Toxic Haze From China Blankets Korea

Chosun Ilbo ^ | 01/18/07

[TigerLikesRooster]

Toxic Haze From China Blankets Korea

A toxic haze enveloped the Korean Peninsula on Wednesday after industrial pollutants from China accumulated in the sky over the West Sea due to high temperatures and weak winds. The Seoul metropolitan area was blanketed in smog in daytime, showing an increase in fine dust density of four to six times over last weekend.

According to the Environment Ministry, the pollutants began blowing in from China on Monday to pervade the sky over the entire peninsula. Fine dust density in Songpa-gu, Seoul soared from 42 microgram per cubic meter on Jan. 13 to 189 microgram per cubic meter on Wednesday. The environmental standard is less than 100 microgram per cubic meter daily average. That morning, Bangi-dong at one stage saw 257microgram per cubic meter, while Nonhyon-dong in Incheon saw 323 microgram per cubic meter. The ministry advised the sick and elderly to stay indoors if the daily average density exceeds 200 microgram per cubic meter, and everyone to refrain from outdoor activities if the density exceeds 300 microgram per cubic meter.

Satellite photos showing the sky over the Korean Peninsula enveloped with pollutants from China on Wednesday. As of 11:45 a.m., masses of pollutants just passed the sky over the central region of Korea and the southern region has just come under their influence (right), striking contrast to clear skies./ Photos taken by a satellite of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released by Chung Yong-seung, director of the Korea Atmospheric Environment Institute.

Ultrafine dust density also exceeded the alert level. Lee Seung-mook, an assistant professor of environmental health at Seoul National University¡¯s Graduate School of Public Health said ultrafine dust density in Jongno-gu in Seoul rose from 20 microgram per cubic meter on Jan. 14 to 132microgram per cubic meter on Wednesday, an increase of more than six times. The U.S. has set the environmental standard for ultrafine dust at less than 65 microgram per cubic meter, but Korea has yet to set a standard due to a lack of measuring equipment.

Shin Dong-chun, director of the Yonsei University¡¯s Institute for Environmental Research, said, "Recent international research shows that ultrafine dust causes coronary sclerosis by affecting the respiratory organs and blood vessels in the heart and brains. We have to be on guard against the pollutants blowing in from China."

[albie]

...none the less, "Global Warming" is all our fault. (mostly Bush')

[Youngman442002]

You can see why they didn't sign the Kyoto treaty....and why eveyone is after the US to sign.....China pollutes more than 100 US's...same with Russia.....

[Brad from Tennessee]

Below is link to report on Chinese industrial pollution--heavy metals--contaminating the Arctic. I can't vouch for this site but it has some interesting graphics and charts:

http://www.chem.unep.ch/Pb_and_Cd/SR/Files/Submission%20GOV/Submis_GOV_DNK/Artic_Pollution_2002_Heavy_Metals.pdf

[listenhillary]

China and India are both exempt from Kyoto restrictions. So China has approved Kyoto treaty. Why wouldn't they?

China Urges U.S. to Sign Kyoto Protocol
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,177350,00.html

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[Doogle]

China don't have the deep pockets that the US has.......
China don't have some nutjob running around schools showing HIS film about global warming.....
China don't care what the Globiacs want.....
China is drilling for oil of the coast of Florida....
China is China.....

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

My Daughter served in the Army in Korea a couple of years ago, and visited China. She said the air pollution was awful. Communists countries are the worst polluters. The free market will eventually create the wealth and science to reduce pollution.

[TheBattman]

This is the same China that is, if I remember correctly, the #1 "greenhouse gas" producer, yet is exempt from Kyoto...

But it is the US that is the evil polluter that is destroying the world...

[wolfcreek]

"The free market will eventually create the wealth and science to reduce pollution."


Right? *Eventually* being the key word.

[Made In The USA]

Dang! Now even pollution has a 'Made In China' sticker on it.



(Do I get comment of the day?, votes? anyone? anyone. Is this thing on?).

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Heavy metals from Chinese coal has been dropping out over the Great Lakes for decades.

[aimhigh]

A recent study showed that 18% of the mercury in Oregon's rivers come from Chinese air polution.

[VeniVidiVici]

When stationed in Berlin we would travel to East Berlin for the day and come back with a nose full of black soot due to the dirty coal burned for heating apartment buildings.

When the Wall came down and I was actually able to travel thru the former East Germany I was struck by the number of trees that were dead/dying.

[alnitak]

Isn't it usual for those who are asking for votes to bribe the electorate?

[sam_paine]

Cheap manufacturing in China is not a freebie for them.

They will eventually pay for their unregulated chaos. The EPA may be overkill here, but it's better than nothing, I would have to admit.

Meanwhile, we get cheap TVs and tools, and they get the toxic dump.

Fair dinkum.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

I lived in Augsburg from 87-91 and traveled to the DDR when it was the DDR, and Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia. The roads were bad, the cars ridiculous, pollution high, the people unhappy. It was such a joy to see the wall come down and the changes that followed.
While in Germany, I read that the DDR would take nuclear waste from many Western countries to raise hard currency. After Germany unification the German taxpayers (mainly from the West) had to pay to clean that up!
I also remember when the wall came down going to Berlin and at the Brandenburg gate you could buy any kind of Soviet military uniform you wanted with medals. Someone even tried to sell a tank in the Soviet Army.
Amazing that the former DDR commie party still survives, mainly in and around Berlin.

[sam_paine]

Considering that, cleaning up the pollution caused by their efforts is a secondary concern.

Oh, I hear ya. I think you're right on (though maybe not secondary, probably even further down their list.)

Their arable land is finite, too, and not nearly what the USA has. Once they've poisoned it for industry, their agriculture is going to suffer.

And they can't just "go west." Their infrastructure has to have massive extension to make that land usable...and that requires more oil and other resources that they ain't got!