Danelle - Post #8

Below is an article I found to be of interest. If any of you were up very early this past Saturday you may have seen the sandstorm through your hotel window. I saw it, and it was quite impressive. When I looked out my window all I could see was a golden brown haze. The haze was so thick it was difficult to see debris rustling around. It looked liked Beijing was covered in molasses. According to the article below, this particular sandstorm made air conditions the most unhealthy and dangerous to breathe. Unfortunately for Beijing residents, the effects of the sandstorm may linger until midweek. Thankfully, we left Saturday and spent very little time outdoors. Below the article you will find my comments.

China's sandstorms blast Beijing with dust, sand

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING – The dust works its way through keyholes and window frames, and smells like a filthy brew of dirt, smoke and metallic particles. The sky turns magenta and whole buildings disappear. Eyes tear up and throats get sore from coughing.

Northern China's spring sandstorms blew in with particular ferocity over the weekend, bringing misery to people working outdoors Monday in Beijing and across a wide swath of the country.

"It gets in your throat, under your clothes, in your bed," said Beijing street sweeper Xue Yuan. "I hate it, but there's really nothing you can do."

The storms are a product of worsening desertification in Inner Mongolia and other Gobi Desert regions hundreds of miles to the north and west of Beijing caused by overgrazing, deforestation, drought and urban sprawl. Strong winds pick up the loose dust and dirt, mixing them with industrial pollution.

Beijing's air quality index was set at Level 4, one grade better than the most serious Level 5 that was reached Saturday as the mixture of sand, dust and pollution blasted the capital. City meteorologists said conditions would improve, but warned the sand would linger through midweek.

Record pollution levels were registered in Hong Kong, 1,240 miles (2,000 kilometers) to the south, partly due to the storms. Schools were advised to cancel outdoor activities and at least 20 elderly people sought medical assistance for shortness of breath, Hong Kong's radio RTHK reported.

Across the 100 mile-(160-kilometer)-wide Taiwan Strait, island residents covered their mouths to avoid breathing in the grit that can cause chest discomfort and respiratory problems even in healthy people. Sand covered cars in just 10 minutes and some flights were canceled due to poor visibility caused by the sandstorm.

Beijing residents hunkered indoors as the fine dust worked its way into homes and offices, cutting visibility to around 3,000 feet (1,000 meters).

Outside, people scurried along sand-strewn sidewalks, covering their faces with gauzy handkerchiefs or donning surgical masks. There were no immediate reports of illnesses connected to the dust.

In a warning posted Monday on its Web site, China's Central Meteorological Station urged Beijing's 22 million people to close doors and windows and safeguard sensitive electronic and mechanical equipment.

China Central Television told viewers to clean out their noses with salt water and remove grit from ears with cotton swabs dipped in alcohol.

In the past decade, Beijing has sought to counter the effects of desertification by planting grasses and billions of trees to hold back the desert, mostly to no avail. Along with bringing pollution, the storms underscore a looming water crisis in the north that the government is seeking to head off with a massive project to pump water from the south.

Li Dongping, a tourist visiting Tiananmen Square from southern China, said more needs to be done to boost environmental protection and public awareness.

"We need to improve our environment, we should plant more trees and improve the soil infrastructure, and also we should raise our sense of environmental protection," Li said.

The latest sandstorm was expected to sweep into South Korea on Tuesday, said Kim Seung-bum of the Korea Meteorological Administration. The sandstorm that raked across China over the weekend caused the worst "yellow dust" haze in South Korea since 2005, and authorities issued a rare nationwide dust advisory.

Grit from Chinese sandstorms has been found to travel as far as the western United States.

State television's noon newscast showed the tourist city of Hangzhou on the east coast of China, where graceful bridges and waterside pagodas were hidden in a mix of sand and haze.

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing warned that particulate matter in the air made conditions "hazardous," although high winds dispersed some of the pollution and the air quality was later upgraded to "very unhealthy."

Duan Li, a spokeswoman for the Beijing Meteorological Station, said conditions in the city seemed more severe because a sandstorm Saturday deposited grit on rooftops, sidewalks and trees. The winds Monday carried in even more sand and stirred up what was already there.

The last massive sandstorm to hit Beijing was in 2006, when winds dumped about 300,000 tons of sand on the capital.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100322/ap_on_re_as/as_china_sandstorm)

My Analysis:

For a lot of us living in the developed world, the consequences of man’s over-use of the planet's resources are simply too abstract to generate the momentum for change. I doubt however, those living in China see anything abstract about it. From watching videos of the sandstorm and reading interviews of Beijing residents, who are very concerned about the condition of the environment, it's fair to say they are literally choking on the consequences of unplanned development and poor resource management every day.

The article states the sandstorms are a result of "over-grazing, deforestation and urban sprawl ". I decided to look a little further into the cause of the sandstorm(s). I found several articles and blogs debating the issue, with the argument basically being that sandstorms are caused not only by "over-grazing, deforestation and urban sprawl " but also by unstable weather patterns that occur naturally. There were also many comments and articles criticizing China for their pollution problems so I also researched that issue as well.

This past week, during China's annual sitting of the National People's Congress, Xie Zhenhua, a deputy director at China's powerful economic ministry, the National Development and Reform Commission, answered that he believed that man-made climate change denial is, at best, a very marginal view:

"Climate change is a fact based on long-time observations by countries around the world. There are two different views regarding the causes for global warming. The mainstream view is that climate change is caused by burning of fossil fuel in the course of industrialization. There's a more extreme view which holds that human activity has only an imperceptible impact on the natural system."

He said the responsibility for this climate change rested squarely with the Western world, so the onus was on it to clean up the mess caused in the rush to industrialization. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/11/2842415.htm)

Interestingly, I found at globalissues.org:

"It would seem that China and India are responsible for runaway climate change and the rich countries cannot do anything without these two giants being involved. It is feared that given the large populations of India and China and combined with their strong economic growth, their thirst for energy and materials may result in outstripping of resources.

However, many years ago, the world agreed that due to the way greenhouses gases accumulate in the atmosphere over decades, it was today’s rich countries that were responsible for climate change. As a result, developing countries such as China and India were not subject to the targets that the rich countries were. Developing countries were strongly urged to follow a different path to development, though; one that would use cleaner and sustainable technologies. This was known as the “Common but differentiated responsibilities” principle."

Whether or not you believe climate change to be the result of human causes, the simple truth is that countries like China are now experiencing the direct, physical consequences of increasingly unstable weather patterns. As well as more than a decade of sub-average rainfall in the north, the South western provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Sichuan and Chongqing have now been hit by a severe drought, experiencing 80 per cent less rainfall this year than last. This too has consequences beyond mere water shortages – though those are serious – driving up prices of basic commodities such as tea and sugar (both due to rise 30pc this year) which in turn feeds into Chinese inflation, now a key concern of the government. (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peterfoster/100030808/china-living-with-environmental-meltdown/)

I definitely feel industrialization is to blame for the poor environmental conditions in China. Regardless who is to blame for the situation, action needs to be taken quickly to save the environment. China’s government is already aware of the need to do something and public pressure will grow for a better living environment, thereby driving demand for a clean-up. The question is, in 20 or 40 years time, even allowing for China’s desire to embark on a cleaner path of development than we did, will there be much of the environment left to save?