TOKYO, 4 Feb 2013 (AFP) – The suffocating smog that blanketed swathes of China is now hitting parts of Japan, sparking warnings Monday of health risks for the young and the sick. The environment ministry’s website has been overloaded as worried users log on to try to find out what is coming their way. “Access […]
30 January 2013 (Bloomberg News) – Beijing’s air, which has exceeded the World Health Organization’s “healthy” limit every day this year, is similar to that in an airport smoking lounge. The CHART OF THE DAY shows Beijing’s daily peak and average concentrations of PM2.5, the airborne particulate matter that raises risks for lung and heart […]
By Jessica M. Morrison31 January 2013 Three-Eleven is what they call the disaster. On March 11, 2011, all hell broke loose when a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck the eastern coast of Japan. As if that weren’t enough, a massive tsunami followed about an hour later, churning over everything in its path for some 200 square […]
By HEATHER TIMMONS31 January 2013 NEW DELHI (The New York Times) – Beijing’s air pollution has reached such toxic levels recently that the Chinese government is finally acknowledging the problem – and acting on it. But in New Delhi on Thursday, air pollution levels far exceeded those in Beijing, only without any government acknowledgement […]
By Minxin Pei28 January 2013 (FORTUNE) – For a long time, environmental activists, economists, and China scholars have warned about the coming environmental disaster in China. Such a catastrophe finally appeared in the most dramatic form in mid-January, when a thick layer of poisonous pollutants smothered much of northern China and made air in Beijing […]
By PAUL FOY24 January 2013 SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Michelle Francis keeps one eye on Utah’s air quality index and the other on her 9-year-old daughter’s chronic asthma these days. The air pollution is so awful in her Salt Lake City suburb that Francis keeps her daughter indoors on many days to prevent her […]
[As usual, apologies for the ad.] By Jaime A. FlorCruz, CNN19 January 2013 Beijing, China (CNN) – “Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in …” my wife Ana blurted into a song this week, as she gazed eastwards through the window of our apartment in downtown Beijing. The old tune from the Broadway show Hair […]
16 January 2013 (Sydney Morning Herald) – Black carbon, the soot produced by burning fossil fuels and biomass, is a more potent atmospheric pollutant than previously thought, according to a four-year international study released on Tuesday. Emitted by diesel engines, brick kilns and wood-fired cookstoves, black carbon is second only to carbon dioxide as the […]
United Nations, New York, 10 January 2013 (UPI) – People in developing countries are facing increasing health and environmental risks linked to exposure to mercury, a U.N. report says. Parts of Africa, Asia and South America are at risk of increasing emissions of mercury into the environment, mostly the use of the toxic element in […]
14 January 2013 (Bloomberg News) – China shut dozens of factories and pulled government cars off the road to limit pollution that hit hazardous levels for a third day, as state media said Beijing was becoming more famous for its smog than its culture or food. A cold front and strong winds tonight are forecast […]
