Nine Million a Year, But Who's Counting?

Other than The Lancet, that is. A study published in the prestigious British medical journal finds that 9 million premature deaths are caused every year by man-made pollution.

With our new Blade Runner sensibilities that figure should elicit a yawn and be down the memory hole within days. 

Sure, it means that our toxic emissions are killing more of us than all of our wars and smoking combined but, so what?

The vast majority of the pollution deaths occur in poorer nations and in some, such as India, Chad and Madagascar, pollution causes a quarter of all deaths. The international researchers said this burden is a hugely expensive drag on developing economies.

“Pollution is one of the great existential challenges of the [human-dominated] Anthropocene era,” concluded the authors of the Commission on Pollution and Health, published in the Lancet on Friday. “Pollution endangers the stability of the Earth’s support systems and threatens the continuing survival of human societies.”

Prof Philip Landrigan, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, US, who co-led the commission, said: “We fear that with nine million deaths a year, we are pushing the envelope on the amount of pollution the Earth can carry.” For example, he said, air pollution deaths in south-east Asia are on track to double by 2050.

Dire warning duly noted and filed under "dire warnings." That file is getting pretty thick. Still, it's an interesting benchmark, another milestone in humanity's march to whatever waits ahead.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Delhi has staged a 10K race while pollution levels soar to 16 times above anything considered safe.

The culprit is known as PM 2.5. 60 ppm is considered the maximum safe level. Parts of Delhi have hit 999 ppm. PM 2.5 is especially dangerous because the particles can be absorbed in the lungs and then pass into the bloodstream. From there the particles can breach the blood-brain barrier.

Young people are particularly vulnerable to PM 2.5 pollution and the impacts are widespread. Several recent articles confirm that half of Delhi's school kids have stunted lung development and will never completely recover. It's a story repeated in other Indian mega-cities.

Which raises the question of why organizers went ahead with this 10K race, especially when some of the kids obviously lack even rudimentary face mask protection.

If Plants Can't Grow, What Fate Awaits a Hungry People?

Smog in China has become so severe that it's interfering with photosynthesis.

Chinese scientists report that China's smog-clogged atmosphere has taken on aspects of "nuclear winter" and could wreak havoc on the country's already stressed food supply.

Beijing and broad swaths of six northern provinces have spent the past week blanketed in a dense pea-soup smog that is not expected to abate until Thursday. Beijing's concentration of PM 2.5 particles – those small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream – hit 505 micrograms per cubic metre on Tuesday night. The World Health Organisation recommends a safe level of 25.

The worsening air pollution has already exacted a significant economic toll, grounding flights, closing highways and keeping tourists at home. On Monday 11,200 people visited Beijing's Forbidden City, about a quarter of the site's average daily draw.

He Dongxian, an associate professor at China Agricultural University's College of Water Resources and Civil Engineering, said new research suggested that if the smog persists, Chinese agriculture will suffer conditions "somewhat similar to a nuclear winter".

China still hasn't seen the public health blowback that is inescapable from having so many people so heavily exposed to PM 2.5 particulate air pollution.  There is some suggestion the country is looking at a public health disaster.

Early this month the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences claimed in a report that Beijing's pollution made the city almost "uninhabitable for human beings".

The Chinese government has repeatedly promised to address the problem, but enforcement remains patchy. In October, Beijing introduced a system of emergency measures if pollution levels remained hazardous for three days in a row, including closing schools, shutting some factories, and restricting the use of government cars.

China's leadership want to decarbonize their country's economy but that's a massive undertaking which will require plenty of time, resources and economic dislocation.  Unfortunately there's no good precedent for the challenge that China faces, its consequences and how it can ever be rectified.


 

What Does China Want for Christmas? Coal, More Coal.

China may claim that it 'gets' global warming and that it's going green.  It's not.   This chart from the Washington Post's WonkBlog shows who's who when it comes to coal consumption from 2000 to 2010.

Coal consumption has pretty much flatlined or declined in most of the world.   The exception is Asia and Oceania where it went from 2.2 billion tons in 2000 to 5.2 billion tons in 2010.   That compares to 1.1 billion tons for North America, 1 billion tons for Europe and a mere 0.4 billion tons for the former Soviet Union.

And now The Tyee reports that smokestack emissions from these same Asian coal plants are being carried across the Pacific to the west coast of North America where they contribute to low-level ozone pollution.   And, of course, right wing governments in North America are busting a gut to flood Asia with our bountiful fossil fuel abundance, particularly bitumen and coal.

"As the Seattle-based think tank Sightline has pointed out, sulfur compounds, soot, and other byproducts of Asian coal combustion are detectable on mountaintops in the western United States. Researchers have also linked ozone in the air above the United States to pollution from developing Asian countries that are burning fossil fuels.
 
"Mercury is especially likely to travel across the Pacific Ocean. An Oregon researcher estimates that as much as 18 per cent of the mercury in Oregon's Willamette River comes from sources overseas, increasingly from China. Another study found that human-created pollution from Asia contributed to 14 per cent of the mercury dropped on Mount Bachelor in central Oregon."

Well I guess in Harper's sick, twisted and susperstitious mind, and that of his EnviroShill Kent, there's gold in selling the Chinese the shit that comes back to us in the form of airborne toxins and carcinogens.  

Perils at Sea

This sounds hard to believe but a study claims that the world's 15-largest ships emit as much pollution as the planet's 760-million cars. From The Guardian:

Pressure is mounting on the UN's International Maritime Organisation and the EU to tighten laws governing ship emissions following the decision by the US government last week to impose a strict 230-mile buffer zone along the entire US coast, a move that is expected to be followed by Canada.

The setting up of a low emission shipping zone follows US academic research which showed that pollution from the world's 90,000 cargo ships leads to 60,000 deaths a year in the US alone and costs up to $330bn per year in health costs from lung and heart diseases. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates the buffer zone, which could be in place by next year, will save more than 8,000 lives a year with new air quality standards cutting sulphur in fuel by 98%, particulate matter by 85% and nitrogen oxide emissions by 80%.

Shipping emissions have escalated in the past 15 years as China has emerged as the world's manufacturing capital. A new breed of intercontinental container ship has been developed which is extremely cost-efficient. However, it uses diesel engines as powerful as land-based power stations but with the lowest quality fuel.

The calculations of ship and car pollution are based on the world's largest 85,790KW ships' diesel engines which operate about 280 days a year generating roughly 5,200 tonnes of SOx a year, compared with diesel and petrol cars which drive 15,000km a year and emit approximately 101gm of SO2/SoX a year.

So, why is the global shipping industry using, and even today building, fleets of such lethally polluting vessels? Simple. They do it because we let them do it. Besides it probably shaves a few pennies off every item on those Wal-Mart shelves jam packed with crap from China that you pick up when you feel like shopping yourself out of a job.

(Photo caption. The granddaddy of them all, the Knock Nevis, which began life as the Viking Jahre. Just over 1,500 feet long, 650,000 tonnes fully loaded. Stood on end, it would be taller than the Sears Tower (sans antennae).

It's Not Just China's Toys or Its Water or Its Air That's Poisonous

China may be poised to become the world's biggest economy but it's being hammered by environmental threats along the way. Combined, these threats may well be enough to derail China's economic miracle.

Well known by now are China's severe problems with water supply and quality, it's horribly polluted air, and all the problems detected in its exports. Now, according to Spiegel Online, word is getting out about China's poisonous food supply:

Chinese journalist Zhou Qing, a critic of the regime, unearthed political dynamite in his two-year investigation of China's food industry. He interviewed grocers, restaurant owners, farmers and food factory managers for an exposé for which he won a prize as part of the German "Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage" in 2006.

His book is a dark account of a ruthless food mafia that stops at nothing to maximize its profits, for example by using contraceptives to accelerate the growth of fish stocks, lengthening the shelf-life of cucumbers with highly toxic pesticide DDT, using hormones and poisoned salt in food production and putting absurd amounts of antibiotics in meat.

Zhou said uncontrolled greed had caused a food disaster of unimaginable proportions. "I can only warn you never to go in a restaurant." The danger of food producers being taken to task for their actions is slight. Everything disappears in China's endless bureaucracy, he said.

Zhou's claims may sound exaggerated, but they're borne out by recent developments. In early December the Shanghai city council slapped an export ban on products made by the Shanghai Mellin Food Company after cancer-causing substances were found in its pork products.
In July the former director of the state food and drug supervisory authority, Zheng Xiaoyu, was executed after being convicted of taking bribes to award licences for forged drugs, some of which had lethal side effects.

The children are the biggest sufferers, said Zhou. Poisoned baby food has led to severe diseases and physical deformities. Zhou writes that 200,000 to 400,000 people fall victim to poisoned food each year. A third of cancer cases, which are increasing at double-digit rates, can be attributed to food, he writes.

"Ordinary people don't know about it. If the people knew about it there would be a revolution. The wrath of the people would be unstoppable."

For thousands of years the power of China's rulers hinged on their ability to feed the people. "Revolutions aren't caused by political differences, they're caused by a lack of bread."

Airing Toronto's Air Problems

Look closely, it's the CN Tower

When you live in a little town on Vancouver Island you don't get all the things that a Torontonian comes to expect. For example, we don't get to see the air we breathe. I'm not sure a Torontonian would breathe if he couldn't see the air first.

But there's good news. Pretty soon Torontonians might not just get to see what they're breathing but they might also be able to know just what they're looking at.

If the city's medical officer of health, Dr. David Mckeown, gets his way, Toronto could become the first city in North America to advise people what they're exposed to from their air and even where it comes from. Pretty cool, eh? From the Toronto Star:

"Most of Toronto's 11,000 businesses aren't required to keep track of the chemicals they use and pump into the atmosphere, the report notes. The city can't impose controls – that's up to the province. But shedding light on emissions should encourage companies to act, said Monica Campbell, manager of the environmental protection office at Toronto Public Health and one of the report's authors.

"Large industries must now report on about 330 chemicals to the federal government's National Pollutants Release Inventory.

"Their emissions have dropped by more than one-third since the system began 15 years ago. But that net catches only about 3 per cent of Toronto's sources.

"...two new sets of air quality data. Both suggest the city's air contains relatively high concentrations of chemicals that can cause cancer, breathing ailments or reproductive problems.

"One source was Environment Canada measurements at a handful of city locations from 2003 to 2005. Most spectacular was a single reading for chromium, a carcinogen, that was 1,150 times a benchmark set by California's Environmental Protection Agency – which establishes most of the continent's strictest standards. Three other chemicals had peak readings more than 100 times the benchmark. Average readings for chromium were 225 times the California standard.

"Five others were at least 25 times the benchmark.

"Lead, mercury and cadmium are the most worrying pollutants."