Chinese Pollution Is An Increasing Threat

Pollutants From China Are Already Showing Up In The U.S.

(CBS)  Where to start? With the melting glaciers of Mount Everest?

Or a village in Shanxi province that survives on trucked-in water — because underground explosions for coal mining have drained the lakes and wells. The coal keeps electric plants humming, but the mining generates pollution that has left farm fields toxic.

Nothing can grow here anymore, one resident told CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen. Sinkholes swallowed village graves and the coal dust makes breathing hard — which is why 400,000 people each year die prematurely from lung disease.

And thanks to bad air, China has 16 of the world's top 20 polluted cities.

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What are the world's most polluted cities?

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Take Beijing, which just proudly announced it now has 3 million cars ... so clear days give way to more bad pollution days.

And there's a new danger: Dust storms from the northern Gobi Desert used to hit once a decade. Now it's once a year; visibility can drop to less than a city block.

It's happening because every day the Gobi Desert moves a little more south, claiming land left barren by overgrazing or from water shortages because of too much irrigation.

In fact, Petersen reports, the leading edge of the desert is less than 50 miles from downtown Beijing.

China's uses America's inaction on the environment as an excuse.

"They say as long as the U.S. doesn't move forward, how can you expect a poor country like China to move forward," said University of Michigan China scholar Ken Leiberthal.

And an ill wind is blowing China's bad air to America. Steve Cliff already sees Chinese pollutants on his monitors in northern California and worries about China's ever-increasing dependence on coal.

"It stands to reason that if one new coal-fired power plant is built per week that more pollution will be evidenced here in the United States," said Cliff.

That also means Americans may soon be paying a price for China's polluted rise to prosperity.

[jlibbons]

Very interesting article. Personally, I thinkt hat as long as western countries continue to turn to china for cheap goods, the economic incentive will continue the extreme pollution that is caused by industry. http://www.mindreign.com/en/mindshare/Environmental-Concerns/China-3a-The-Environmental-Rogue/sl36962308bp325cpp10pn1.html goes into more detail if you're interested....

[LarryM701]

As long as Americans continue to buy the cheap products made in some foreigh countries by cheap labor that has no insurance, lives in a dirt shack, eats lord knows what, dies of illiness we have never heard of, with some of the countries citizens selling their children off to the *** and slave trade, creating pollution by dumping chemicals in the rivers, building coal fired plants, destroying their forest, food supply, etc just so the 1st world countries can have items most people do not need for a cheap price. When the pollution overtakes us and our children have no beach to go to because of pollution, the air is not fit to breath, oil has run out, ets the citizens of the USA will remind me of Paris Hilton Crying when her time came. Let the USA keep on beening a comsumer country and the time will be just arround the corner.

[king77shaw]

America is greatest when it leads, not when it greeds ...

[xzavierbrown]

I would like to see Al Gore push his *** in China..I would like to see those liberals protest this one in China. I bet you they would not..the muslims ran off with thier cahones

[michellem99-2009]

The leaders in China are the rich. The poor do the labour and suffer.They have censorship.So due to that they don't have freedom to think and do. Have you forgotten the tiananmen sq.89. they can't read what they wish on computer.Their Govt won't allow it. The people belong to the state.Yes. Here in America we can. I know this nation pollute. We have cars running the roads that pollute. It enders our lungs and is deadly. So is coal mine. So it is no wonder US of A won't sign it. A money thing. The centre is GREED. I know We can do better but Bush won't allow the kyoto procol here. IT IS BAD FOR BUSINESS...No it is not. The summers are hotter than they were in the 70s. Pollution,cars,and the like. It will get worse. Yes.

[phineasgage1]

This is why Bush did not sign the Kyoto protocol on global warming. China was exempted as a "developing country" from the requirements !! Completely absurd.

He was jeered and smeared in the media. But guess what ?

He was right.

[feelfree1]

Re: "Or a village in Shanxi province that survives on trucked-in water %u2014 because underground explosions for coal mining have drained the lakes and wells. The coal keeps electric plants humming, but the mining generates pollution that has left farm fields toxic."

This is a perfect example of unbridled capitalism run amok. This malignant economic model always seeks to externalize as many costs as possible, placing the economic burden on the general public, rather than absorb these costs into the price of the good or service, where it belongs.

A truly 'free market' capitalist system, one based on building the true health, environmental, and social costs of a good or service, into the final sale price, could work, in my opinion.

At the same time, we would be able to slash public spending that we currently dole out to clean up after big corporate messes.

I think that true 'free market' capitalism should be tried in the U.S.A. It certainly could not be any worse than the cleptocracy model, which we currently rely on.

[erasmus6]

I am trying to figure out why China is a poor country?

Just about everything we buy is made in China and didn't they lend money to the U.S.? How could they lend money to the U.S. if they are poor?

[sevenveils]

mh4cbs1
Give the world a break from your head in the sand logic. facts, solid facts have stated China is killing itself with pollution and claiming the US is at fault. Anyone with a elementary knowledge of china's lack of environmental conscious knows China is poisoning itself.

Power to the party!

[one_american]

"China has 16 of the world's top 20 polluted cities."

Solution?

Send Al Gore to China - he can sell his Global Warming shtick to the Chinese, and they can harness his hot air for power generation.