Chinese dust storms could stir up big trouble for U.S.
Here is another article that the mainstream leftist-controlled media don't think they should print. After all, they fawned all over China during the time they stole us blind of nuclear secrets and BJ Clinton was taking their money. The enviro-nazis should read this and go to Bejing and protest in Tianamen Square and see how much good it does them there.
By JOAN LOWY
Scripps Howard News Service
May 23, 2001- Poor farming practices, population pressures and drought are intensifying dust storms in China that some scientists and environmentalists believe may ultimately pose a significant pollution problem for the United States.
The situation gained dramatic attention in April when a giant Chinese dust storm tracked by weather satellites invaded North America, raining dust and other pollution as it blew eastward.
The dust cloud, measuring thousands of square miles, formed April 5 on the desert border of northwestern China and Mongolia. Over the next two weeks it moved across the Pacific Ocean and North America, blanketing large portions of the western United States and Canada as well as areas of New England with a white haze. It dissipated over the Atlantic Ocean halfway to Europe.
Dust storms have long been a major environmental and health concern not only for China but also Japan and Korea, where they are called "yellow dust." But scientists had never before tracked such a large and intense storm into North America.
"We are seeing that even the largest ocean in the world isn't a sufficient barrier to prevent pollution from crossing the sea," said Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute.
The storms gather and push air pollutants in front of them, including methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, said Russ Schnell, director of observatory operations at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, whose satellites tracked the storms.
The April storm "was very intense and it brought a lot of things with it ... this big glob of pollution," Schnell said. "Like a motorboat in a lake, it pushes what's in front of it."
Dust itself is also a pollutant, especially particles that are small enough to be inhaled and cause respiratory problems.
Right now, the dust clouds are not a serious pollution threat to the United States. But that could easily change as the economies of Asia grow and consume more energy, which increases the pollution that gets caught up in the storms, Schnell said.
The storms are an "early signal" of even greater problems to come as a result of widespread environmental degradation in northern China, including poor farming practices that have increased deforestation and desertification and severely strained water resources, Brown said.
More than 1 million square miles of China is desert, and nearly 1,000 square miles is lost to sand each year. At least 400 Chinese cities are short of water.
The Chinese government has announced a $22 billion tree-planting program in the nation's northern provinces, including a 2,000-mile-long tree berm aimed at holding back the encroaching Gobi Desert. Chinese officials have also announced a new five-year economic plan that calls for industry to recycle more water.
However, "it's going to take a much larger effort" to turn the problem around, Brown said. If not corrected, China could lose large areas of cropland to desert, which would force the dislocation of tens of millions of Chinese.
Not all the dust storms plaguing North America come from Asia. Dust storms from Africa can rise up to 20,000 feet and are carried by trade winds across the Atlantic to the United States.
Every few years, fine red-brown dust from Africa will fill the skies over Florida and some other East Coast states at levels just shy of violating the standard for fine particulate matter under the Clean Air Act, said Joseph Prospero, director of the Institute for Cooperative Marine and Atmospheric Studies at the University of Miami.
The Environmental Protection Agency's standard for fine particulate matter is no more than 65 micrograms per cubic meter. Africa dust clouds over Florida frequently reach 50 micrograms, Prospero said.
The "mother of all dust sources in the world" is an area of northern Chad in what is known as the Bodele depression, Prospero said. With satellite imagery, "you can just see this thing putting out dust day after day - very specific plumes," he said.
Joan Lowy is a reporter for Scripps Howard News Service. E-mail LowyJ(at)shns.com