That is LA down there. I return to LA each year and the smog is still there. But did you know that some of that smog is coming from CHINA?For years now the United States has sent its polluting industries out of the country, Why? Because it would be AWAY and not HERE. We all know that there is an invisible wall that stops all pollution at the national border. Well, here is the rub. The invisible wall isn't there.
It seems that Los Angeles smog, which is of course, caused by the insane amount of cars on the road, is caused by the insane number of cars, BUT that is not the only reason. The smog is being imported along with all the other things we import---from China. That is right, coal burning power plants in China are creating so much pollution that it is being carried by the winds across the Pacific Ocean to the west coast of America. China is the most polluting country on earth.
Experts once thought China might overtake the United States as the world’s leading producer of greenhouse gases by 2010, possibly later. Now, the International Energy Agency has said China could become the emissions leader by the end of this year, and the Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency said China had already passed that level.While China is the fastest growing economy on Earth, it is also the most environmentally devastating. Just read about what the country is doing to make the Olympics be somewhat healthy, and what some athletes have done when they realize how unhealthy it is.
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As we already know (at least I hope so) pollution from coal-burning power plants is damaging to health. For human health it harms the respiratory system, causes cancer, causes thousands of premature deaths. The land and air fare no better. It causes acid rain, sterilizing lakes, rivers, and streams.There is a Dickensian feel to much of the region. Roads are covered in coal tar; houses are coated with soot; miners, their faces smeared almost entirely black, haul carts full of coal rocks; the air is thick with the smell of burning coal.Yet, even as the air is filled with soot, and cancer rates have soared, the Chinese (and perhaps America if Dick Cheney has his way) continue to build more coal-burning plants. And they continue to do exactly as we did as our industrial might grew - subsidize the plants, the electricity, the lifestyle, so that they can grow all that much more. While they grow they cause more pollution, more global warming, more climate change, more CO2 more of the problems that threaten our lives in the twenty-first century.
At what point do we all just get it? When do we start to realize we all live on the same planet and there is no "away."
