Chinese pollution

Japan hit by suffocating smog from China

Health warnings have been issued across Japan as the thick smog engulfing China has begun to move over the island nation; pollution levels across the country are reportedly skyrocketing.

RT,

4 February, 2013

­”Access to our air-pollution monitoring system has been almost impossible since last week, and the telephone here has been constantly ringing because worried people keep asking us about the impact on health," an environment ministry official told AFP.

Air pollution over western Japan has far exceeded government standards recently – up to 42 percent in some cases – straining the already-tense relations between the two Asian countries.

"China is our neighbor, and all sorts of problems happen between us all the time," local resident Takaharu Abiko told AFP. "It is very worrying. This is dangerous pollution, like poison, and we can't protect ourselves. It's scary."

Japanese officials and scientists have said that citizens should not panic over the pollution, as the smog was not as bad as in similar incidents two years ago. In 2011, a cloud of suffocating smog hung over western Japan for several days.

Authorities have also warned that people with respiratory illnesses and small children should take extra care to protect themselves from the health hazard.

More air pollution will arrive in western Japan on Tuesday, the Japanese Ministry of Environment said, adding that the country's skies will start to clear by Wednesday.

About three weeks ago, China was struck with a major upsurge in air pollution levels. By the end of January, the government was forced to announce that the air pollution presented a health threat. The increase in pollution is mostly a result of the boom in factory manufacturing in China.

Beijing Air Akin to Living in Smoking Lounge: Chart of the Day

Health warnings have been issued across Japan as the thick smog engulfing China has begun to move over the island nation; pollution levels across the country are reportedly skyrocketing.

Bloomberg,

31 January, 2013

­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 diseases, as measured by the U.S. Embassy. The 2013 daily average was 194 micrograms per cubic meter, with an intraday peak of 886 on Jan. 12, the data show. By contrast, PM2.5 levels averaged 166.6 in 16 airport smoking lounges in the U.S., said a 2012 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Levels exceeded 1,000 in Fairbanks, Alaska during a 2004 wildfire that engulfed 6.6 million acres, the state’s website says.

“Unlike cigarette smoking, exposure to ambient air pollution is involuntary and ubiquitously effects entire populations,” C. Arden Pope III, a professor at Brigham Young University who studies the health effects of air pollution, said in an e-mail.

The city’s government this week ordered some cars off its roads, closed factories and recommended that its 20 million residents avoid outdoor activities as air pollution levels hit hazardous for a fifth consecutive day yesterday. Some flights from Beijing Capital International Airport were canceled because of low visibility. Premier Wen Jiabao said authorities should give people hope through actions.

The WHO recommends 24-hour exposure of no higher than 25 micrograms per cubic meter. Exposure to PM2.5 contributed to 8,572 premature deaths in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xi’an in 2012, according to estimates by Greenpeace and Peking University’s School of Public Health. China, which the World Bank estimates has 16 of the 20 most-polluted cities globally, is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

“China will continue to advance the cause of environment protection and take all kinds of effective measures to control pollution and emissions,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lei said in Beijing yesterday. PM2.5 refers to airborne pollutants smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, which are able to penetrate deep into lungs and even the blood stream.