May, 2008:

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF – BADUI, China – The New York Times – 25th May 2008

China’s biggest health disaster isn’t the terrible Sichuan earthquake this month. It’s the air.

The quake killed at least 60,000 people, generating a response that has been heartwarming and inspiring, with even schoolchildren in China donating to the victims. Yet with little notice, somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 Chinese die prematurely every year from the effects of outdoor air pollution, according to studies by Chinese and international agencies alike.

In short, roughly as many Chinese die every two months from the air as were killed in the earthquake. And the problem is becoming international: just as Californians can find Chinese-made shoes in their stores, they can now find Chinese-made haze in their skies.

This summer’s Beijing Olympics will showcase the most remarkable economic explosion in history, and also some of the world’s thickest pollution in both air and water. So I’ve returned to the Yellow River in western China’s Gansu Province to an isolated village that has haunted me since I saw it a decade ago.

Badui is known locally as the “village of dunces.” That’s because of the large number of mentally retarded people here — as well as the profusion of birth defects, skin rashes and physical deformities. Residents are sure that the problems result from a nearby fertilizer factory dumping effluent that taints their drinking water.

“Even if you’re afraid, you have to drink,” said Zhou Genger, the mother of a 15-year-old girl who is mentally retarded and has a hunchback. The girl, Kong Dongmei, mumbled unintelligibly, and Ms. Zhou said she had never been able to speak clearly.

Ms. Zhou pulled up the back of her daughter’s shirt, revealing a twisted, disfiguring mass of bones.

A 10-year-old neighbor girl named Hong Xia watched, her eyes filled with wonder at my camera. The neighbors say she, too, is retarded.

None of this is surprising: rural China is full of “cancer villages” caused by pollution from factories. Beijing’s air sometimes has a particulate concentration that is four times the level considered safe by the World Health Organization.

Scientists have tracked clouds of Chinese pollution as they drift over the Pacific and descend on America’s West Coast. The impact on American health is uncertain.

In fairness, China has been better than most other countries in curbing pollution, paying attention to the environment at a much earlier stage of development than the United States, Europe or Japan. Most impressive, in 2004, China embraced tighter fuel economy standards than the Bush administration was willing to accept at the time.

The city of Shanghai charges up to $7,000 for a license plate, thus reducing the number of new vehicles, and China has planted millions of trees and hugely expanded the use of natural gas to reduce emissions. If you look at what China’s leaders are doing, you wish that President Bush were half as green.

But then you peer into the Chinese haze — and despair. The economic boom is raising living standards hugely in many ways, but the toll of the resulting pollution can be brutal. The filth is prompting public protests, but the government has tightly curbed the civil society organizations that could help monitor pollution and keep it in check.

An environmental activist named Wu Lihong warned for years that Lake Tai, China’s third-largest freshwater lake, was endangered by chemical factories along its banks. Mr. Wu was proved right when the lake filled with toxins last summer — shortly after the authorities had sentenced him to three years in prison.

Here in Badui, the picture is as complex as China’s development itself. The government has taken action since my previous visit: the factory supposedly is no longer dumping pollutants, and the villages have been supplied with water that, in theory, is pure. The villagers don’t entirely believe this, but they acknowledge that their health problems have diminished.

Moreover, economic development has reached Badui. It is still poor, with a per-capita income of $100 a year, but there is now a rough dirt road to the village. On my last visit, there was only a footpath.

The road has increased economic opportunities. Farmers have dug ponds to raise fish that are trucked to the markets, but the fish are raised in water taken from the Yellow River just below the fertilizer factory. When I looked in one pond, the first thing I saw was a dead fish.

“We eat the fish ourselves,” said the village leader, Li Yuntang. “We worry about the chemicals, but we have to eat.” He said that as far as he knew, the fish had never been inspected for safety.

Now those fish from this dubious water are sold to unsuspecting residents in the city of Lanzhou. And the complexities and ambiguities about that progress offer a window into the shadings of China’s economic boom.

Up to 24,000 deaths a year in California are linked to air pollution

By Janet Wilson – Los Angeles Times – May 22, 2008

As many as 24,000 deaths annually in California are linked to chronic exposure to fine particulate pollution, triple the previous official estimate of 8,200, according to state researchers. The revised figures are based on a review of new research across the nation about the hazards posed by microscopic particles, which sink deep into the lungs.

“Our report concludes these particles are 70% more dangerous than previously thought, based on several major studies that have occurred in the last five years,” said Bart Croes, chief researcher for the California Air Resources Board. Croes will present his findings at a board meeting in Fresno this morning.

The studies, including one by USC tracking 23,000 people in greater Los Angeles, and another by the American Cancer Society monitoring 300,000 people across the United States, have found rates of heart attacks, strokes and other serious disease increase exponentially after exposure to even slightly higher amounts of metal or dust. It is difficult to attribute individual deaths to particulate pollution, Croes conceded, but he said long-term studies that account for smoking, obesity and other risks have increasingly zeroed in on fine particulate pollution as a killer.

“There’s no death certificate that says specifically someone died of air pollution, but cities with higher rates of air pollution have much greater rates of death from cardiovascular diseases,” he said.

Californians exposed to high levels of fine particulates had their lives cut short on average by 10 years, the board staff found. Researchers also found that when particulates are cut even temporarily, death rates fall. “When Dublin imposed a coal ban, when Hong Kong imposed reductions in sulfur dioxide, when there was a steel mill strike in Utah … they saw immediate reductions in deaths,” Croes said.

More measures will be needed, air board officials said, including eventually lowering the maximum permissible levels of soot statewide. California already has the lowest thresholds in the world, at 12 micrograms per cubic meter, but researchers say no safe level of exposure has been found. More regulations are being drafted, including one requiring cleaner heavy-duty trucks.

“We must work even harder to cut short these life-shortening emissions,” Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols said in a statement.

Clean air advocates said they would be watching closely.

“These numbers are shocking; they’re incredible,” said Tim Carmichael, senior policy director for the Coalition for Clean Air, a statewide group. He and others said the board must strengthen a soot clean-up plan submitted to them by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. A hearing and vote on the plan is scheduled for today.

Numerous Central Valley public health groups wrote Nichols this week, urging bans on the use of industrial equipment on bad air days, tougher controls on boilers and crop drying equipment, and other action. The economic cost attributed to premature deaths and illnesses linked to particulate exposure in the Central Valley has been estimated at $3 billion a year, and $70 billion statewide, according to separate studies. Those figure are expected to be revised upward based on the new report.

janet.wilson@latimes.com

Dr Uma Rajarathnam – Deccan Herald

Step out on to the road and the first thing you are greeted with is the traffic snarls. What hits you next is the smoke and pollution, leaving you groping for a piece of cloth to cover your nose, shut out those fumes.

Urban air pollution has become a serious concern to both citizens and planners given its direct impact on health and indirect contribution to green house gas effect. Unfortunately, economic development has a direct proportion to pollution, each moving in the same direction.

Indian mega cities are listed among highly polluted cities in the world. Available air quality data shows that particulate matter is of concern in many Indian cities. According to WHO estimates, as many as 1.4 billion urban residents in the world breathe air that fails to meet WHO air quality guidelines.

Steps to be taken

Pollution levels increase further when older models of cars continue to ply, besides the two-stroke engine two and three wheelers. While the age and technology incorporated in the automobile has a bearing on the level of pollution, the manner of driving too has a significant impact on the quantum generated. For instance, frequent slowing down and stopping, pot-holed roads can increase the level of pollution. In fact, the presence of bad roads significantly increases the level of pollutants in the ambient air.

While it may not be possible to completely remove pollutants from the air, steps that are feasible and can be easily implemented need to be taken to bring the level down to permissible limits. Few such measures which can reduce vehicular pollution are improvement in the fuel quality, better technology, traffic management etc.

Over the last decade, various policies of the government have been effective in addressing fuel, like the introduction of unleaded petrol has resulted in reduction of lead content in the ambient air. Four stroke engines in two and three wheelers will check pollution as a four stroke engine has lower emission levels. A two stroke engine motorcycle consumes 30 percent more fuel as compared to a four stroke engine. Its emission level amounts to 1.0 gram per passenger kilometre as against 0.2 gram for a four stroke engine. When viewed against the number of two and three wheelers plying our roads, the potential reduction in pollution is sizeable.

The introduction of alternate fuels like CNG and LPG for public transport is a positive step. This is especially so as the emission from diesel exhaust has high levels of particulate matter. Currently, lack of sufficient availability of this alternate fuel is acting as a deterrent for wider adoption.

Traffic management

While good roads, strict emission standards, better technology and alternate fuels would help reduce pollution levels from automobiles, there is also an urgent need for better traffic management to prevent congestion. This can be achieved through incentives and disincentives besides increasing awareness among public.

Steps like mandatory school buses, staggering of timings for offices and schools, car pooling, encouraging the use of public transport, would go a long way in achieving this objective. However, for any of these measures to be successful, an efficient public transport is imperative. In fact the most effective way to control pollution would be to opt for integrated, efficient pubic transport system. Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo are forerunners in this sphere.

Besides measures to decongest traffic, steps like fuel switching can be adopted and this can be done in two ways—with fixed clean technology and with accelerated clean technology.

In the absence of adequate measures to control pollution, it is estimated that NO2 and SO2 emission levels will be three times 1990 emission levels by 2030 in the Asia Pacific region. In the light of accelerated clean technologies being introduced, this is expected to be lower, registering a 6 percent and 60 percent increase respectively over 1990 levels. However, if efficient public transport is combined with this, a sharp fall is estimated, with respective emission levels of SO2 and NO2 registering only 1.5 percent and 45 percent increase over 1990 levels.

Dr Uma Rajarathnam

(The author is Head- Environment Practice, Enzen Global Solutions, an energy and environment consulting firm.)