Trucks Power China’s Economy, at a Suffocating Cost

[rodeodance]

Source: nytimes


December 8, 2007
Trucks Power China’s Economy, at a Suffocating Cost
By KEITH BRADSHER

GUANGZHOU, China — Every night, columns of hulking blue and red freight trucks invade China’s major cities with a reverberating roar of engines and dark clouds of diesel exhaust so thick it dims headlights.

By daybreak in this sprawling metropolis in southeastern China, residents near thoroughfares who leave their windows open overnight find their faces stiff with a dark layer of diesel soot.

................

Trucks here burn diesel fuel contaminated with more than 130 times the pollution-causing sulfur that the United States allows in most diesel. While car sales in China are now growing even faster than truck sales, trucks are by far the largest source of street-level pollution.

Tiny particles of sulfur-laden soot penetrate deep into residents’ lungs, interfering with the absorption of oxygen. Nitrogen oxides from truck exhaust, which build all night because cities limit truck traffic by day, bind each morning with gasoline fumes from China’s growing car fleet to form dense smog that inflames lungs and can cause severe coughing and asthma............

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/08/world/asia/08trucks.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

[Deja Q]

1. And yet China signed Kyoto.

Tragic; even trains would be more effective.

[bhikkhu]

2. Trains have alwasy been more efficient.

"effective" depends upon the infrastructure. A rail network linking raw materials and ports to manufacturing, to distribution to retail or export centers works very well. The US had such a network once. I am unsure of what China has.

[lithiumbomb]

3. Steam, until recently

I believe they have quite a huge rail network. They were manufacturing steam locomotives until the 1990s I believe, and surely some of the network is still steam powered. They're probably in the same situation much of the west is in. While rail is more efficient, and can be more environmentally friendly, it's often cheaper to put your load on a truck instead.

[silverojo]

5. China is like the GOP

Never made a promise it wouldn't break. :mad:

[kurth]

4. It is truly horrific

A sight to behold and avoid.

[Fovea]

6. I saw photos from last year

and even places that are not urban are choking in smog.
China is killing itself for wealth.

[dysfunctional press]

7. not just itself...

the entire planet will suffer china's conversion to an industrial giant.

[Fovea]

8. I think we already are.

and that when you add the permafrost in, it does not look good.

[seriousstan]

9. What are the Kyoto restrictions on China?

[razzleberry]

10. none, except for reporting n/t