaling poison
Marsh was a diplomat who observed deforestation and desertification around the Mediterranean. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
Yeah, but today it's more like IMSI catchers and other surveillance.
Please do it at home, we don't want your surveillance.
aaaaaaa
A lot of that pollution is caused by the way you exploit foreign countries for their slave labor.
Has anyone reinstated the environmental protection laws that G. W. Bush removed?
Not to worry, though.
Soon, USA allies will be able to strike eco terrorist harboring countries with your drones - got to love it.
Everyone who buys Wild Hunt will receive 16 specially prepared DLCs absolutely for free, regardless of platform.
Since the US is the number 2 polluter in the world!
http://www.reuters.com/news/pi...
(probably not the most accurate report but good enough example).
Trade goes overseas because it's too expensive to manufacture here (because of regulation).
The US is not even remotely deregulated when it comes to business.
As long as americans continue to drive V8 SUV that drive as far on a gallon as a Mini goes on a litre of fuel, nobody else will listen worldwide. As long as you don't even construct sidewalks and street lighting, based on the excuse that everybody plus dog drives in the USA, nobody will listen to you.
As long as the USA is almost completely devoid of electrified rail and any passenger rail, nobody will listen. (For example, India was among the very first users of the french-german developed 25kV/50Hz AC locomotive traction system in the early 1960's and ever since then.)
As long as americans think it is OK to cut down trees to build houses out of them, nobody will listen. If it wasn't acceptable of Saruman, why is USA an exception? (In most countries of the world, homes made out of wood are the exception. That's because deforestation is stupid and houses built of wood don't last beyond 90 years, usually only half of that. In contrast, brick construction still stands after 500 years and stone easily lasts a millenia or two. But of course those ephemeral wood houses do help to make US population "rootless" so they can be shuffled and re-shuffled coast-to-cost at the whim of greedy tycoons.)
As long as USA handles pollution problems by way of private company profits now and publicly financed Superfund clean-up later, i.e. somewhere in the very distant future, nobody abroad will listen. Fracking is abysmally stupid, who in their right mind would turn their land into cheese by drilling a gazillion of holes into deep ground and then send down explosive charges deep under? Persistent mini earthquakes, polluted groundwater and Dead Sea clone toxic ponds are the result. Of course, as long as gas is cheap for the above-mentioned V8 SUV, yankee couldn't care less.
As long as americans continue to think that Albert Gore is first-born son of Beelzebub, nobody will listen to US initivatives.
Pisses me off that I'm being robbed of my earnings to friggin monitor an economically healthy country's anything!
Fuck that!
Don't worry. We can instead ignore the problem, and end up using even more of your earnings to deal with it.
Sure sure, us spending our money to 'monitor it' going to change India's behavior. Riiiiiiight.
Joe Biden is a square shooter. Joe Biden for 2016!
Actually, Adams complained that Franklin was using too much money on flattery.
We can argue till the sacred cows come how why it is so, or whether it is justified, or whether it hurts or helps USA or India. But ground reality is, USA has no real credibility. If it monitors air quality and announces the results, people would find thousands of hidden agenda and subversion in it.
It is not just India. This old lady in northern Iraq passionately pleads for peace to ISIS militants, (assuming the sub titles are true) tells them their ways are un-Islamic in their face. But thinks America is providing ISIS weapons and money!
I grew up in India and visit it every year. It is very hard to convince even highly educated and informed Indians that "USA is not a monolith. Parts of it are purely profit driven. Parts of it are genuinely altruistic, desiring real democracy and good life for all of the world. No, President Obama is not conspiring with the CEOs of Coca-Cola and Pepsi to drive your hometown soda maker out of business, your rose-flavor-soda is safe from Pepsi. No, the President can not order CEO of Warner Brothers to censor a movie". I am talking about people who have very advanced degrees, worked in Middle East, Africa and far East outside India, people who have visited USA and Europe as tourists and visited friends and relatives there. They just don't believe any part of USA could be altruistic.
All the goodwill earned by all the people doing tremendous charity work, altruistic work, is squandered by a few bad players, mostly corporations corrupting the local politicians for their profit.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
US Diplomacy. NEW! IMPROVED! Now with more espionage!
OCO2 is the best means of monitoring CO2. Most importantly, it is capable of showing how CO2 flows in and out of a nation. China and other nations like to hide how much they actually produce. It is long past time for the world to see REAL numbers of what each nation produces so that they will focus on the correct polluters rather than the ones that are already cleaning up.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Agent001: I know! Let's go monitor their air!
Agent002: For what?
Agent001: Wireles.... I mean air quality!
Agent002: You're so smooth.
[dressed up in a moon costume] systemd: pizza time!