[mobglob-discuss] [Infoshop News] A two-mile-thick Smog Cloud Threatens Millions (fwd)

[Tom_Childs at Douglas.BC.CA]

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To: "Infoshop" <infoshop-news at infoshop.org>
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        "SpectreZine" <info at spectrezine.org>
Subject: [Infoshop News] A two-mile-thick Smog Cloud Threatens Millions

Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 12:40:16 -0700



http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020812/sc_nm/environment
_asia_cloud_dc_3

Asian Smog Cloud Threatens Millions, Says U.N.
Mon Aug 12, 8:17 AM ET
By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - A two-mile-thick cloud of pollution shrouding
southern Asia is threatening the lives of millions of people in
the region and could have an impact much further afield, according
to a U.N.-sponsored study.

It said the cloud, a toxic cocktail of ash, acids, aerosols and
other particles, was damaging agriculture and changing rainfall
patterns across the region which stretches from Afghanistan to Sri
Lanka.

The lives of millions of people were at risk from drought and
flooding as rainfall patterns were radically altered, with dire
implications for economic growth and health.

"We have an early warning. We have clear information and we
already have some impact. But we need much, much more
information," U.N Environment Program chief Klaus Toepfer told a
news conference.

"There are also global implications not least because a pollution
parcel like this, which stretches three km high, can travel half
way round the globe in a week."

Toepfer said the cloud was the result of forest fires, the burning
of agricultural wastes, dramatic increases in the burning of
fossil fuels in vehicles, industries and power stations and
emissions from millions of inefficient cookers.

He said the U.N.'s preliminary report into what it dubbed the
"Asian Brown Cloud" was a timely reminder to the upcoming Earth
Summit in Johannesburg that action, not words, was vital to the
future of the planet.

"The huge pollution problem emerging in Asia encapsulates the
threats and challenges that the summit needs to urgently address,"
he said.

"We have the initial findings and the technological and financial
resources available. Let's now develop the science and find the
political and moral will to achieve this for the sake of Asia, for
the sake of the world," he added.

RESPIRATORY DISEASE RISK

Professor Victor Ramanathan, one of the more than 200 scientists
involved in the study, said the cloud was cutting the amount of
solar energy hitting the earth's surface beneath it by up to 15
percent.

"We had expected a drop in sunlight hitting the earth and sea, but
not one of this magnitude," he said.

At the same time the cloud's heat-absorbing properties were
warming the lower atmosphere considerably, and the combination was
altering the winter monsoon, leading to a sharp reduction in
rainfall over parts of north-western Asia and a corresponding rise
in rainfall over the eastern coast of Asia.

The report calculated that the cloud -- 80 percent of which was
man-made -- could cut rainfall over northwest Pakistan,
Afghanistan, western China and western central Asia by up to 40
percent.

Apart from drastically altering rainfall patterns, the cloud was
also making the rain acid, damaging crops and trees, and
threatening hundreds of thousands of people with respiratory
disease.

Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen -- one of the first scientists to
identify the causes of the hole in the ozone layer and also
involved in the U.N. report -- said up to two million people in
India alone were dying each year from atmospheric pollution.

"If present trends as they are continue, then we have a very
serious problem," he said.

The report called for special monitoring stations to be set up
watch the behavior of the cloud and its impact on people and the
environment.

"The concern is that the regional and global impacts of the haze
are set to intensify over the next 30 years as the population of
the Asian region rises to an estimated five billion people," the
report said.

A spokeswoman for environmental group Friends of the Earth said
urgent action was needed.

"Actions must include phasing out fossil fuels and replacing them
with clean, green, renewable energy and tough laws to protect the
world's forests," she said.

=========
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