Posted on 08/11/2002 4:04:51 PM PDT by blam
'Brown haze' is blanketing Asia and changing weather, warn scientists
By Charles Arthur Technology Editor
12 August 2002
A two-mile-high "brown haze" of human-generated soot and greenhouse gases is blanketing Asia, damaging health and altering rainfall patterns, scientists will warn today.
But the effects are being felt around the world, because the particles in the haze can travel halfway around the globe in a week, reinforcing the patterns elsewhere.
The findings come on the eve of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which opens in Johannesburg on 24 August. But it is unlikely to be debated at the conference table.
Over Asia, the effect is damaging the monsoon by reducing rainfall, because it cuts evaporation from the oceans – and without urgent action it will worsen as the area's cities enlarge and its jungles are razed. It is already disrupting weather systems, triggering droughts in some areas and floods in others, preliminary findings suggest.
The "Asian Brown Cloud", as they call it, extends as far east as China, though the latest study was restricted to south Asia.
The pollution – which has been recognised anecdotally for decades – may be leading to "several hundreds of thousands" of premature deaths due to respiratory disease. Results from seven Indian cities suggest that by the mid-1990s air pollution was responsible for an estimated 37,000 premature deaths each year.
Klaus Töpfer, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said the initial findings just published "clearly indicate that this growing cocktail of soot, particles, aerosols and other pollutants, is becoming a major environmental hazard for Asia".
Kate Hampton, a climate co-ordinator at Friends of the Earth International, called for urgent action to tackle the causes. "This illustrates the consequences of torching forests and burning fossil fuels in vehicles and power stations," she said.
Another report that everybody is supposed to panic over.
This so-called brown cloud of pollution was produced almost entirely by the countries in the region, primarily China and India. Would they have been restriced by the Kyoto treaty? No, of course not.
What a fortunate coincidence, now the Socialist Luddites and enviro-whiners will have something to talk about.
Oh yes, I missed that little gem. A convenient report produced just in time. It will be used to attack GW and the USA, I'm sure.
I thought that I had read that it was Africa?
If they're wrong, the world will be much wealthier for ignoring them.
If they're right the shock of hundreds of millions of deaths and the destruction of a significant portion of the biosphere will settle all the arguments.
While 37,000 sounds like a large number, India has a billion people. These guys seem to like to stagger people with these figgures, but it doesn't sound like a huge percent of their population is effected compared to say the percentage of population of the US that dies from respritory problems, are they not just about the same per given population?
--Boris
These types of emissions are not covered by the Kyoto Protocol, which is concerned with carbon dioxide emissions.
California needs to send a delegation to educate their Red Chi-Com friends on how to properly treat the environment. Only they can be sensitive enough to their communist comrades to properly explain the situation.
With any luck, the Chinese will execute them all.
Tuor
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