Asian dust migrating across the Pacific, illustrated over today's actual Pacific weather satillite image.
WHOSE POLLUTION WILL CANADIANS BE PAYING TO CLEAN UP?
Surrey, B.C. - Wednesday, September 11, 2002 - by: Phyllis H. Hubeli
2% of 2%	Jean Chretien will commit us to implementing the Kyoto Protocol even though Canada adds only 2% of the 2% that man contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Nature itself contributes 98%.
only Canada intends to sign on	In an article entitled "Being Conned, Statistically Speaking", The Ensign, Sept. 3, 2002, Ron Thornton provided us with the following statistics for carbon emissions:
	United States - 454.81 tons per square mile of territory India - 179.76 tons per square mile of territory China - 176.99 tons per square mile of territory Mexico - 137.41 tons per square mile of territory Canada - 43.54 tons per square mile of territory
	With the exception of Canada, none of the above will be bound by the Kyoto Protocol. Why then do we need to do this?
IS KYOTO WORTH IT?
miniscule effect	Chretien has yet to explain to Canadians what we will be committed to when he signs Kyoto. What we do know is that it is impossible to remove all greenhouse gases from our atmosphere. The little we can remove will have only a miniscule effect at best and we will pay dearly for it.
standard of living	In search of a legacy Jean Chetien is willing to spend a predicted $40 billion and, according to Alan Rock, lower our standard of living by signing onto Kyoto. What a legacy that will be!
WHERE DOES A LOT OF OUR POLLUTION COME FROM?
dust and what's on it	A lot of what Canada will be attempting to clean up will be wind-born pollution from China and neighbouring countries. Although most of these pollutants are similar to those found in North America they do add to the year-round concentrations of gases and tiny particulate matter in the air over North America. According to David Parish, atmospheric chemist for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:
	"We're not breathing just dust, but dust and whatever else has been deposited on it, like hundreds of compounds from man-made pollution."
1,500 miles/day	The deserts of China and Mongolia are major sources of pollution. Wind storms roar across the Taklimakan and Gobi deserts, where soil erosion is increasing and the deserts become larger, whipping towering clouds of dust miles into the air. It is then that the jet stream whisks them along, across the Pacific, at up to 1,500 miles per day.
from there to here	Trapped by the jet stream, these clouds of pollution rarely run into clouds or weather systems so do not mix or fall out of the air over the Pacific. They arrive intact in North America, according to Rudolf Husar, Director of the Centre for Air Pollution Impact and Trend Analysis at Washington University in St. Louis. Researchers at universities on both sides of the Pacific have, for a number of years, been tracking with satellites, aircraft, land-based sensors and computer models, the haze produced by China as it follows its 6,000 mile journey across the Pacific.
WHAT'S MIXED IN WITH THE DUST?
banned pollution	Mixed with the dust from China are toxic and industrial pollutants from farms, factories and power plants. Pesticides that have been banned here such as DDT, toxaphene and diedrin are part of the fallout over North America from dust blowing off farmland in China, according to Dan Jaffe, atmospheric chemist at the University of Washington. Chinese farmers do not practice soil conservation measures. They over-graze their animals and intensively cultivate fragile soil. They have deforested whole areas of their country to create more farm land, allowing even more soil to erode.
one third mercury comes from Asia	China's coal-burning power plants and factories emit roughly 40 million tons of sulphur-oxides per year, the most in the world and double those emissions produced by the U.S.
	"About one-third of all mercury released in North America comes from fossil-fuel burning in Asia",
	says Daniel Jacob, professor of atmospheric chemistry at Harvard University. Mercury is found is some coal deposits and is released into the air primarily by coal-burning power plants.
yellow haze	In a severe dust storm (illustrated top of page) in 1998, particle pollution levels in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia soared. Seattle air quality officials could not identify a local source of the pollution but, at the University of Washington, researchers' measurements showed that 75% of it came from China. At its worst, pollution from China can cast a faint yellow haze across North America to peter out somewhere over Greenland.
is it up to us	As China won't clean up its pollution, should Canadians be expected to add to our economic burden by cleaning it up here?
	Phyllis H. Hubeli
References:
	Being conned statistically speaking, Ensign, September 3, 2002, by Ron Thornton
	Asia's Wind-Borne Pollution a Hazardous Export to U.S. http://latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-042602asiasmog.story
	Asian Dust Over the Pacific Ocean 22-24 April 1998 http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/misc/980424.html
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