The scenic Shanghai skyline. Image credit: hxdbzxy/Shutterstock
China has met harsh criticism for its air pollution as of late, but now scientists have quantified just how much of that pollution comes from industry outsourced from other countries. And, in a kind of environmental karma, the numbers show that a lot of China's air pollution makes its way back to the western U.S.
Nine scientists spent the last two years combing through economic and emissions data and found that a good fraction of China's air pollution comes from the manufacture of products destined for export: 36 percent of anthropogenic sulfur dioxide, 27 percent of nitrogen oxides, 22 percent of carbon monoxide and 17 percent of black carbon. This means that other countries, like the Unites States, are essentially sending their pollution production overseas. And some of the consequences are just now becoming, er, clear.
In the U.S. in recent years, for ...
