
California Pollution: Made in China? - undo
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/12/01/california-pollution-made-in-china/?mg=blogs-wsj&url=http%253A%252F%252Fblogs.wsj.com%252Fchinarealtime%252F2010%252F12%252F01%252Fcalifornia-pollution-made-in-china
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adamfeldman
As we learn more about how global systems are connected, it's going to be
fascinating to watch the geopolitics work themselves out.

So far a number of signs point to many effects of pollution occurring oceans
away from the polluter. This won't be fun to work out, because much of
international relations is based around well-defined borders in the proximity
of the landmass of the country itself. But winds and waves know no limits.....

EDIT: e.g.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch),
[http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100809/full/news.2010.396.ht...](http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100809/full/news.2010.396.html)

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maerF0x0
NOTE: 2010 article

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manicdee
There was a science fiction short story I read about someone who was an
officer in the pollution control agency in some random city in the USA. This
officer was tracking down an illegal vehicle (it was petrol powered, and being
picked up by city-wide microphones). It turns out the owner of the vehicle was
the head honcho of the pollution control agency, who had seen the pollution
from China reaching the Eastern seaboard of the USA and decided it was game
over: no point complying with pollution regulations when the pollution from
China was going to kill everyone anyway.

From memory the story was called "The Breath of the Dragon". I think it was in
an Isaac Asimov "Analog" magazine.

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judk
Flag this post, because HN is nowhere near mature enough to have an
intelligent conversation about this topic.

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GigabyteCoin
What a terrible article...

It claims there is 'A lot' of pollution coming from China specifically and
ending up in California.

The way they deduced this 'fact' is that 208Pb levels spiked at the same times
in both China and California. That tells you absolutely nothing.

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jamesaguilar
This comment is not accurate. Both locations measured were in California. The
correlation to Asia is the timing of the spikes and dust storms in Asia.

Not a climate scientist, so I don't know how good of an argument that is, but
if you're going to post a strongly worded response you best characterize the
opposing arguments correctly.

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kaybe
The correlation is the ratio of the lead isotopes, which is specific for that
Asien region. Lead from other sources has a different isotope ratio. (Don't
have data right now so I don't know how specific it is.) (Of course, mixing
has to be taken into account when backtracking.)

It is actually a pretty good argument. However, it only applies to PM2.5 lead
itself, since different materials can behave very differently (chemistry etc).
Also, how and where the lead came from the metal ores and coal into the air is
not part of the research.

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itchitawa
In other news - China Global Warming: Made in America?

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goggles99
How ironic that CA made such swift and strangling economic regulations that
all the factories moved to china or shut down.

Now we have no control of the egregious pollution that China produces and the
world (including CA) is far worse off because of it.

Why can't politicians and activists just have a little foresight for a change?
This kind of thing always seems to happen. Unintended consequences will always
happen, but when people warned of this years ago and the powers that be did
not listen... SMH

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omegaworks
I'm not sure how the situation you describe isn't a catch-22.

You state that if CA regulates their factories, for example: requiring that
they meet strict pollution standards, they will move. When they move, CA no
longer has jurisdiction over the excrement they shoot into the air.

So you state that CA should just not regulate their factories.

This doesn't sound like a solution at all.

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thrownaway2424
The solution is to tax goods originating in places with inferior environmental
(or labor, or human rights, or whatever you care about) standards to the
degree that the difference in regulatory costs is moot.

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goggles99
Good luck telling voters that everything at Walmart now costs twice as much.
Our economy and infrastructure is now dependent on cheap goods from China.
Peoples perceived standards of living have gone up because we buy all this
cheap garbage.

What career politician is going to do this?

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thrownaway2424
I'm not saying people would accept this. Most people are selfish, craven, and
ignorant. What I am saying is it is immoral to require standards of production
for your own citizens, but allow free trade with nations that lack such
standards.

