Up To a Quarter of California Smog Comes From China 259
wabrandsma writes "What goes around comes around – quite literally in the case of smog. The US has outsourced many of its production lines to China and, in return, global winds are exporting the Chinese factories' pollution right back to the U.S. From the article: '...the team combined their emissions data with atmospheric models that predict how winds shuttle particles around. These winds push Chinese smog over the Pacific and dump it on the western US, from Seattle to southern California. The modelling revealed that on any given day in 2006, goods made in China for the US market accounted for up to a quarter of the sulphate smog over the western U.S..'"
Eh? Smog is low level (Score:2, Interesting)
How can these particles remain in the very lowest part of the atmosphere while travelling all the way across the Pacific, apparently completely unaffacted by weather or mixing of air strata? It doesn't make sense. Low level particulates rain out of the atmosphere very quickly. If he's talking about high level pollutants in the stratosphere then fair enough - but thats not smog.
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I seem to remember an axiom from E-school: "Gravity always works."
Re:Eh? Smog is low level (Score:5, Informative)
Nope, definitely low-level; it's a tropospheric transport model. Apparently it's a standard model (GEOS-Chem) that's pretty reliable, and it seems to incorporate interactions between particulates and the surface, including e.g. exchange of particulates between the troposphere and ocean/land.
http://www.pnas.org/content/ea... [pnas.org]
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If thats the case then it'll almost certainly be skewed by all the pollution from shipping along the way. The high sulphur fuel oil they burn produces hugh amounts of sulphates.
Re:Eh? Smog is low level (Score:5, Insightful)
If thats the case then it'll almost certainly be skewed by all the pollution from shipping along the way. The high sulphur fuel oil they burn produces hugh amounts of sulphates.
So what? That shipping is done to bring the goods from China... might as well fold it in.
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Have you seen pictures of smog in China? It's fucking incredible. It's not that much of it that makes it here, only a small portion. It seems like a lot but compared to what started it's not that much. The health problems the Chinese are going to have from this stuff is unimaginable.
Re:Eh? Smog is low level (Score:5, Interesting)
"The health problems the Chinese are going to have from this stuff is unimaginable"
That ship may have sailed.
A report from 2007 estimated 600,000 deaths annually - http://news.nationalgeographic... [nationalgeographic.com].
A recent one, that looks at 100 cities puts the tally at 350,000 - 500,000 annually but another that claims to take the entire population into account is claiming over 1 million.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china... [scmp.com]
That may not mean much in a country over well over a billion people but it's unimaginable to me that so many die from just breathing bad air.
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> How can these particles remain in the very lowest part of the atmosphere
That's the Invisible Hand, son.
Re:Eh? Smog is low level (Score:4, Interesting)
Forget particulates. Actual sand has been known to show up on my front doorstep (literally) transported across the Atlantic from the Sahara. And, from time to time, going the other direction from Kansas and Oklahoma.
If something that heavy can be transported that far, the only thing that would change with lighter particles is how much farther they disperse.
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How do you know the sand on your doorstep is from the Sahara and not some closer sandy area?
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If nothing else you could chemically analyze the dust to find its origin but dust storm remnants crossing the Atlantic have been tracked by satellite so it's know to happen.
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If nothing else you could chemically analyze the dust to find its origin but dust storm remnants crossing the Atlantic have been tracked by satellite so it's know to happen.
Also isotopically.
However, A) I'm quite familiar with all the local (within 500 miles) types of sand and B) that's where the Weather Service said it came from.
C) you can sometimes see it in the satellite pictures off the western coast of Africa. When hurricane season is at its peak, that's where the big storms come from, so I keep an eye on it.
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Reading comprehension a bit too much for you?
But wait what about the other 95% of china smog? We need to multiply that US smog by 20 to get it's contribution.
therefore 20*25% = 500% of W. US sulphate comes from china!!! those sneaky rascals are exporting 5 times as much sulphate tot eh US as they produce in total!
Wait, what? let's read that again
The modelling revealed that on any given day in 2006, goods made in China for the US market accounted for up to a quarter of the sulphate smog over the western US.
So, by your calculation, China is producing 5 times more smog than there's on the US West coast. Most of it (about 19/20, in fact) doesn't get to the US, quite surprising, eh?
Playing with numbers is nice, but next time try to understand what it is you're computing.
Pollution from China (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I'm mostly libertarian, but in the whole 'your right to throw your fist stops at my nose' sense I'd be okay with imposing tariffs on products that aren't produced up to US pollution standards, or even trade restrictions against countries that aren't even trying, pollution wise.
Re:Pollution from China (Score:5, Interesting)
Great, so will the US then also meet EU polution standards? Or does this rule only apply when you like it?
US paying Europe for emissions... (Score:4, Informative)
Well, I did a quick google search on emissions, a fair bit about cars, not industry. My general conclusion is that the differences are basically a wash. Which is why I mentioned 'aren't even trying, pollution wise'. China for the most part isn't even trying. The USA at least tries.
A country that is trying to protect itself will generally protect it's neighbors as well.
Re:US paying Europe for emissions... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, it may seem like a wash because it's complicated. The EU only sets broad rules, which the individual countries then must implement.
Also, you can't always directly compare rules.
However, For instance for some directly possible comparison:
SO2 Annual mean is 20 microgram per m^3 in the EU, 79 in US.
NOx: 40 vs 100 ug/m^3
PM10: 40 vs 50 ug/m^3
Ozone: 120 vs 160 ug/m^3 (way of measurement differs slightly)
CO: same for both 10000 ug/m^3
These are *huge* differences. It may seem like a wash, but on the scales we are talking about, these are enormous differences.
Of course, some regulations may be stricter in the US than EU, I didn't do a full on study on this.
(these numbers may be a couple of years out of date, but I doubt there were many changes)
Having said that, my previous comment wasn't entirely meant to be serious. In fact, I'm all in favor of applying more pressure on countries to do things about pollution. Also, the EU regulation might be a bit over the top.
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Good exercise... now throw the Chinese numbers up and see what it looks like.
Re:US paying Europe for emissions... (Score:4, Informative)
There is a huge difference between making a law and applying a law, obviously. This is just standards, not what you will actually find when you measure.
But here you go:
China:
SO2: 20ug/m^3 (60 in urban areas)
NOx: 50ug/m^3
PM10: 40ug/m^3 (70 in urban areas)
Ozone: 160 ug/m^3
CO: 10000 ug/m^3
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Well, that is pretty hilarious, isn't it :)
Re:US paying Europe for emissions... (Score:4, Informative)
There is a huge difference between making a law and applying a law, obviously. This is just standards, not what you will actually find when you measure.
But here you go:
Tell me about it - next to your air quality limits, here are the actual figures for High-tech zone, Shijiazhuang at http://aqicn.org/ [aqicn.org].
China:
SO2: 20ug/m^3 (60 in urban areas) - actual 60
NOx: 50ug/m^3 - actual 73
PM10: 40ug/m^3 (70 in urban areas) - actual 546!!!!!!!
Ozone: 160 ug/m^3 - actual 3
CO: 10000 ug/m^3 - actual 0
Note that this is a point-in-time value. So, the laws are actually somewhat better than the US, but apparently nobody follows the law.
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It won't be long now--maybe a generation--before China is working overtime to outsource their dirtiest industries to lower-wage economics in sub-Saharan Africa, at which point their index of "at least they are trying" will bend abruptly upwards like the knee in a tree-ring extrapolated global warming infographic.
Funny how often the people regarded as trying the hardest are usually handy to a lumpy carpet covering a trap door which opens onto
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The Canadians have been complaining about transboundary air pollution from the Ohio Valley for a long time. Not sure what's the outcome of that.
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Nah, there is more than enough hot air in the EU to push US smog back west.
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LOL, sure when the EU outlaws two stroke engines. I was in Spain last month and couldn't count fast enough the number of sputtering two stroke bikes whizzing around the city al belching smoke. So as they say: "Physician heal thyself."
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If you can show that US pollution is reaching Europe like Chinese pollution is reaching the US, then, yes, the EU should have a say. Can you show that a quarter of EU air pollution comes from the US?
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Great, so will the US then also meet EU polution [sic] standards? Or does this rule only apply when you like it?
It only makes sense for the EU to tariff US products that don't have the same level of environmental and labor protection laws behind them. Only somebody with more nationalism than brains would claim otherwise.
In a global economy passing laws to make your workforce and population safer and not placing tariffs on products from countries that do not implement similar controls is just asking for massive unemployment. The level of tariff should of course be proportional to the level of deviation. While the E
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Great, so will the US then also meet EU polution standards? Or does this rule only apply when you like it?
We don't even have a mechanism to deal with this within the US. I live in western New Hampshire, right by the big hydro power plant. Aside from a few automobiles, all of our air pollution comes from elsewhere (and we have lots of trees [discovery.com] to absorb pollution so we're probably a net negative for pollution in this area). Yet, when the heat of the summer comes and the midwest cranks up their coal-fired pow
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Firethrorn never said the US should be exempt from similar laws. Additionally, Firethorn is not an embodiment of the US, nor does he have much power over US trade agreements. You appear to be suggesting hypocrisy where there is none.
You could make an argument that such a move will have unintended consequences when other countries enact similar laws, however Firethorn might thing that was a good thing. I certainly would. Countries i
Re:Pollution from China (Score:5, Interesting)
Very well put. The only catch is politicians from China will freak out if the US tries to put in such restrictions, and politicians from the US will freak out once the EU tries to put in such restrictions. It's a shame governments tend to look out for national profit rather than global welfare.
Actually, what ever happened to the Kyoto Protocol? That seemed like something that could work and I remember hearing it did have a positive effect, but you don't seem to hear about it or anything like it lately.
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Indeed, look at how much the US complained about RoHS. China just got on and dealt with it.
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Ah! RoHS completely skipped my mind. Why would the US have even complained about that?
It does remind me of something I heard once though. Apparently an American ordered colored plastic rulers from China. The rulers that arrived had lead in the plastic. Because of the lead content they couldn't be sold [to children], so the American freaked out at the Chinese suppler and asked "what if children were to stick these in their mouths and suck on them". The Chinese supplier, confused, asked "why would children sm
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Tin Whiskers? Minimal return for the Gain? Expensive retooling while China was simply building new factories?
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Not sure I'd count having less lead in the environment as a minimal return, but still. Quality lead free solder isn't expensive, it just isn't what those involved in the race to the bottom want. Saving a few pennies isn't worth the damage leaded solder (and other hazardous substances, it wasn't just solder) causes.
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Elemental lead isn't that big of a concern, at least not against concerns about reduced lifespan. Though you're right with the race to the bottom. I've played around a bit trying to find a way that doesn't place more power with the government yet still increases rewards for making stuff that will actually last.
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Kyoto would do nothing for this. It did not apply to China or other "developing" nations. This is cited as one of the major reasons the US laughed itself right out of the talks.
While something like Kyoto does make sense, it really is insane to take a global problem and make any local area exempt by-name. By all means exempt countries until they hit some level of per-acre emissions or whatever, but you can't create a long-lasting treaty that hard-codes in the economic status of the countries at the time that it is signed. Corporations can move manufacture wherever they want to. If you made Kyoto apply everywhere except in a single 1 km^2 island in the middle of the pacific you'd
Re:Pollution from China (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, I'm mostly libertarian, but in the whole 'your right to throw your fist stops at my nose' sense I'd be okay with imposing tariffs on products that aren't produced up to US pollution standards, or even trade restrictions against countries that aren't even trying, pollution wise.
The tricky thing about libertarian analyses of pollution standards is that a 'pollution standard' is actually a rather odd thing (from a libertarian standpoint, from the 'just throwing things together according to no particular overarching theory as the needs of the day dictate' sense, they occur quite naturally): Depending on how unpleasant it is, pollution is anywhere from a cost imposed on others to lethal violence visited on others, and a 'pollution standard' is the state explicitly granting the right to inflict a certain amount of that on everybody else. It's like talking about 'theft standards' for regulating the activities of pickpockets to a certain amount per wallet...
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Depending on how unpleasant it is, pollution is anywhere from a cost imposed on others to lethal violence visited on others, and a 'pollution standard' is the state explicitly granting the right to inflict a certain amount of that on everybody else. It's like talking about 'theft standards' for regulating the activities of pickpockets to a certain amount per wallet...
You are indeed correct about this. On the other hand, 'no pollution allowed' isn't very economical either, and it IS generally tough to seperate out just which factory/industry killed which person via pollution. Complicating this is that, generally speaking, ONE pollution source isn't enough to kill anybody; poison is in the dose, after all.
As my original post was a one-liner unless you have a really small screen, I didn't get into that stuff. Still, in my view pollution should be charged for. No giveaw
Re:Pollution from China (Score:4, Insightful)
My point was merely that libertarianism is among the most vexing theoretical frameworks from which to try to arrive at acceptable pollution levels that aren't either zero ("Pollution is violence, one of the state's few legitimate roles is preventing you from committing it unless you, as is probably impossible, negotiate the consent of all those affected") or infinite ("Pollution is a product of me exercising my property rights, state infringement on which is unacceptable"), with zero being the arguably stronger; but rather less well-befriended, outcome. It's not a useful outcome (preindustrial society kind of sucked, and somebody was still shitting upstream from your drinking water); but trying to come up with a theoretical justification for some pragmatically calculated value is quite an exercise (coming up with the pragmatically calculated value is bad enough; but that's at least mostly a technical problem).
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I fully understand, which is why I said 'mostly'.
My idea for pollution basically amounts to:
(Damage from pollution type in $)/(amount released by all industries in selected area)*(amount you released over the period)*1.2*(Hassle Modifier; IE it goes up the more granular you want the selected area/release type to be)
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You are indeed correct about this. On the other hand, 'no pollution allowed' isn't very economical either,
Zero emissions is the only safe and fair way to proceed. It's not even impossible.
If paying for the externalities makes the business unprofitable, it probably shouldn't be in business.
Yes, you have it exactly. That's why we need a zero-emissions requirement. You must never emit toxics and you must balance all other externalities, e.g. fixing carbon. Anything else is uncivilized bullshit.
Extremism doesn't work.
Destroy all the factories. Put out all the fires. Put us all back to the Stone Age and beyond.
Pollution gone? Nope. The landscape is littered with natural pollutants. Asbestos. Mercury, Arsenic, radioactive Xenon gas seeping up through the limestone. Even Uranium. So much that for an extended period of time, Africa actually had a naturally-occuring atomic reactor. Natural fires. Toxic lakes. There are some places people simply cannot live and stay healthy.
Rewind to the Industrial Era.
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How? Each and every "green" technology has some form of "problem". Solar? Forget it the energy to produce the cells is astronomical and the rare earth are non trivial to extract. Wind and water? Better, but you need to build the damned things from some metals. Smelting metals, even when recycling creates toxic smoke and other junk. Biomass? Works sort better, you are CO2 neutral, but the process of burning still creates SO2 and similar pollutants. You can combat air pollutants with filters, but then you end
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How? Each and every "green" technology has some form of "problem". Solar? Forget it the energy to produce the cells is astronomical and the rare earth are non trivial to extract.
Modern thin-film PV solar pays back its energy investment in three years and uses less materials than ever. Much of the research in solar is directed at using more easily extracted materials.
Smelting metals, even when recycling creates toxic smoke and other junk.
Right, but those gases can be captured, and the use of metals can be reduced.
Biomass? Works sort better, you are CO2 neutral, but the process of burning still creates SO2 and similar pollutants.
The long term goal is that we shouldn't be burning anything but hydrogen (and precious little of that at this point due to the high energy cost of its production) and whatever "natural" gas naturally escapes, no fracking. In the shorter term, t
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You can't build solar panels without polluting.
That's the best you can do?
Oh, I see, you're done.
Now, it's naptime for you.
I'll get more out of a nap than from any comment you've ever posted.
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"It's like talking about 'theft standards' for regulating the activities of pickpockets to a certain amount per wallet..."
Oh, you mean like taxes?
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It's like talking about 'theft standards' for regulating the activities of pickpockets to a certain amount per wallet...
It seems a bit more like "assault standards", where brushing against someone as you pass in a narrow hallway isn't prosecutable, but knocking them unconscious is.
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It seems odd because you look at the government as some kind of external force that acts by itself. In reality society decided that a certain level of pollution is tolerable in order to maintain our modern lifestyle and economy, at least until we can do better without harming our interests too much.
Of course this is highly obfuscated and prevented from functioning properly by the way modern democracy works, but it is the basic theory.
Re:Pollution from China (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Pollution from China (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a price for outsourcing production, and now we are seeing some of the price.
This is not China 'throwing their fist' at our nose, this is China burping after the buffet we gleefully threw at them.
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We don't actually owe them all that much, and there's historical precedent for going to war in order to be able to 'write off' debt.
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Even that wouldn't be proof as the pollution off the coast could(and probably would be) coming from the USA. You'd need a series of measurements, backed up by theoretical models showing pollution flow.
Ocean wise, things like debris from the Tsunamis that hit Japan washing up on the shores of Alaska/Washington.
Doesn't make sense. (Score:2)
If Chinese manufacturing accounts for 17 to 36 percent of China's pollution, and a fifth of *that* is attributable to the manufacturing destined for US export, how can a quarter of west US smog be attributable to the US export pollution? Does the other 80 percent of manufacturing smog know to go elsewhere?
Re:Doesn't make sense. (Score:5, Informative)
The New Scientist article has smudged a lot of things from the original text. Basically overall, they find that "EEE-related Chinese pollution contributed about 3–10% of the annual mean surface sulfate concentrations, 1–3% of BC, 2–3% of CO, and 0.5–1.5% of ozone over the western contiguous United States (west of 100W)." However the amount reaching the US was highly variable from day to day (is episodic) because the atmosphere is complicated. It can "save up" pollution and dump it en mass, and on those days, it could account for "12-24% of sulfate concentrations, 2–5% of ozone, 4–6% of CO, and up to 11% of BC over the western United States".
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Right. But if 25 percent of US West coast smog is attributable to pollution from the 20% of Chinese manufacturing that's attributable to US exports ... then along with the other 80 percent of Chinese manufacturing pollution (that's attributable to other-than-US-export-products), Chinese pollution alone would make up more than 100% of west coast smog.
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You're right, it still doesn't make any damn sense as written. The denominator would have to be something completely un-obvious and incorrect for that number to fall out.
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No, he means that if US-attributable pollution is X% of China's pollution output, then it cannot possibly be more than X% of the pollution at the West coast of the US. Either it's X%, if the stuff originating in China is the only source; or it's less if mix it with other sources. Unless the pollution somehow fractionates according to attribution.
Clearly Impossible (Score:4, Funny)
Have we not been repeatedly assured by the UN and the US government that our bestie friend China is a paragon of environmental awareness? Don't all the charts show China with a lower carbon footprint than Switzerland? Surely the pollution must be the US's own being recirculated. After being partially cleansed by the pristine skies of China, of course. /sarcasm
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Are we still talking about the UN report that some conservative blog called "only communism can prevent forest fires", but literally read "China's populace are eager for air that they don't have to look at"?
Somehow fitting (Score:5, Insightful)
I have often said to people that there is a reason why things are so cheap at these big box stores.
I do not say this as a critique of China or which ever country is producing low cost products, but rather as a critique of Western culture and "acquire more crap at all costs" mentality. China is just filling our demand.
Sadly, we tend not to think about the real price of what and where they buy thing. What the human costs of not supporting our local economy is.
We do not think about HOW theses items are so cheap compared to locally produced goods. We do not think twice about buying goods from a US company which closes his factories in America or Europe to sweat shops in China or India.
I do my best to source my goods locally, but it getting more and more difficult. The fact is, local producers of most items cannot compete because westerns are not willing or not able to pay what it actually "costs" to produce.
Now, the fruits of this are coming to bear. From a polluted planet to not getting a living wage. I wish it would turn around, but it won't.
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+1. Sad truth.
A lot of people don't understand that the less they give as customers, the less they'll receive as employees.
It's the same problem at a global level : Germany doesn't understand either that a 2 billion $ train produced in Germany is much cheaper than a 1 billion $ train produced in China.
Karma and macroeconomics are bitches.
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Which is, of course, why we're all much worse off now than when the industrial revolution started. Back then it was the machines making goods cheaper than the people could. Of course people would buy the cheaper goods made by machine, not realising they were sowing the seeds of their own economic destruction. The less they gave as customers, the less they received as employees!
Honestly, can we dro
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It's funny you should mention Germany as it is generally seen as a model of how not to participate in the race to the bottom. German products cost a little more but are of significantly better quality and have a much lower environmental impact, and it seems people are willing to pay that bit more. Japanese products are similar, more expensive but worth it.
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Those local sources aren't really charging you "what it actually costs to produce", because once upon a time they would've had a much larger niche, could've run a larger - yet still modest - store, and therefore had much lower costs. I dare say people would be willing to pay those costs, and use that medium-sized source, but unfortunately that niche is gone.
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I do not say this as a critique of China or which ever country is producing low cost products, but rather as a critique of Western culture and "acquire more crap at all costs" mentality. China is just filling our demand.
So you're saying that a consequence of my wanting cheap electronics is that Californian hipsters have to put up with choking to death on smog imported across the Pacific?
Is this an argument for or against?
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In my country products could have a similar price to the international price. But I am obliged to pay taxes on almost everything, and in several cases these taxes are 50% or more of the total price. And if that was not bad enough, here traders only are content with profit margins that are at least 50%
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"More efficient" in the economic sense only means that it operates at lower cost. Always start from that axiom. While there are some pollution-reduction methods that are also economically efficient (e.g. reusing or selling your waste products rather than dumping them) that is unfortunately those are in the minority. That's why pollution tariffs exist; they add environmental impact to the efficiency problem. In China's case, where their economic efficiency largely comes from cheap power from coal, you've def
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Globalisation is not inherently the devil. In this instance, it is the direct source of the problem.
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That is utter crap.
I never said I hate globalization. In fact, it is a good thing. However, we have different ideas of what efficient means.
For you, it is more "efficient" for you to poor your left over chemicals down the kitchen sink or into the street gutters to be washed into the ocean. That saves you time AND money! What could be better!
I find it more "efficient" to think about my actions and protect the places my offspring inhabit by bringing my left over chemicals to a proper disposal place. In terms
The real benefit of globalization... (Score:2, Insightful)
... is that it keeps us all from murdering each other.
If we weren't trading with China, perhaps it would have attacked Taiwan by now.
China is at present far from being a democracy, however it is making great strides in that free speech, while officially suppressed, is still quite widespread.
While Russia and the US have disarmed to a modest extent, we still have thousands of nuclear weapons aimed at each other. However we are now major trading partners; during the Cold War there was very little trade. For
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There's only four things we do better than anyone else:
music
movies
microcode
high-speed pizza delivery "
Sadly, our music and movies are both going downhill and nobody trusts our microcode any more... Better fire up those pizza ovens.
Basic Math (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it's just a horrible article, but the numbers don't make sense:
The team found that between 17 and 36 per cent of smog produced in China in 2006 came from factories making goods for export. One-fifth of those goods are destined for the US.
Okay, so let's take the average of 17 and 36, we get (17+36)/2 = 26.5. One fifth of that is 5.3. So, 5.3% of smog produced in China came from producing goods for export to the US.
The modelling revealed that on any given day in 2006, goods made in China for the US market accounted for up to a quarter of the sulphate smog over the western US.
Ok, so here's what doesn't make sense. If they're saying 25% of the smog came from china, then only 1.3% of the total smog is from goods produced for export to the US. On the other hand, if they're really saying that what they're saying, and 25% of total smog is from US goods, that means 470% of the smog in total is form China.
This leads to the conclusion that one of the following must be true:
1. The study is full of shit, and the authors need to go back to elementary school. Or,
2. The article is full of shit, and the journalist needs to go back to elementary school. Maybe what the study really says is 25% of the US west coast's smog comes from China, of which 5.3% of that is from production of goods for the US. Or,
3. The paper was written in Chinese, and the translator needs to learn English. Ever put together something complicated made in China? As in, wtf do you mean insert 4 bolts there? There are only screws, and there are only two holes, and they don't line up! Or,
4. Somehow, perhaps by magic, only the sulphate molecules that came out of factories producing goods for the US get blown to the US, while the sulphate molecules made in other production don't. If these molecules somehow know the destination of the goods whose manufacture resulted in their creation, that could make for some really interesting follow up studies! Or,
5. I'm really tired and I missed something. But I don't think I'm that tired.
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first, they are "journalists" It seems that they just make crap up and do not do any actual research on their articles anymore. I have discovered that 99% of technology journalists are complete idiots that dont even know 1/80th of what they are talking about and do ZERO research before they write something down.
Environmental Science is harder than tech, so I will bet these are the same caliber "journalists". We dont have an real ones out there anymore, most of them are just half hearted bloggers t
Seven or so years too (Score:2)
Apparently pollution controls were ramped up for the Olympics and necessity has resulted in a lot of other pollution controls since in some of the very badly effected areas. A building boom resulted in plenty of old and badly run industrial plants etc being replaced.
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They actually discuss a full decade of emissions data from 2000-2009, and state that they picked 2006 as an interesting turning point in China's consumption versus production emissions. I'm guessing that 2000-2009 was the most up to date info when somebody started their PhD in 2009, and now they're writing up.
Re:Basic Math (Score:5, Informative)
One's the average, one's the maximum day-to-day. It fluctuates. It's not the study that's "full of shit", it's that the New Scientist article is written unclearly. You can find the original PNAS at the bottom of the NS piece, can't tell if it's open-access because I've got a golden ticket:
http://www.pnas.org/content/ea... [pnas.org]
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Ok, so here's what doesn't make sense. If they're saying 25% of the smog came from china, then only 1.3% of the total smog is from goods produced for export to the US. On the other hand, if they're really saying that what they're saying, and 25% of total smog is from US goods, that means 470% of the smog in total is form China.
5. I'm really tired and I missed something. But I don't think I'm that tired.
The article is a bit whiffy when it comes to the figures, but the bit you are missing is that it is not just the smog from goods produced for export to the US that is making its way over to the US. If it was, that would be an interesting irony... I do not think it helps that the article seems to be at the same time trying to discuss the amount of pollution generated by Chinese manufacturing of goods for export to the US, while also discussing the amount of smog "exported" from China to the US. Those things
Karma (Score:5, Funny)
Made in China.
Designed in California.
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Made in China. Inhaled in California.
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Well, look at the bright side: Free Smog!
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It seems the U.S. has truly lost, it has even outsourced its smog production.
Canadian Acid Rain from US Coal (Score:5, Interesting)
For quite a long time, acid rain was causing severe deforestation in Canada, killing fish in lakes and so on, as a result of burning coal in the US.
Coal has a lot of sulfur in it. When you burn sulfur, then makes the resulting oxide gases with water, you get sulfuric and sulfurous acid.
Canada protested vigorously, but the US totally blew it off and kept sending the acid rain to the great white north.
Back in 1983 or so, I watched a documentary movie about this, that had been produced in Canada. The United States authorities labeled the film as "Foreign Propaganda".
Now, I'd rather than China not send us her smog, but I don't see how the United States has standing to gripe about it.
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Smog from China from outsourcing (Score:3)
Smells like poetic justice...
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It's also because you want to buy too much shit. You could afford good tools, but not when you're also paying off your new car, paying the rent for the house that's 3x as big as you need, and paying for the big screen plasmas in each room.
Weird summary (Score:4, Funny)
"These winds push Chinese smog over the Pacific and dump it on the western US, from Seattle to southern California."
The smog probably actually covers western North America. I highly doubt Chinese smog hates the US so much that it only goes from Seattle to San Diego.
uh oh... (Score:3)
don't anyone tell Walmart about this...
they will want to charge Californians an "extra-low price " for it all...
Cloud seeding? (Score:2)
I'm curious if all those particulants are partially contributing to current drought conditions by seeding clouds to dump their load into the Pacific before getting to the West coast.
Complimentary study (Score:2)
And a study complimentary to this one has found the remainder of the particulate matter inhaled in California came from Mexico.
The Coal Irony (Score:3)
The California climate changers have been working to drive coal power out of the United States which is driving up the cost of electricity which in turn drives up manufacturing costs both in the short term and long term. This has created low coal prices in the short term and in the long term causing China to double down on coal power to keep its energy costs low and to make its manufacturing base even more competitive in the international market. This means more manufacturing will be done in China which ironically will actually make the air quality in California much worse (better air quality for the eastern US though). I also think that it would be ironic if this ultimately kills US manufacturing to the point where the US becomes a third world country where all the wealthier nations of the world come to plunder the natural resources that many conservationists have fought hard to protect. But in protecting our natural resources, it has been taken to such extremes that it ultimately weakens our economy and in so doing our government and world influence. People forget that it takes strength to defend what you cherish (ideas, people, etc.) and that there are no given rules that all uphold. People cling too tightly and take for granted that things will remain as they are now. We must find a balance to remain strong.
Re:How about the pollution originating in USA? (Score:5, Informative)
If I am right USA is not interesting in "Kyoto protocol stuff".
Kyoto protocol covers greenhouse gasses, this study is about smog. I'm sure that there's some overlap, most chemicals do more than one thing; but "Pollution" isn't some sort of uniform, fungible, phenomenon. Different sources, different flavors, different regulatory mechanisms.
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If I am right USA is not interesting in "Kyoto protocol stuff".
The Kyoto protocol was a shitty joke because it did not put caps on developing nations, meaning it would have done nothing at all. That's no excuse for replacing it with nothing at all, but signing it is a fat fucking waste of time — which we don't actually have.
Re: The Price We Pay (Score:5, Interesting)
We can't regulate China, but we can regulate the US companies that do business over there. My company does 80% of its sourcing from China. The companies that we do business with have zero regard for the environment. How come a company here can't pollute when making widget X, but they can buy that widget X from a company that pollutes up a storm (and that storm blows to California).
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Simple solution - tariffs. They shouldn't be punitive - they should just recognize the cost of externalities. So, if it costs $1T/yr to build air filtration units that can clean the air to acceptable levels, then impose that much in tariffs against everything that comes in. They can pollute all they want and it won't hurt planet at all since the US will be removing all that pollution. More likely they'll fix their laws to get rid of the tariffs before companies move their business to a country that does
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It's not about wondering where the pollution comes from, it's about putting a number on it, smartass.