Environment

Environmental degradation can be defined as deterioration of the Earth's natural surroundings as a result of excessive exploitation of the available resources. These resources include water, air, flora, fauna, soil etc. Basically, the life on the planet is interwoven to such an extent that a decrease in a particular attribute triggers a domino effect on all the other attributes dependent on it.

One form of environmental degradation is air pollution.

History of Air Pollution

Humans probably first experienced harm from air pollution when they built fires in poorly ventilated caves. Since then we have gone on to pollute more of the earth's surface. Until recently, environmental pollution problems have been local and minor because of the Earth's own ability to absorb and purify minor quantities of pollutants. The industrialization of society, the introduction of motorized vehicles, and the explosion of the population, are factors contributing toward the growing air pollution problem. At this time it is urgent that we find methods to clean up the air.

The primary air pollutants found in most urban areas are carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, hydrocarbons, and particulate matter (both solid and liquid). These pollutants are dispersed throughout the world's atmosphere in concentrations high enough to gradually cause serious health problems. Serious health problems can occur quickly when air pollutants are concentrated, such as when massive injections of sulfur dioxide and suspended particulate matter are emitted by a large volcanic eruption.

Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is the main pollutant that is warming Earth. Though living things emit carbon dioxide when they breathe, carbon dioxide is widely considered to be a pollutant when associated with cars, planes, power plants, and other human activities that involve the burning of fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas. In the past 150 years, such activities have pumped enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to raise its levels higher than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years.

Industrialized countries have worked to reduce levels of sulfur dioxide, smog, and smoke in order to improve people's health. But a result, not predicted until recently, is that the lower sulfur dioxide levels may actually make global warming worse. Just as sulfur dioxide from volcanoes can cool the planet by blocking sunlight, cutting the amount of the compound in the atmosphere lets more sunlight through, warming the Earth. This effect is exaggerated when elevated levels of other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap the additional heat.

Most people agree that to curb global warming, a variety of measures need to be taken. On a personal level, driving and flying less, recycling, and conservation reduces a person’s "carbon footprint"—the amount of carbon dioxide a person is responsible for putting into the atmosphere.

The sources of air pollution are both natural and human-based. As one might expect, humans have been producing increasing amounts of pollution as time has progressed, and they now account for the majority of pollutants released into the air.

Case Study: Air Pollution in China

According to the World Bank 16 of the worlds’s 20 cities with the worst air are in China. According to Chinese government sources, about a fifth of urban Chinese breath heavily polluted air. Many places smell like high-sulfur coal and leaded gasoline. Only a third of the 340 Chinese cities that are monitored meet China’s own pollution standards.

The air pollution and smog in Beijing and Shanghai are sometimes so bad that the airports are shut down because of poor visibility. The air quality of Beijing is 16 times worse than New York City. Sometimes you can't even see building a few blocks away and blue sky is a rare sight. In Shanghai sometimes you can't see the street from the 5th floor window.

Coal is the number once source of air pollution in China. China gets 80 percent of electricity and 70 percent its total energy from coal, much of it polluting high-sulphur coal. Around six million tons of coal is burned everyday to power factories, heat homes and cook meals. Expanding car ownership, heavy traffic and low-grade gasoline have made cars a leading contributor to the air pollution problem in Chinese cities.

China is the world’s leading source of sulfur dioxide. Levels of the pollutant in the air are comparable to Japan in the 1970s when air pollution was a major problem there. Emissions of sulfur dioxide from coal and fuel oil can cause respiratory and cardiovascular diseases as well as acid rain. Sulfur dioxide emissions alone are though to cause damage equal to 12 percent of China’s GNP.

China’s emissions of nitrogen oxide—the main cause of urban smog—have increased 3.8 percent a year for 25 years. Unless things are dramatically changed nitrogen oxide emissions in China will double by 2020. Nitrogen oxide is released by power plants, heavy industry and cars.

Effects of Air Pollution in China

The engines of Chinese airlines have to be overhauled and replaced more frequently than elsewhere because operating in Chinese air corrodes the turbine blades faster.

The Beijing Coking-Chemical Plant was one of the Beijing worst polluters until it was relocated in 2006. At it peak it employed 10,000 workers and powered most of the city’s stoves and heating system. Chinese leaders were proud of the fact that smoke for the factory’s six chimneys never stopped in its 47-year history. After it was moved to Tangshan people that used to live near it in Beijing said it was the first time they could hang laundry outside without worrying about their clothes getting covered with black coal dust.

BEIJING, Aug. 25 — No country in history has emerged as a major industrial power without creating a legacy of environmental damage that can take decades and big dollops of public wealth to undo.But just as the speed and scale of China’s rise as an economic power have no clear parallel in history, so its pollution problem has shattered all precedents. Environmental degradation is now so severe, with such stark domestic and international repercussions, that pollution poses not only a major long-term burden on the Chinese public but also an acute political challenge to the ruling Communist Party. And it is not clear that China can rein in its own economic juggernaut.

Public health is reeling. Pollution has made cancer China’s leading cause of death, the Ministry of Health says. Ambient air pollution alone is blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year.

China is choking on its own success. The economy is on a historic run, posting a succession of double-digit growth rates. But the growth derives, now more than at any time in the recent past, from a staggering expansion of heavy industry and urbanization that requires colossal inputs of energy, almost all from coal, the most readily available, and dirtiest, source.

“It is a very awkward situation for the country because our greatest achievement is also our biggest burden,” says Wang Jinnan, one of China’s leading environmental researchers. “There is pressure for change, but many people refuse to accept that we need a new approach so soon.”

China’s problem has become the world’s problem. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides spewed by China’s coal-fired power plants fall as acid rain on Seoul, South Korea, and Tokyo. Much of the particulate pollution over Los Angeles originates in China, according to the Journal of Geophysical Research.

But pollution poses its own threat. Officials blame fetid air and water for thousands of episodes of social unrest. Health care costs have climbed sharply. Severe water shortages could turn more farmland into desert. And the unconstrained expansion of energy-intensive industries creates greater dependence on imported oil and dirty coal, meaning that environmental problems get harder and more expensive to address the longer they are unresolved.

The government has numerical targets for reducing emissions and conserving energy. Export subsidies for polluting industries have been phased out. Different campaigns have been started to close illegal coal mines and shutter some heavily polluting factories. Major initiatives are under way to develop clean energy sources like solar and wind power. And environmental regulation in Beijing, Shanghai and other leading cities has been tightened ahead of the 2008 Olympics.

Health Problems and Air Pollution in China

China has the world highest number of deaths attributed to air pollution. According to Chinese government statistics 300,000 die each year from ambient air pollution, mostly from heart disease and lung cancer. An additional 110,000 die from illnesses related to indoor pollution from poorly ventilated wood and coal stoves and toxic fumes from shoddy construction material. The air pollution death figure is expect to rise to 380,000 in 2010 and 550,000 in 2020. The Chinese government has calculated that if the air quality in 210 medium and large cities were to be improved from “polluted” to “good” levels 178,000 lives could be saved.

Washington Post writer John Pomfret was based in Beijing for many years. When his family moved to Los Angeles afterwards his son’s asthma attacks and chronic chest infections stopped. When asked why he moved to Los Angeles he jokingly said “for the air.”

It has been reasoned that all forms of air pollution are 10 times more damaging to health than all forms of water pollution. According to the World Bank and WHO between 300,000 and 350,000 people die from outdoor air pollution and about 300,000 die from inside air pollution. Some think the true figure is much higher. Some estimate that indoor air pollution kills more than 700,000 people a year. The fine particles produced by coal-fired stoves exacerbates respiratory problems and is especially damaging to children’s lungs functions.

Air pollution causes premature births, low-birth weight babies, and depresses lungs functioning in otherwise healthy people. It has also been blamed for China's rising rates of cancer. Lung cancer is now the leading cause of death in China. In the last five years the number of deaths from the disease has risen 18.5 percent to 34 per 100,000 people.

Air pollution is also linked with a variety of respiratory aliments. Around some factories the asthma rate is 5 percent. It is estimated that 26 percent of all deaths in China are caused by respiratory illnesses (compared with 2 or 3 percent in the U.S.). Many people in Beijing and Shanghai get hacking coughs. In rural areas, respiratory disease is the number one killer. It is impossible to say how many are caused by air pollution though and how many are caused by smoking or some other cause.

Air pollution is believed to have significantly reduced crop production. Studies based on satellite imagery and ground-based observation suggest that particles of suspended pollutants scatter sun light over two thirds of eastern China resulting in harvests of rice and winter wheat that may be 5 to 30 percent less than if there was no pollution.

Combating Air Pollution in China

To reduce air pollution in Beijing a license plate system similar to the one used in the 2008 Olympics was put in place. According to the system cars with license plate numbers ending in 0 or 5 would have to stay off the road on Monday. Those with license plate numbers ending in 1 or 6 would have to stay off the road on Tuesday, those with 2 and 7 would stay off on Wednesday and so on through the five weekdays. The measures were credited with reducing pollution by 10 percent.

In Beijing and other cities electric lines have been brought to local neighborhood and people there have been encouraged to switch from coal-briquette-heated stoves to electric heaters. To make the change easier to accept the government covers two thirds of the cost of the heaters. One Beijing resident told the Times of London he favored the change, saying, “They say it is may be a little more expensive overall than coal, but it is a price I don’t mind paying to get our blue skies back.”

Bibliography:

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/pollution-overview.html

http://healthandenergy.com/air_pollution_causes.htm

http://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Environmental_Problems/air_pollution.html

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/environmental-degradation.html

http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=392&catid=10&subcatid=66

http://www.wri.org/publication/content/8416

China's Next Big Boom Could Be the Foul Air

The steady barrage of statistics trumpeting China's rise is often greeted elsewhere as if the figures were torpedoes and the rest of the world a sinking ship.

The numbers inflame the exaggerated perception that China is methodically inhaling jobs and resources and, in the process, inhaling the rest of the planet. Burp. There goes the American furniture industry. Burp. Thanks for your oil, Venezuela.

But one statistic offered last week by a top Chinese environmental official should stimulate genuine alarm inside and outside China. The official, Zhang Lijun, warned that pollution levels here could more than quadruple within 15 years if the country does not curb its rapid growth in energy consumption and automobile use.

China, it seems, has reached a tipping point familiar to many developed countries, including the United States, that have raced headlong after economic development only to look up suddenly and see the environmental carnage. The difference with China, as is so often the case, is that the potential problems are much bigger, have happened much faster and could pose greater concerns for the entire world.

"I don't think it will jump four or five times," Robert Watson, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said of the pollution prediction by Mr. Zhang. "But it could double or triple without too much trouble. And that's a scary thought, given how bad things are now."

China is already the world's second-biggest producer of greenhouse gas emissions and is expected to surpass the United States as the biggest. Roughly a third of China is exposed to acid rain. A recent study by a Chinese research institute found that 400,000 people die prematurely every year in China from diseases linked to air pollution.

The political attention comes as environmental problems are begetting social and economic problems. Violent riots have erupted in the countryside over contaminated water, stunted crops and mounting health woes. In a handful of villages, farmers have stormed chemical factories to stop the dumping of filthy water. Roughly 70 percent of China's rivers and lakes are polluted. In cities, people drink bottled water; in the countryside, most people are too poor to pay for bottled water, so they boil polluted water or simply drink it.

Public anger is also rising in cities. In some, air pollution is so thick that on the worst days doctors advise, impractically, against going outside. Last week, hundreds of people living in the Beijing outskirts protested plans for a factory they fear would inundate the neighborhood with pollution.

The severity of the situation has created an opening for environmentalists in and out of the government. Environmentalism is a chic issue for college students, who have participated in garbage cleanups and joined the growing number of nongovernment organizations focused on pollution. The once-meek State Environmental Protection Administration, or SEPA, has become more aggressive in identifying and going after polluters and calling for reforms.

Beijing's Air Pollution: It Isn't The Cars

On July 20, half of private cars in Beijing went off the road in a sweeping attempt to improve air quality in advance of the Olympic games. Commercial and governmental vehicles, taxis and buses are all running as usual, but traffic is moving noticeably faster. I've been watching the plates, and drivers really are obeying the regulations. Furthermore, the Chinese have suspended tourism and visas for anyone not attending the Olympics, which is improving traffic even more. There are noticeably fewer tour groups, taxis, rental cars and minibuses. At the same time, a new subway line and the light rail to the airport opened, and more people are taking mass transit.

But guess what? Beijing's air pollution doesn't appear to have changed. In fact, visibility outside my window the last few days has been worse than it was in the week before the car regulations came into place.

This should come as no surprise. Beijing's air pollution varies a great deal from day to day. The fact that it seems worse is probably due to unfortunate weather conditions-high temperature and humidity, and low winds that would otherwise dissipate the smog.

Contrary to popular perception both inside and outside China, Beijing's air pollution problem is not primarily due to increases in personal vehicle use. Granted, there have been dozens of press reports about the surging numbers of vehicles that Beijingers are buying. These reports are true, but also misleading. In contrast to the experience in the U.S., Beijing's boom in vehicle ownership has not yet invaded its surrounding areas. It is mainly China's wealthiest cities that are participating in the car boom; smaller cities and towns have seen more modest growth in vehicle ownership.

The real causes of Beijing's air quality woes lie elsewhere. An article last year suggested the key component to Beijing's ozone problem (the stuff that makes your eyes itch, causes shortness of breath and reduces visibility) is actually volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from small factories in neighboring Hebei province. A sniff test suggests that there are plenty of these factories operating in and around Beijing. Many are small (and possibly illegal), and they operate only at night to avoid the scrutiny of environmental inspectors. So the Beijing government has several problems: first, it must locate these hidden factories. Then they must shut them down--and convince neighboring provinces to do the same.

Beijing's other major problem is particulates, which come from several sources. One is construction: Beijing is still rushing to complete non-Olympic buildings before the big day. Another is coal-fired power plants and factory boilers. China's largest coal-mining province, Shanxi, is directly up wind of Beijing. Shanxi ships much coal to other provinces, but it also has mine-mouth power plants and coking plants that contribute to regional pollution.

A final source is trucks. As with the VOCs from small factories, emissions from heavy vehicles are worst during the night, since trucks are banned from the city during the day. Studies have shown that Beijing's pollution levels are highest in the early morning. This would not be the case if most of the pollution came from passenger cars, which operate mainly during the day. But it is good evidence that the chief sources of pollution are the VOC-producing factories and trucks operating at night.

The international focus on Beijing's car problem, when the true problem lies more with industrial emissions, suggests we often apply lessons from one place a little too readily to another. China's air pollution problem--like its [greenhouse gas emissions](node/9331)--is primarily connected to industry. There is no question that smart transportation planning would help China avoid vehicle-caused smog and global warming in the future. But for the here and now, the real challenges are in industry, and the real efforts need to be in strengthening local enforcement of existing pollution and energy efficiency standards and with developing new multipollutant standards that address issues like VOCs

Air pollution cutting China's 'vital' rain

China's increasing air pollution has cut the light rainfall essential to the country's agriculture over the last 50 years, new research suggests.

The research, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research last month, is based on rainfall data collected from weather stations across China.

The number of light rain days — those with precipitation of less than ten millimetres — in northeast and southeast China has been cut by 25 per cent and 21 per cent respectively over the past five decades, researchers have found.

"Analyses of air pollution data, satellite data, and large-scale circulation all suggest that aerosols may have played a more dominant role in the observed decrease trend in light rain in East China," the authors write.

Qian Yun, co-author of the research and an atmospheric scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, United States, told SciDev.Net: "The decreased light rain will definitely deal a blow to agricultural potential in east China, the main food production area in China."

"Light rain soaks slowly into the ground [making it easier for the soil to absorb] which is better than heavy rain, which can flood fields and run off into nearby waterways."

The authors say that increased levels of aerosols — particles of pollution in the air above China — are caused by increasing fossil fuel consumption, particularly in big cities like Beijing.

They think that because rain drops form around aerosol particles, more particles means smaller drops that are less likely to form rain clouds.

Qian says the team will now build a model to calculate the agricultural and economic losses caused by air pollution to guide policymakers.

But Guo Jianping, a meteorologist at the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, who was not involved in the research, says the relationship between light rain and agricultural growth is difficult to define.

"Usually it is hard for small amounts of water to seep down into the ground and be absorbed. In addition, more rain days do not mean it's good for agriculture as less solar radiation is available,"