Controlling pollution is ... a game of whack-a-mole?

Remember Larry Summers, back when he was the World Bank's chief economist, writing in 1991 that controversial memo, from which he later back-pedaled saying it was a thought experiment and was sarcastic.  That memo joked about the low earnings in emerging economies leading to the "cost" of pollution being lower there and, therefore, polluting industries should migrate to those poorer countries.

Remember that?

The reality is that it was no joke.  Polluting industries found China and India and others to be "better" locations compared to the US and the UK and others that were tightening up the environmental regulations and targeting polluters.

Now, people in the advanced countries, who claim that they have done a lot to clean up their air and water and soil, conveniently forget that they have in reality outsourced pollution.

Many wealthy countries have effectively “outsourced” a big chunk of their carbon pollution overseas, by importing more steel, cement and other goods from factories in China and other places, rather than producing it domestically.

Like I said, the Summers memo from almost 30 years ago was no joke.

From 1990, about the time that Summers authored that memo, to 2015:

If you included all the global emissions produced in the course of making things like the imported steel used in London’s skyscrapers and cars, then Britain’s total carbon footprint has actually increased slightly over that time.

A cleaner Britain, indeed! “If a country is meeting its climate goals by outsourcing emissions elsewhere, then we’re not making as much progress as we thought.”

Because the problem is global, and not localized, the solution is simple, right? "One possible solution to all this emissions shifting would be for all countries to work together to enact a global carbon tax that applied equally everywhere."

tRump can't even sign on to a global climate agreement.  A global carbon tax will never happen.  So ... then what?

Environmentalists and state governments can target the supply chains for their environmental impacts through "buy clean" laws.  This will put pressure on suppliers "to lower their emissions. “Even for companies who don’t want to admit it,” Mr. Erickson said, “they know a change is coming.”

Yes, it is coming.  Despite the people that 63 million voted to power.

There's something in the air!

After deplaning and exiting the jet-bridge, we were in the terminal of the fancy and modern airport in India's capital city.  But, even the inside of the airport was polluted.  My eyes started watering even before we exited the terminal ... and the outside was infinitely worse!

Such is life in India, where a suburb of Delhi--Gurugram--has the notoriety of having the world's dirtiest air.  India, whose prime minister chanted the mantra of "India First" well before tRump started yelling and tweeting about "America First," is perhaps not too thrilled that India is first, indeed, when it comes to air pollution!

Worldwide, air quality seems to be worsening.  Even in places like Oregon, the summer wildfires, brought on by extreme weather events that are related to climate change, make the air un-breathable sometimes.

The worse this gets, one would think that the world's billions will rise up and demand an end to pollution.  We would think that humanity would want to breathe free and look up at the blue sky.  Right?

Wrong!

Instead, we are apparently creating fashion out of the masks that we need to wear to get through the choking pollution!  Yep, masks!!!  If you build a better mask, the capitalistic world apparently will rush to your door and flatten it and you in a nanosecond!

Enter the face mask, an accessory ripe for the market in these dystopian times. People who live in desert areas have long known to cover their mouths and protect their lungs from dust. But in the past few years, a handful of companies have started making air filtration masks engineered specifically for both fashion and function. In California, a company called Vogmask has all but cornered the market with its brightly colored designs. And abroad, companies like Airpop and Respro are entering the fold, hoping to provide an attractive alternative to the standard white painter’s mask.

This.Is.Sad!

I mean, come on, look at this photo:

Source

Seriously?

And the logic for why this is a "fashionable" add-on?

And there’s an accessory these brands can look to as a historical example. “If sunglasses didn’t exist today and you were going to pitch an investor on sunglasses, you would sound insane,” Hosmer says. “‘Hey, we’re gonna put this thing that covers, like, the window to your soul, the most communicative part of your body; we’re gonna put something in front of it so that you can’t see it, and that thing is gonna essentially be able to protect you from your environment.’ They would be like, ‘What? That’s stupid. No one’s gonna do that!’” Masks are no different, he says.
Xu also pointed to sunglasses when I asked her about the issues Americans might have with covering up their faces. “I’m not actually someone who likes to wear sunglasses,” she said. “And I’m struck by how common it is for people to cover up one of the more expressive parts of their face all the time.” How different are masks, really?

Seriously?

In the future, these masks may be outfitted with tiny sensors that detect everything from hazardous chemicals to the electric fields nearby. And with all that additional data, Hosmer thinks people will better understand the kinds of risks our environment might pose. “So there will gradually be a familiarity with, if not an acceptance of, knowing what the invisible threats to your and your family’s health and well-being are.”

I hope I am gone before that day arrives when people are walking around with hi-tech fashion gear that covers their nose and mouth.  Oh the humanity!

Thank you for smoking!

Nope, this is not about the cigarette industry.

It is about people who smoke without actually smoking.  Yep, without lighting up a cigarette, people smoke about two packs every single day.  Adults, children. Everybody.

On Tuesday, levels of the most dangerous air particles, called PM 2.5, reached more than 700 micrograms per cubic meter in parts of the city, according to data from the United States Embassy. Experts say that prolonged exposure to such high concentrations of PM 2.5 is equivalent to smoking more than two packs of cigarettes a day.

The smog in Delhi is so intense that breathing that air throughout the day is the equivalent of smoking more than two packs of cigarettes!

While in many contexts I metaphorically write about puking, kids and adults are literally throwing up because of this atrocious conditions:

Manish Sisodia, the deputy chief minister of Delhi State, said he was driving to a meeting Wednesday morning when he passed a school bus and saw two children throwing up out of the window. “That was shocking for me,” he said. “I immediately told my officers to pass the order to close all the schools.”

Schools closed for a week.  But, what are the kids going to do?  Their homes don't filter out all the crap.  Further, they will end up playing outside.

The situation prompted the state’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, to say on Twitter: “Delhi has become a gas chamber. Every year this happens during this part of year."

A gas chamber!

Pollution kills. It kills way more than the notorious tobacco industry can ever kill.  “Pollution has not received nearly as much attention as climate change, or Aids or malaria – it is the most underrated health problem in the world."

Pollution kills at least nine million people and costs trillions of dollars every year, according to the most comprehensive global analysis to date, which warns the crisis “threatens the continuing survival of human societies”.
...
The vast majority of the pollution deaths occur in poorer nations and in some, such as India, Chad and Madagascar, pollution causes a quarter of all deaths. The international researchers said this burden is a hugely expensive drag on developing economies. 

People, especially those in India, need to ask themselves whether such a "development" of a country is worth all the physical and emotional toll.

Is my iPhone worth all the pollution in China?

The morning began with the sun rays gleaming in an odd yellowish hue.  A smoky day that would ruin my walk.

I hoped that the air would clear up, but it got worse.  Mid-afternoon, when I stepped out to get the mail, I yelled out to the neighbor across the street who was out on the porch: "stop smoking. It is killing me."

"Oh crap, I thought it was you" came the quick retort.

Another neighbor who was walking by chipped in with "it is Tim back there with his cigar.  His dog is even worse."

We laughed.

We could laugh about it because though the smoke--from the forest fires a few miles away--made our lives unpleasant, we knew it was temporary.  As the fires die down, and as the wind shifts, we will be back in paradise.

I attempted the walk, but gave up on that barely two minutes into it--inhaling the smoky air was putting a strain on my system.  If I cannot handle the little bit of smoke and particulate matter in the air for a day and have to even forego my favorite walk by the river, I cannot even begin to imagine the horror stories from China that I read about!

The environmental costs also are on display. The roads leading to Jizhong's mines, power plants and coal-preparation plants are covered in dust and soot, and large coal trucks drive in and out, kicking up debris.
Outside many of the company's compounds are plots of land where farmers grow apples, peanuts and corn to sell to local markets, and some landholders complain that the soot makes their crops unsalable.
"The ash from the power plant's chimneys is too much," said 67-year-old Yang Hexiao, who lives just outside a Jizhong power plant in Xingtai. "My clothes are covered in ash. The grain I dry on the roof is covered in ash."

I imagine myself traveling in Xingtai.  As I typically do when I travel, I will walk around the place observing people and things and taking photos and making mental notes.  Throughout all that, I will be breathing in the highly toxic air.  And might not ever come back alive!  (In that case, I bet quite a few of my colleagues will gladly pay for my trip to Xingtai ... hehehe!)

Are jobs worth all the destruction?  Do we love the latest iPhone and curved screen TVs and all other products from China so much that we don't care about the destruction, which is no exaggeration, to life and the natural environment there?

It is not Mandarin that we all need to learn, but one German word: Energiewende (pronounced in-ur-GEE-vend-uh)

Maybe one day I will be able to walk the streets of Xingtai without worrying about my lungs.

Can't breathe. Is it the smog or the marriage?

Through all the years that I can recall in my early life in the old country, father sneezing was a daily event.  Loud enough not to miss it.  That was the case in the life that we had in the industrial town and later in the bustling city.

Quite some years ago, during my California life, my parents came for a visit.  My mother appreciated the cleaner air and water.  No sneezing sounds from father.

And that was in one of the dirtiest places in California!  Even now it is!

Years later, they visited Australia after my brother immigrated to the land down under.  My parents could feel the difference via what their bodies were telling them.

The sneezing and everything else returned every time they got back to their own settings.

And where they live is not even the dirtiest city in India.

News reports suggest that China's cities easily out-pollute India's cities.  I shudder to think what a visit for a couple of days will do to my system, especially when I go there from the clean and green Oregon where I live.

Commenting about China's pollution, and whether it is all worth it, is not new here.  (like here or here.)  Yet, I am always blown away by the stories of China's pollution and how people deal with it.

No surprise, therefore, to read this in the Economist:

Chinese emigrants are leaving good jobs, cashing out their high-priced homes (or investment properties) and leaving China’s rat race behind. They are unlikely to find better jobs anywhere else, but the air and water are less polluted where they are going, the social safety-net less frayed and the food safer to eat. And there is no one-child policy.

If they can, people will vote with their feet!

Others are keeping one foot, or one half of their marriage, back in China, unsure they want the slower-paced life abroad. Windson Song, a 35-year-old marketing manager in Beijing, and his wife and baby boy, are close to getting approval for permanent residence in the Canadian province of Quebec, where they meet the requirements for skilled-worker emigration (his wife’s ability to speak French helped). She and the child will go first, and will perhaps fulfil the requirement of living in Canada for three out of four years. Mr Song prefers to stay behind in Beijing, where career opportunities in marketing are much better. He often thinks, though, about his first day in Australia as a student a decade ago. It was a “fairytale world”, he says, with “green trees, colourful flowers”, few people and almost no cars. He wants the option of escaping Beijing’s grim cityscape. But his émigré friends remind him that although (or perhaps because) it is safer, cleaner and less corrupt, life is “really boring” abroad.

Indeed, to the immigrant who cannot adapt to the way of life in these "cleaner" locales, life can be excruciatingly boring. Painful. Depressing. Even in the most scenic settings.  After all, happiness comes from within.

It is not quite easy, it seems, to develop a Solomon's split the kid approach to having one half of the marriage in polluted China and another part in a cleaner paradise.  The split could become real:

A Beijing man is seeking to divorce his wife after she took their son to a tropical island province to escape the capital's notorious smog, saying the long-distance relationship had destroyed their marriage

Now, it is not as if the wife left Beijing and emigrated to Australia:

[Their]son developed serious health problems because of Beijing's air pollution and his wife took the son to the southern resort island of Hainan to escape the haze.
However, Wang's wife did not like Hainan and nor did she like living apart from him, and whenever the two of them met they fought, the report said.
Fed up with this, Wang has filed for divorce in a Beijing court, the newspaper said.
"Smog 'buried' my son's health, and it has 'buried' my marriage," he was quoted as saying.

Who woulda thunk that smog might kill marriages too!

Back in India, father sneezes, and mother coughs.  And they are not bored.

There comes a point when you don't want to know

There comes a point when you don't want to know.

After reading that final sentence of the short story, "Roadkill," in the latest issue of the New Yorker, it felt most appropriate for me to put that magazine down, turn the lights out, and go to sleep.  There was a lot for the mind to process.

In so many different contexts, I have wondered about that same sentiment that perhaps I didn't want to know anymore about whatever it was that I was interested in.  Every bit of knowing something seems to take away that much more from the otherwise possible blissful state.

The short story experience was after I had read this essay, in that same issue, about the growing discontent in China over pollution.  It was a narrative that was simple and direct.  An accidental environmentalist, Wang Jun, says:

G.D.P. ... doesn't mean anything if you don't have life.

You can see why I noted that my mind had a lot to process before drifting off to sleep.

The older I get, the more I am bothered by challenges like pollution and war and, the big picture of the human condition.  What is it exactly that we are trying to do?  As one of my graduate school professors often asked us, "what are you trying to maximize?"

I wish I could simply say I don't want to know.

For a few years now, I have always tried to make students in my classes think about whether it is worth all that to have China as the world's factory and, thus, have all the inexpensive stuff, when there is widespread pollution of unheard of proportions, which then ultimately is about the human condition there.

We are, by now, familiar with the level of pollution in Beijing or Shanghai.  And slowly we are also getting to learn about how much "environmental damage is much worse in smaller industrial cities."  Like at Handan, "which is two hundred and fifty miles to the southwest of Beijing."

Handan's average PM2.5 for the first half of this year was 130.5.  By comparison, Beijing's was 101.3 and Manhattan's was 8.3.  The W.H.O.'s guidelines say that any particulate matter is harmful, but it sets a PM2.5 target of 10.  In other words, the concentration in Handan was thirteen times worse than W.H.O.'s target.

There comes a point when you don't want to know.

I am, of course, not the only one to make jokes about whatever awful situation that I am in.  As much as I make fun of my hassles such as the solitary state, the people in Handan have their own ways of trying to laugh through this misery:

There's a joke that a Handan person went to Switzerland and the air was so good that he began to feel sick from all the oxygen ... So they quickly hooked up a tube to a car's exhaust pipe and he sucked on that for a while until he felt better.

Can't laugh though, can you?

As I tell students, as if I have to do full disclosures even though I am not required to, I am not even an environmental nutcase and even I am deeply troubled by all these.  It is not any drive within me to retain everything in its pristine condition and I understand that there will have to be tradeoffs.  But, we certainly seem to be giving up way too much in order to make sure that we can have the cheapest possible iPhone.

Earlier this morning, before beginning to blog about these, I read the interview with Romesh Gunasekara, the author of "Roadkill."  He notes there:

Art is forever trying to capture the fleeting moment, but this moment—post-war Sri Lanka—has an urgency that will not wait much longer. The past, the future, and even the present are unclear, but soon there will be a dominant narrative of these times, which will make it more difficult to remember those uncertainties.

In my classes, too, I try to help students make sense of the fleeting moment.  I suspect that most do not pay any attention to me, which is the norm anyway.  Perhaps they are already practicing the idea that there comes a point when you don't want to know?  Maybe they are wiser than me.

Caption at the New Yorker:
A newly built residential development in Handan on a typical morning, shrouded in thick smog

Air, water, and land. All three polluted in China. Is manufacturing worth it?

In the years before Rupert Murdoch bought out the Wall Street Journal, and changed the tone of the paper, I was a regular reader of that paper. Even a subscriber at one point.  (I am sure that will gladden the hearts of my socialist colleagues!)

The WSJ was unique in one way--it was almost as if the editorial page was a newspaper of its own and ideologically driven with Robert Bartley in the driver seat, separate from the rest of the paper that was not that far from a middle-of the-road routine journalism.  The paper even had Alexander Cockburn as a regular columnist giving his interpretations from the far left side of the political spectrum.  

Typically, every issue had an interesting rather off-beat story that began in the front page and worked its way into the inside pages.  I can even faintly recall the image of Daniel Pearl's portrait on the front in that characteristic WSJ-style.

Even now, every once in a while, the WSJ breaks free of its ideological framework (I guess it is possible now with Murdoch being distracted with many professional and personal issues!) and presents lengthy pieces, like this one on China's pollution in the rural areas, affecting the agricultural lands too.

Pollution in China is not anything new in this blog.  For instance, this past January alone, I had three entries (here, here, and here)on the topic, with the bottom-line question of all is all that cheap manufacturing for the rest of the world really worth all the pollution?

In its latest piece on China's rural pollution, the WSJ notes:

For years, public attention has focused on the choking air and contaminated water that plague China's ever-expanding cities. But a series of recent cases have highlighted the spread of pollution outside of urban areas, now encompassing vast swaths of countryside, including the agricultural heartland.
Estimates from state-affiliated researchers say that anywhere between 8% and 20% of China's arable land, some 25 to 60 million acres, may now be contaminated with heavy metals. A loss of even 5% could be disastrous, taking China below the "red line" of 296 million acres of arable land that are currently needed, according to the government, to feed the country's 1.35 billion people.

To begin with, though it is vast in land area, most of the land is not suited for agriculture.  And then to have between 8% and 20% of the arable land messed up?

Caption at the WSJ story:

In Dapu, a chemical factory sits next to a farm. 'Nothing comes from these plants,' says a local farmer.

I suppose the air pollution is visible in Shanghai or Beijing--which is why, finally, after years of dodging the issue, China is committing $277 billion to clean up the air pollution over the next five years. Water pollution is also equally visible--when dead pigs float down the river, or rivers run in some psychedelic colors.  Compared to air and water pollution, contamination of soil is pretty much out of sight, and happens far away from the big cities.

[Factories] are moving to the countryside to take advantage of cheaper land, often made available with the help of local officials who want to boost growth, environmental researchers say. In other cases, urban leaders want factories to move out of crowded cities. The ensuing problems of rural pollution are exacerbated by the fact that many small-town governments have less capacity to properly regulate complex industrial activities than their counterparts in big cities, experts say.

Even in a dysfunctional politics like the one in India, such happenings get reported by the media, and activists head to the courts--like Rahul Choudhary, about whom I had written in the Register Guard.  But, it is a different story in China, where negative reports rarely see daylight.

China's Ministry of Environmental Protection refused to release the results of a multiyear nationwide soil-pollution survey, calling the data a "state secret."

It gets complex:

Removing heavy metals from farmland is a complicated process that can take years—time lost for farming. That is a chilling prospect for a government tasked with supporting 20% of the world's population on less than 10% of the world's arable land. Any major reduction in food security would hurt the Communist Party, which has staked its reputation in part on its ability to keep the country's granaries full with minimal imports.
The government's refusal to release its soil survey, meanwhile, has only added to fears that officials know more than they are willing to say. Launched to great fanfare in the state media in 2006, the survey was originally scheduled to be completed in 2010. In June last year, an environment ministry official told the Xinhua news service that more than 20% of soil samples in a trial program for monitoring pollution, involving 364 rural villages, had failed to meet national standards and that the results of the survey would be published "at the proper time."

We consumers have a responsibility, too.  As I often remind students, "the invisible hand" watches out for whether we are willing to put our money where our mouth is.  If we are willing to pay up, then the market responds.  But, as long as we do not care about the pollution in China, or labor dying in accidents in Bangladesh, and all we care about is getting the most inexpensive product, even if it means that we toss it away after a few months, well, we will have to witness the pollution too.


China’s Andy Rooney Has Some Funny Opinions About How Great The Chinese Government Is

Is China's pollution its Chernobyl?

It was not even three weeks ago that I blogged about the unheard of, off-the-charts, pollution levels in China.      Looks like it has not eased up much to make life better:

Dangerously high pollution levels have shrouded Beijing in smog for the second time in about two weeks, forcing airlines to cancel flights because of poor visibility and prompting the city government to warn residents to stay indoors.
The outlines of buildings in the Chinese capital receded into a white mist as pedestrians donned face masks to guard against the thick, caustic air.

Ouch!

The new year--the year of the snake--is only ten days away, and there will be that tremendous volume of vacation traffic.  I shudder, even from the safety of my home, thinking about a traffic jam even half as bad as that horrendous one that lasted for days on.

People are talking about it.  Yes, the Chinese people are!

Public debate over the smog has increased in recent months, with state media taking an active part.
In an editorial on Tuesday, China Daily said that Beijing will not become a liveable city unless it "improves its living environment".
"Of all the things that need improving, cleaner air will be at the top of many people's wish list," it said in a piece that looked at challenges for incoming Mayor Wang Anshun.

A new set of leaders. A humongous problem about which people are not willing to keep quiet.  Could this possibly set the stage for some serious reforms in China?

I am thinking of a parallel of sorts, triggered by this article in Slate:

Fewer than six years elapsed between the meltdown at Chernobyl and the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union—six years marked by suspicion of government, dissatisfaction with public safety, and demands for greater transparency. Could Chernobyl have caused the first, most fundamental crack in the Soviet state and led to its collapse?

An interesting question linking Chernobyl and the Soviet Union.

According to Gorbachev, the Chernobyl explosion was a “turning point” that “opened the possibility of much greater freedom of expression, to the point that the system as we knew it could no longer continue.” Gorbachev introduced his policy of glasnost, or “openness” of ideas and expression, not long before the Chernobyl explosion. It was his remedy for widespread censorship and government secrecy. To Gorbachev, Chernobyl proved the wisdom and necessity of glasnost. The explosion and attendant tumult, he claims, “made absolutely clear how important it was to continue the policy of glasnost.”

Interesting, right?  What I liked even better in that article is the following observation:

Chernobyl, then, represented a fundamental shift in the relationship between the Soviet citizenry and the state. Before the explosion, most Soviets were not discontented dissidents; they believed in the Soviet system, forgave its flaws, and hoped for a better future within its confines. But after Chernobyl, the system seemed potentially unredeemable—and actively dangerous. In the early days of glasnost, stories of Stalin’s mass murders decades earlier slowly bubbled to the fore, but those generally receded, so far removed were they from everyday life. After Chernobyl, though, every citizen’s safety was at stake.

The uncontrolled and growing pollution--not only of the air, but water and the soil, too--could this become China's Chernobyl that will trigger a glasnost?

I turned to my favorite China-watcher: James Fallows. I hoped that he might have some comments there on the pollution crisis and how it might affect the legitimacy of the state.  He didn't have anything on the political dimension, but has a lot about the growing worries over the public health aspects.  Fallows writes:

I do know that the pollution level in China is terrible; that (even) the Chinese press is sounding the warning about the effects; and that in other parts of the world toxins have of course been shown to cause physical and mental defects and diseases. This is a very big problem in China, perhaps even bigger than people there yet know.

Fallows also has this photo there:

Here's a picture posted on Twitter just now from a friend in Beijing, showing the view from the 30th floor out toward our former neighborhood.

Ouch!

Is China's "cheap" manufacturing worth all that?

Back in 1987, when I joined graduate school at Los Angeles, I could not understand why the "natives" were complaining about the air quality there--the lack of it.  They thought the air was dirty and, to me, it seemed just fine, thank you.

Soon, I, too, started complaining about the smoggy haze.  The creepy color that enveloped the region was visible to one's eyes even as planes descended over the airspace in the daytime.  And then going to foothill communities like Glendora and Azusa and feeling the muck in the air was not what I liked to do.  (So, why did I keep going there? Long story!)

Over the years, Los Angeles has cleaned up a lot.  But, then my frame of reference has changed, and changed dramatically thanks to breathing remarkably clean Oregon air for more than ten years now.  (Well, except during those horrible grass seed season weeks!)

Intellectually, I understand there is an element of the inverted-U-curve relationship that seems to be the pattern as countries develop--development is accompanied by a rise in environmental degradation, and then after a level of affluence, there appears to be enough resources to clean up the air, water, and soil.  Emotionally, it is easy to question the need for the degradation in the first place, and the intellectual answer is equally easy: the degradation can be avoided if we are willing to pay for it.

Photos of the day: World Water Day

It is not any painting here .... the river is polluted. The caption for the photo at the source:

A worker looks at a photographer from the door of a factory that manufactures screws and nuts, next to a polluted river inJiaxing, Zhejiang province, China, on March 15, 2012. China's continuing reliance on heavy industry meant it failed to meet its own targets for cleaning its air and water in 2011. (Reuters/Stringer)

Even more dramatic and terrifying is the following one, also from China:

So, how much more are you willing to pay for the cheap goods from China, in order to make sure that the precious water will be better managed?

Wind turbines kill ducks. So, ban 'em. Cuz, we want to hunt 'em :)

In pretty much every course I teach, I devote a week to environmental aspects.  The bottom line that I hope students get from that one week, and from elsewhere too, is that most environmental issues require tradeoffs.  And, therefore, it often comes down to political power. Examples abound--including this satirical piece on the ecologically sensitive Florida Everglades and wind turbines.

The Daily Show - Fowl Wind
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This is, of course, not the first time that the Daily Show has pointed out the craziness with which those at either ends of issues launch their arguments.

In the following classic, the same Mandvi pokes fun of asbestos exports from Canada, which seems to otherwise walk around with some kind of a environmental smug attitude

The Daily Show - Ored to Death
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Equally hilarious, and tragic, is the following one by Wyatt Cenac about residents in Turkey Creek fighting to protect their land.  In this case, only the environmentalists could help them--and that too by fighting to protect the birds!

The Daily Show
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An Oregon innovation might just clear the air in Tanzania

For The Register-Guard

Appeared in print: Monday, Jan 18, 2010

The travel doctor gave me a tincture of iodine kit that I could use to disinfect water, if needed, when I was in Tanzania. I never had to use it, though, because bottled drinking water was available everywhere.

But that is also the source of one of Tanzania’s environmental problems — empty plastic bottles all over the place: by the highways, on beaches and in open drains.

One might hypothesize that collecting such recyclables would be a source of income to the hard-working poor, as is the case in India. But I suspect that Tanzania lacks a robust industrial base to offer the necessary economic incentives for the poor to turn all that plastic into cash.

The litter problem was, however, nothing compared to the more pressing problem of smoke pollution.

I spent most of my time in Tanzania in a village, Pommern, in the southern highlands. It was a two-hour drive from Pommern to the nearest town, Iringa, which itself is a little more than 300 miles from Dar es Salaam. Pommern is up in the hills, at an elevation of close to 6,500 feet.

With red soil on the rolling hills and fascinating flora that included “sausage trees,” Pommern was absolutely picturesque. But it was hard to get away from smoke.

The smoke came from two primary sources. One was the rubbish that was burned practically everywhere in the village. The smoking piles included plants that were cleared away, and even plastic bottles and batteries.

But the smoke and the smell from trash incineration was secondary to the noxious clouds from wood and charcoal burning, which is how the village’s energy needs are met.

In a country of 37 million people, barely 10 percent of the population has access to electricity — and that is mostly in urban Dar es Salaam. More than 80 percent of Tanzania’s people live in rural areas such as Pommern, where electricity is rare. And gas for cooking is rarer still, even in Dar es Salaam.

Thus, most of the population relies on charcoal and firewood for cooking. The World Bank recently estimated that about 1 million tons of charcoal are consumed every year in Tanzania. That amount is projected to increase, because electricity and gas are not available for the growing population.

Charcoal-making itself is an important economic activity. Charcoal, of course, comes from trees, and it is preferred over firewood because it is easy to store and transport, and it offers more energy than a comparable weight of firewood. It was quite common to see young men selling bags of charcoal in the rural and forest areas that dominate Tanzania’s landscape outside Dar es Salaam.

Both charcoal and firewood often are used in remarkably inefficient settings that generate a lot more smoke than usable heat. Often, the “stove” is nothing but a traditional fireplace with three stones.

Women and children often are gathered around these smoking stoves. As one can imagine, such a constant inhalation of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and other gaseous chemicals — along with tiny particles of soot — can be devastating for health. Which is why acute respiratory infection, or ARI, is a leading public health problem in this beautiful mountainous setting, along with HIV and malaria.

This trend has not gone unrecognized. The Improved Charcoal Stove was introduced in Tanzania in 1988, and research continues in developed and developing countries alike on designing more efficient firewood and charcoal burning stoves.

It was thus with a gladdened heart and local pride that I read, after returning home, the essay in The New Yorker magazine, which also was referred to in a recent editorial in this newspaper. The article featured the Aprovecho Research Center, right here in Oregon, which has won international recognition for its efforts to design better stoves that also would be inexpensive.

My academic discussions with students about the more than 2.5 billion people who depend on wood and charcoal as the source of energy pale next to experiencing it every day amidst an otherwise gorgeous setting on this blue planet of ours.

I bet the people of Pommern, along with other billions, can’t wait for the kitchen upgrade.

Go Aprovecho!

Where there is smoke, .... there are health issues

The travel doctor gave me a tincture of iodine kit to disinfect water, if needed, when I was in Tanzania.  I never had to use it though because bottled drinking water was available everywhere.

But, that is also the source of one of Tanzania’s environmental problems—empty plastic bottles all over the place.  By the highways, beaches, and in open drains. 

One might hypothesize that collecting such recyclables will be a source of income to the hard-working poor, which is the case in India.  But, I suspect that Tanzania lacks a robust industrial base to offer the necessary economic incentives for the poor to turn all that plastic into cash.

The litter problem was, however, nothing compared to the more pressing smoke pollution.

I spent most of my time in Tanzania in a village, Pommern, in the southern highlands.  It was a two-hour drive from Pommern to the nearest town, Iringa, which itself is a little more than 300 miles from Dar es Salaam.  Pommern is up in the hills—I was at close to 6,500 feet elevation for most of my time in Tanzania.

With red soil on the rolling hills, and fascinating flora that included “sausage trees,” Pommern was absolutely picturesque indeed.  But, at the same time it was hard to get away from smoke.

There were two primary sources of smoke.  One came from the rubbish that was burnt, well, practically everywhere in the village.  The smoking piles included plants that were cleared away, and even plastic bottles and batteries. 

But, the smoke and smell from such trash incineration was secondary to the noxious clouds from wood and charcoal burning, which is how the village’s energy needs are met. 

In a country of 37 million people, barely ten percent of the population has access to electricity, and that is mostly in urban Dar es Salaam, while more than 80 percent of the population lives in rural areas like Pommern where electricity is rare.  And gas for cooking is rarer even within Dar es Salaam

Thus, most of the population relies on charcoal and firewood for cooking--the World Bank recently estimated that about one million tons of charcoal are consumed every year in Tanzania.  This amount is projected to increase even more due to the fact that electricity and gas are not available for the growing population.  

Charcoal making itself, therefore, is an important economic activity.  Charcoal, of course, comes from trees and is preferred over firewood because it is easy to store and transport, and offers more energy than a comparable weight of firewood.  It was quite common to see young men selling bags of charcoal all along the drive in the rural and forest areas that dominate Tanzania’s landscape outside Dar es Salaam.

But, both charcoal and firewood are often used in remarkably inefficient settings that generate a lot more smoke than usable heat.  Often, the “stove” is nothing but a traditional fireplace with three stones. 

Women, and children too, are often present around these smoking stoves.  As one can imagine, such a constant inhalation of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and other gaseous chemicals, along with the tiny particulate matter can be devastating for health.  Which is why “Acute Respiratory Infection” (ARI) is a leading public health problem in this beautiful mountainous setting, along with HIV and malaria. 

This has not gone unrecognized.  The Improved Charcoal Stove (ICS) was introduced in Tanzania in 1988, and research continues in developed and developing countries alike on designing more efficient firewood and charcoal burning stoves.

It was, thus, with a gladdened heart along with local pride that I read, after returning home, the essay in the New Yorker magazine, which was also referred to in a recent editorial in this newspaper.  The New Yorker featured the Aprovecho Research Center—right here in Oregon—which has won international recognition for its efforts to design better stoves that would also be inexpensive. 

My academic discussions with students about the more than 2.5 billion people who depend on wood and charcoal as the source of energy pale next to experiencing it everyday amidst an otherwise, and ironically enough, gorgeous setting on this blue planet of ours. 

I bet the people of Pommern, along with other billions can’t wait for the kitchen upgrade.  Go Aprovecho!

The dirt on climate change: in two photos

James Fallows:

Two samples from Lu Guang's work: a power plant in Inner Mongolia, then a migrant laborer in the coal regions of Shanxi province.

Economic growth and pollution in China

James Fallows notes in his blog that "Blue visible in the sky, for the first time in one week." But, the factory closures, which have helped clean up the sky, will cease soon after the Olympics, and manufacturing will pick up the pace, again. Bloomberg reports that "China's economic growth slowed for a fourth straight quarter in the three months to June 30, expanding 10.1 percent. Gross domestic product growth below 9 percent would be ``unacceptable'' for a government targeting 10 million new jobs a year, according to a Credit Suisse Group report this month."
Reading all these, I am reminded of a fantastic satire from, who else, The Onion :-)

China Celebrates Its Status As World�s Number One Air Polluter

World's dirtiest cities

(From Popular Science)
"The World Bank estimates that 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are found in China’s industrial areas."
Milan, Italy
Photo by CodeClimber
Ah, Milan, home to great shoes, high fashion and more pm10s—small pollution particles that can cause cancer and breathing problems—than any other city in Europe. In fact, according to a study by Italian environmental group Legambiente, Milan has more smog than any other city in Europe and the continent’s second-highest level of ozone. Most of the problem comes from the city’s love of driving, but that’s changing quickly: Congestion pricing in downtown Milan implemented in January has dropped traffic by 26 percent and, residents hope, will lead to drops in smog as well.
More photos of the cities here