Population growth is undermining modest gains in the Chesapeake Bay cleanup, according to regional reports released yesterday.
Furthermore, pollution decreases in most of the bay's major tributaries are still too small to prevent Virginia and its bay-state neighbors from missing a federal deadline to improve water quality.
The reports by the Chesapeake Bay Program, of which Virginia is a part, and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, add to the drumbeat of warnings that the bay can't be saved at the current pace...
From france24.com
Chinese pollution quietly takes toll in Japan
Mount Zao is whipped every year by wet winds from across the Sea of Japan (East Sea) that form layers of ice and snow that shine like crystals. The Japanese call them "juhyo," or ice trees.
Skiiers from Japan and other Asian nations regularly fly to the 1,600-metre (5,280-foot) mountain just for a glimpse of the juhyo, which local people describe as little monsters for their intricate twisted shapes.
Fumitaka Yanagisawa, an assistant professor of Yamagata University who has studied the juhyo for nearly two decades, warns that the frost is increasingly mixed with acid, spelling danger for the trees' future.
This year he recorded the highest yet levels of acid, "which could have severe ramifications on the eco-system," he said.
Looking at satellite data, he and another professor, Junichi Kudo of Tohoku University, concluded that the acid in the trees came from sulfur produced at factories in China's Shanxi province...
Mount Zao is only one example of pollution hitting Japan from China, where factory emissions are causing international concern as its economy soars ahead.
Some schools in southern Japan and South Korea have occasionally curbed activities because of toxic chemical smog from China's factories or sand storms from the Gobi Desert caused by rampant deforestation...
From the stamfordadvocate.com
Difficulties in reducing air pollution
A warning from environmentalists that Connecticut is in danger of falling short on its goal to reduce air pollution should underline the fact that a double-barreled problem is at least partially responsible: lack of support from the federal government on one side and from individuals on the other.
According to a Connecticut Climate Coalition report, the state's aim of returning pollution to its 1990 level is being impeded by motor vehicle emissions, which increased by 20 percent between 1990 and 2005. That occurred as pollutants emitted by industrial and commercial sources went down, including a 12.2 percent decline from electric power plants.
For their part, state officials have been trying to address the problem with better mass transit, including a massive investment in railroad improvements to reduce commuter reliance on personal vehicles. There are good arguments that Connecticut should have started such initiatives long before it did, and that the pace of improvements, including such basic requirements as increasing the amount of commuter parking at railroad stations, has lagged.
But that aside, the coalition, joined by the state Department of Environmental Protection, said that driving patterns have been largely responsible to putting pollution reduction "off track." They have included an overall trend toward purchase of fuel-consuming sport-utility vehicles, as well as living patterns that require longer drives between home and work.
From the dailytimes.com.pk
Philippine rivers destroyed by pollution
Fifty rivers in the Philippines have been destroyed because people are using them to dump their rubbish, leaving some ecologically dead, an official said Wednesday.
Of the country’s 421 major rivers and 20 large river basins, 50 are “highly degraded because of man’s abuse and neglect,” Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Joselito Atienza said in a statement. “History tells us that rivers have played an important role in the country’s economic growth. Yet, we have disregarded this and continue to dirty our rivers and lakes by turning them into giant septic tanks and trash bins,” he added.
One of the ecologically dead rivers is the Pasig which bisects Manila. The government has been relocating thousands of squatters from its banks, but those who remain “continue to throw their domestic waste into the river,” he said. Atienza said 53 percent of the pollution in Philippine rivers is due to domestic waste.
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