29% of Bay Area's particulate air pollution comes from across the Pacific (2010) | Hacker News Reader

29% of Bay Area's particulate air pollution comes from across the Pacific (2010)

pubs.acs.org

77 pointsbalsam65 comments

This is an article from 2008 about dust storms from the Gobi travelling across the Pacific; this isn't the main pollution problem in China today.

The dust coming in from the Gobi was a result of deforestation and poor land management policies, which were pretty much cleaned up for the Olympics and have remained quite fixed. We haven't had a real dust storm in Beijing since early 2008, I think, and definitely not one in the last 4 years.

The PM2.5 today is not carried by dust from the Gobi, but it still exists, of course. Ironically, the overall effect today is much worse than it was in 2008 (maybe because it just stays in Asia now?). I'm not sure if the pollution can still travel across the pacific without the huge dust storms of the past.

Here is some more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Dust

All of the info in the article is out of date though. I wish I could find something more up to date. Edit: a recent dust storm in March 2013 that made its way to Japan:

* http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1187348/dust-storms-a...

* http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/03/12/national/tokyo-d...

I remember this, but I didn't think it was particularly bad, at least the sky didn't turn yellow. The air was definitely crappy though, but once it all blew out (well, to Japan), it was quite clean afterwards.

Perhaps the solution to China's pollution problems are giant fans (Japan can then build giant robots to destroy these fans).

I experienced a dust storm in Japan that started in China back in 2009 or 2010 so I think problems still do exist post-olympics (but perhaps greatly diminished from before? you'd know better than me on this)

But I totally agree that the coal residues are the major issue at hand.

When I lived in China in 2002, we had more than a few dust storms where the sky would turn completely yellow...it is a bizarre surreal experience.

On my recent tour of duty starting in late 2007, I only experienced one dust storm in the spring of 2008, then nothing. I haven't seen one for a very long time, but it could be that they've just solved the problem for Beijing (doubtful, since we are right smack next to Inner Mongolia).

This is like the only thing...the only thing...that has gotten better in China while I've been here!

> This is like the only thing...the only thing...that has gotten better in China while I've been here!

Slightly off topic, but what are the things that have gotten much worse?

Traffic, pollution, Internet censorship and VPN attacks, rent, visa rules, taxes.

I really wish I could have gone to Beijing when people still rode bikes. Really loved how that looked in photographs.

I was in Beijing in winter 1999/2000 when the morning sea of bicycles thing was still active. Precious memories that I won't experience again.

That dust storm earlier this year certainly did turn the sky yellow at my place in Tokyo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/poswald/8544202652/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/poswald/8544418994/

It was one of the strangest weather phenomenons: it came and went within a few hours.

That is quite typical of a dust storm actually. It is only on for an hour or so then it blows itself out. Anyways, I haven't seen one of those since 2008, though it was quite bad in March, maybe we just avoided the yellow skies while Tokyo didn't?

If we want to do anything about CO2 and pollution in the atmosphere, the low hanging fruit is China.

Every country has stuff it can do, but China is on the 80% side of the 80/20 rule.

I wonder if there will ever be a war over something like this.

Somehow I doubt full-scale military action is conducive to lowered emissions.

Water, not CO2, and less of it, not more, but I think that does rate as "something like this":

http://missingpeace.eu/en/2013/06/egyptian-cabinet-discuss-w... (Ethiopia is building a hydro-electric dam; filling its lake will mean less water will flow into Egypt for a while; seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Ethiopian_Renaissance_Dam... )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_conflict

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_conflict_between_Ethiopia...

Probably not any time soon, because at present that would mean going to war with China.

I live in Tokyo, which is obviously a lot closer to China than the Bay Area is, and here we have PM 2.5 pollution reports on the news a lot like the regular weather report. On the worst days I throw on a 3M respirator[1] before I ride my bike across town, which makes me look like a character from some kind of post-apocalypse video game.

I am glad to see articles like this, because hopefully hard numbers will provide a concrete basis for diplomatic/economic pressure to make it better.

Even if the Chinese leaders are willing to pursue economic growth even at the tremendous cost of making the air in Beijing[2] so bad that (rich) kids go to preschool in pressurized tents, I don't want to have to keep my kid indoors all the way across the Sea of Japan in Tokyo -- but on the worst days, we do (on the advice of the pediatrician).

(In that sense, I am selfishly glad it is reaching the US west coast -- because the US has a lot more leverage to influence China's behavior than does Japan.)

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001NDN29O/ref=s9_qpp_gw_p6...

[2]: https://www.google.com/search?q=beijing+air&client=safari&rl...

I wonder if this will raise the value of land in Western China (or west of China), out of the pollution stream.

Even Kunming has pollution that is considered bad (though much better than east China). I don't think the environment gets much better in Kazakhstan, they are still industrializing. Once you hit Iran, it is almost as bad as China.

The low hanging fruit is always getting others doing something. I for myself see the low hanging fruits with the things I can do or influence.

Perhaps "local hanging fruit"? ;)

Honestly there isn't much you can do. Most pollution is industrial, and most industrial pollution is not in the US.

Recycling just causes more pollution, so that doesn't help. You can turn lights off and install CFL's, but the difference is tiny.

Riding a bike vs driving actually causes more pollution (because farms make lots of pollution) [unless you replace exercise you anyway do with bike riding].

Coal burning in China is so bad that anything you can do is so utterly dwarfed by it as to almost be pointless.

Emissions per capita in China are well under half of those in the US so something doesn't add up about your post.

Emissions of pollution or emissions of CO2?

Plus China has a LOT of people, and a TON of them are rural and very poor - it's not exactly the preferred way to reduce emissions (of any kind).

I think the point is, China isn't the one that needs to reduce, it is the US.

Nope. China.

The only reason China has reasonably good numbers is that most of their population lives in miserable poverty.

Regardless, it should be measured on per capita, and China are WAY a head. So you are arguing to measure different countries in different ways. This seems inherently unfair.

C02 per capita, China: 5.77 tons

CO2 per capita, US: 17.28 tons

Population, China: 1,334 million

Population, US: 313 million

Total CO2 emissions, China: 7.754 million tons

Total CO2 emissions, US: 5.408 million tons

(Source: Google queries).

Note that this is CO2 emissions, where the article is discussion particulates. Given emissions controls (or lack thereof), China's going to be emitting far more particulate matter than the US. Factor in prevailing westerly winds and the lack of coal-burning facilities in California, and most particulate matter will come from elsewhere. Note too that long-range particulates are more likely to be small, which is to say, more harmful to health.

China's coal consumption has been growing dramatically (it's roughly paralleled, and I'd argue, fed, its industrial and GDP growth), so that China has surpassed the US within recent years on total (though not per-capita) emissions. It's on track for the latter. You can also argue that China uses much of its coal (about 40%) for industrial uses, and exports much of that manufacture, so that the US and other importers of Chinese products have essentially outsourced not only jobs but carbon emissions and pollution.

As for personal action to reduce CO2 emissions: lighting is actually pretty good low-hanging fruit. Dittos reducing your transportation usage (or sharing rides). And especially air travel. Huge contributor there.

Who cares about CO2? (There is a serious obsession with CO2 in the world right now.)

Pollution is the problem here. And it's a real bad problem.

> And especially air travel. Huge contributor there.

Sigh. OK, lets talk about CO2: http://www.travelmatters.org/calculator/individual/methodolo...

Airplanes produce less CO2 per passenger mile than buses. And far less than cars.

And if you do want to talk about CO2, how about CO2 per GDP? After all we can't keep the entire world in poverty in order to reduce CO2. In that measure the US is much better than China.

As I've said elsewhere, the only reason China has low numbers is because of the human misery of their poor population.

Who cares about CO2?

I do. Among other things.

Airplanes produce less CO2 per passenger mile than buses.

Airplanes are used to travel much further distances than buses. And by reducing the marginal cost of that travel, greatly increase the total amount traveled. So while a typical daily motor vehicle trip is on the order of 35 miles (based on average annual miles driven in the US), air flights are typically 10-100 times that (300-3000) or more. And with take-off and altitude gain, short-haul flights are relatively less efficient than long-haul. The per-trip CO2 emissions are thus vastly higher -- you're dividing by 2-4, but multiplying by 10-100.

Additionally, many of the modes listed on your reference can substitute electricity (which can be generated from non-fossil sources). Heavier-than-air travel pretty much doesn't exist without fossil fuels: liquid hydrocarbons are simply too dense, cheap, and versatile a fuel and energy carrier. The maths on biofuels simply don't work out, except at very low fractions of existing fossil fuel use. Substituting 10% of present oil consumption biofuels might be possible), but with an effective cost of $600/barrel or more, and that 10% would have to supply portable, emergency, and defense, as well as commercial aviation needs. I see lighter-than-air craft as more viable in a not too distant future.

And if you do want to talk about CO2, how about CO2 per GDP?

That works out roughly to the amount of fossil fuels used per unit GDP, though it varies based on fuel source (which I don't factor in). I used Wolfram-Alpha to look up GDP per quadrillion BTUs a couple months back:

For China & India, it's about $60b/quad.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=china+GDP+%2F+%28total+...

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=india+GDP+%2F+%28total+...

And for comparison, the United States -- we use far more energy, but use it far more efficiently as well at $150b/quad: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=United+States++GDP+%2F+... But nothing like the Swiss at just a hair under $400b/quad: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Switzerland+GDP+%2F+%28...

Italy shows in at ~$275b, Germany ~200 (plot's a bit wonky), UK ~$250b/quad, Spain ~$240b/quad, Japan ~$250b/quad, Russia ~$40b/quad.

Incidentally, growth in GDP and energy use for China & India:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=china+total+primary+ene...

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=india+total+primary+ene...

After all we can't keep the entire world in poverty in order to reduce CO2.

I see no real choice in the matter. GDP's going to get tanked one way or othe other (climate change, peak oil, peak everything). We're on an unsustainable path. Not cutting carbon emissions is going to be rather markedly worse than cutting them, in the long run (though next quarter's profits will take a hit in the latter case but not former). And we're going to have to learn to get by on vastly fewer fossil fuels as well.

As I've said elsewhere, the only reason China has low numbers is because of the human misery of their poor population.

Given their present energy mix, yes. However if they were to pursue renewables to a maximum extent, you might be proven wrong (I've got some doubts on the feasibility of this as well, but given other alternatives, it's really the only option we've got).

> Riding a bike vs driving actually causes more pollution (because farms make lots of pollution) [unless you replace exercise you anyway do with bike riding].

Can you explain or provide a reference? Are you suggesting that because you consume more calories if you exercise, and your food comes from farms, the extra farm pollution is worse than what your car would have produced?

Yes, and because your body is much less efficient at converting that energy into motion than a car is.

This assumes that you will eat more from the exercise--many Americans eat more than they need to, and doing something for your health makes you more conscious of that.

I know. I said that explicitly in my original message - if you are bicycling as your form of exercise then this doesn't apply.

It's only if you are bicycling extra - then you end up eating more.

What kind of silly propaganda made you read where biking causes more pollution than driving?! btw, if you look at CO2 emission and greenhouse gas emission, you'll find that USA and CHINA are pretty much tete a tete: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse...

Obviously, emission pro-capita is quite different. So, yes, the low hanging fruit it in your living room pretty much.

> What kind of silly propaganda made you read where biking causes more pollution than driving?

Do the math. It's quite clear. You don't realize just how much fuel (diesel) farms use to grow that food, and then your body is not as efficient at converting the food into motion. It's a double whammy and you end up with cars being more efficient than bicycles.

> Obviously, emission pro-capita is quite different.

Yes. Obviously. And since this article is talking about pollution why would you even look at CO2 numbers?

I commute 30km a day, consuming around 600 kcalories (it's about (0.1 calories per kg per minute for a 70kg adult going 25kmh). Driving would cost me about 21000 kcal (0.7 gallons a day, that is 0.7 * 31000 kcal in a gallon of diesel). So my car is about 36 times less efficient than me.

Do yourself a favour and stop watching fox news.

@ars: You're not doing the math. You're just repeating the same claim, which seems wrong, and probably is wrong. You should certainly not be surprised that you're not convincing anyone. And saying "It's quite clear" is really rich, because, of course, it is not clear at all.

I think the best rebuttal has to do with the cost. The cost of buying, fueling, and maintaining a car is much greater than that of a bicycle plus the incremental food cost for the rider.

Additionally, @wes-exp has pointed to figures (just concerning MPG equivalent, not counting buying and maintaining) that have bicycles much more efficient than cars.

"Riding a bike vs driving actually causes more pollution (because farms make lots of pollution) [unless you replace exercise you anyway do with bike riding]."

That is totally nonsense. You simply invented that nonsense.

Let's put some numbers in : My bike weights 15kg, my body 85. So I move around 100kg with my bike. My small Toyota weights naked 1500kg, so I am moving 1700kg around(including my weight and gas or fuel as we call it).

1700/100 = 17 times more weight.

I move around at 30km/h max speed with my bike, normally around 15 or so. With my car it is over 80km/h.

The resistance f the air is proportional to the square of the velocity so we are using over 28 times more energy per kg(as velocity resistance surpasses rolling resistance by far).

So that's it :28x17 = 476 times more energy

So let's consider half of that because velocity resistance is going to be similar to rolling resistance somewhere in the middle, that's over 200 times more energy, but then you have to add the car shape that exposes way more than 5 times my surface on the bike to wind.

Farms don't make lots of pollution, and their pollution is natural, My grandpas had a farm. Dung is not the same kind of pollution than mercury or exotic organic compounds in the car's paint, or in the car's polymers, or in diesel exhaust.

Lots of numbers and you ignored the only two important ones because it doesn't fit with your preconceived notion.

1: The efficiency of converting that energy into motion. A car is MUCH MUCH more efficient than a person.

2: The amount of energy from diesel needed to grow those food calories in the first place. Again, a car comes out way way ahead.

> Farms don't make lots of pollution, and their pollution is natural, My grandpas had a farm .... not the same kind of pollution .... in diesel exhaust.

A farm with no tractor. Interesting. Maybe in your grandpas day, but certainly not today. Farms use a TON of diesel to grow that food.

If both of those were correct, it would cost more to cycle 10 miles every day than it would cost to drive 10 miles every day. It doesn't, therefore your points are wrong.

Except it does actually cost more to cycle. You just don't notice because when you buy food it doesn't have a label saying where you used those calories.

It does depend on what you choose to eat though. If you eat beans vs burgers. The cheap food comes close enough to driving to not matter, but most people eat nicer food and then it's more expensive to bicycle.

No it doesn't I used to cycle over 16 miles day and I did not eat any more food - I just lost weight which made me healthier.

I'm sorry, but this is crazy science.

Looking at kilojoules and efficiency of energy, a bicycle is much more efficient on the order of hundreds, just looking at mechanical resistance and the energy needed to get the vehicle moving.

Also, while competitive/fast cycling requires large amounts of food to sustain, the extra fuel needed to commute by bike doesn't require much more than an extra handful of almonds or in my case, an extra beer in the evening.

The human body gets more efficient at a given exercise over time –– that's why calories-in/calories-out is never an equal proposition in a trained athlete (and regular bike commuting is in some ways "training.")

If you break it down into prices, bike commuting might cost an extra $1-$2 in food per day. OK, fine. However, that mitigates the $3-4 in fuel cost for mileage over a 20 mile commute. Maintenance costs on a bike are negligible compared to a car: $100 in chains, cassettes and brake pads annually vs. the $1,000-2,000 in usual car maintenance costs per year (PLUS, repairs).

As for environmental costs: yes a bike requires carbon to build and transport across the Pacific. But the heavy huffing-and-puffing C02 contributions of a cyclist is negligible to that of a car.

> Except it does actually cost more to cycle.

No, this is plainly wrong.

Don't take my word for it, work out the cost per mile for yourself. You'll quickly see that you have to choose ridiculously low car costs vs expensive, low calorie foods to get it remotely close. With average car prices vs cheap food...it isn't even a contest.

Lets look at a model. You are making the claim, so you provide the cited numbers to fill it in.

To begin with - lets assume all joules are equally polluting. This isn't true, but we'll get to that.

Jp = the number of joules needed to move a person a distance.

Je = the number of joules needed to deliver Jp to the point of use.

Jt = the total number of joules for a mode of transport

Simply:

Jt = Jp + Je

Therefore a first approximation is to compare Jt(bike) with Jt(car)

However there are other factors that must be accounted for in this equation:

Jm - the total number of joules needed to manufacture the transport (full supply chain), and deliver it to first point of use.

Jl - the number of joules needed by a person anyway - farming can't just be eliminated, people require food to remain people. (Jl stands for joule's life)

Jl' - the number of joules needed to transport the minimal "keep people living" joules to point of use.

It should be noted, that Je and Jl' are related in the bike case, so Je in the bike case will only be the extra energy required to deliver additional food, not the energy required if the Je for a bike were delivered in an entirely separate manner. With Je for a car - the energy source, energy delivery etc are an entirely different infrastructure.

So factoring those in we get:

Jt = Jp + Je + Jm + Jl + Jl'

Of course - at the beginning I mentioned not all joules are created equal. So we need some sort of pollution index. I don't know a simple polution index formula, but assuming it exists, we will call it P. The output will be a normalized value that can be simply added to understand total polution. So:

P(Jt)= P(Jp) + P(Je) + P(Jm) + P(Jl) + P(Jl')

I want to note about the pollution function - the pollution of P(Jp) is essentially 0 in the bike case, because it is just metabolism. P(Jl) will most always be close 0, because it is metabolism again. The polution from delivery is captured in other variables.

This model could be further refined into pollution per travelled km, rather than the pollution per joule used. It could be better refined by including the Jm costs as an amortization of efficiency over the total number of travelled km. Etc. But for now, the model as stands is a good way of determining the claims first order validity.

According to this calculator http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/energy.html

A 155 lb. cyclist gets about 75mpg equivalent, factoring in a typical diet. The vegan gets 145mpg. The site also claims that even with an all-beef diet, cycling is more efficient than driving.

A physics professor (http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/mpg-of-a-human/) gets similar results: factoring in the carbon footprint of extra food consumed, biking comes in at roughly 70–130 MPG.

Even these analyses don't seem to include the embodied energy it takes to manufacture a car, which is huge and should be considered a tax on every mile driven. Bicycle manufacturing is obviously much less energy-intensive.

"Riding a bike vs driving actually causes more pollution (because farms make lots of pollution) [unless you replace exercise you anyway do with bike riding]."

This is a very interesting point, do you have some numbers to back that claim? Food production costs, car production, oil production etc.?

Even lower hanging fruit is the stupid fires in Indonesia (both wildfires and to clear land). We could pay to either employ those farmers in something else, or to upgrade how they manage their land, for cheaper than CO2/pollution savings in US industry.

Are wildfires in Indonesia stupid? Some ecosystems rely on periodic naturally occurring wildfires.

They're not naturally occurring, they're set either accidentally or intentionally by humans for the most part, either to clear the land or in the process of stealing stuff (either from plantations, or as plantations, depending on your politics).

The scary thing is people are draining the peat bogs; if those catch on fire (peat is a great fuel, basically dirty coal), a lot of carbon goes into the atmosphere which would otherwise have been sequestered for centuries+.

I'm fine with small wildfires clearing out fuel in a place which otherwise builds up fuel for bigger fires, but that's not Indonesia.

CO2 from concrete manufacture is a big issue. Considering that all the buildings being built here are concrete construction, I think China is significantly higher output than a few measly brush fires

There is economic benefit to cement production and concrete construction (theoretically), whereas there is essentially no economic benefit from brush fires, and the savings from slash-and-burn vs. regular clearing is tiny.

A lot of this pollution is just a remnant from when China's economy was still largely manufacturing-based. Now that this percentage is beginning to change, (mid 30s in mid 2000s down to high 20s now), the government seems earnest in their attempts to curb pollution.

See:

http://www.businessinsider.com/china-pollution-business-oppo...

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/01/31/china-diesel-standa...

Around Beijing, the problem is (1) use of coal as fuel with outdated poorly maintained energy producing equipment, (2) use of coal directly by peasants in the winter to keep warm (in Hebei), and (3) lots of cars with poor fuel quality (even if the emissions equipment is working, they aren't given the right quality of fuel). The solutions are quite simple: upgrade the equipment, get farmers to use natural gas for warming, and import the good black stuff from Saudi, not the cheap bad stuff (Sinopec is evil).

I prefer to blame 串儿 and excessive 中南海 smokers

Blaming the Chuan (outdoor BBQ) vendors is quite funny; I feel like the officials are trying to deflect blame for their black Audi's running on crappy fuel.

and with China's huge investments in Mongolian coal mines, it's not about to get much better any time soon :(

Depends on (a) the quality of the coal (chinese coal tends to be quite bad, American coal is much cleaner) and the quality of the emissions equipment in whatever is burning the coal (Chinese environment regulations are bad, plant owners tend to skim and use outdated equipment).

Compare to the US or Germany, where coal is still heavily used, but the environmental impact is much reduced.

2nd or 3rd order related :

    How much could a growing supply of airborne wildfire soot be contributing 
    to the decline of Greenland's ice reflectivity? How important is soot 
    to amplifying Greenland's melt?

http://www.outsideonline.com/adventure-travel/adventure-ethi...

If US companies stopped manufacturing their products in China, a part of this air pollution could be handled and prevented domestically. Ha!

I'm not sure why this study is interesting compared to the much more informative and amazing animation that NASA put out a few years ago, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtJzn8A725w

I would like to see some numbers which tell which places in US are least affected by this kind of external pollution. As pollution from Asia is going to increase, it might make sense to look at these places especially for ppl with breathing issues.

Surprise! Pollution is a global issue, too!

It's time to start "thinking humanity", not "my country".

I truely hope a virus mutates the DNA of human sperm, or eggs; making the world population decline.

I'm getting a serious Poe's law vibe from this comment and username.

Benderism: save the world by killing all humans.

http://humanities.philosophy.objectivism.narkive.com/SivGxJB...

Most of the time I don't care about the de facto HN rule that only early adopters can downvote comments, but once in a while there's an occasion where it's really bloody annoying.

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