Weekly Wellness News

October 15, 2007

Feature: Cleaning Up the Sky

Recently, I spent a week in Seoul, South Korea. It's a fantastic city, with an intriguing combination of ancient history and modern urban living. There are approximately 23 million people in the greater Seoul metropolitan area, making it the second largest city in the world.

One of the only things I didn't like about Seoul was the smog. I went to the top of Seoul Tower, which is roughly in the center of the urban buildup to see the city and surrounding country. The population is very dense, and therefore doesn't extend all that far in any direction; still, you can't see the transition from city to country from the tower. The haze was thick enough that the sky was white on a sunny day, not blue.

And I had to breathe all that.

It's been said that breathing the air in Los Angeles is like smoking two packs of cigarettes per day. While statistics like that one are generally over-simplistic and biased, it is true that breathing air in modern cities is hazardous.

Smog can cause respiratory problems, short term and long term. It is especially problematic for asthmatics. It makes it difficult to breathe, as it reduces the amount of oxygen that makes it into the bloodstream. It also brings particulate and pollution into the lungs and blood, which can damage lung tissue and increase toxins throughout the body. For a good breakdown of all the damage polluted air can do to your lungs, check out EasyBreathers.

The worst pollution in the world currently is in the city of Beijing, China. This is one of the largest cities in the world, sure, but the pollution is far worse than other cities that are the same size or larger. Why? Quite simply, because not enough people in power have made a point of restricting emissions from vehicles and factories. The city is an environmental nightmare simply because nobody made clean air important in the past.

With the coming of the Olympics, China has decided to clean up the air in Beijing. Granted, some of the 'solutions' are superficial fixes, such as moving heavily polluting factories out of the city and into the surrounding country, but some of the changes are real steps in the right direction, like retiring aging busses and bringing in newer, alternative-fuel replacements.

It will be interesting to see how much of a change can be made in a year in Beijing. The most important lesson, if the air is cleaned up, will be that it can be done in the first place. I firmly believe we have not yet passed the point of no return. All we have to do is make clean air as important as production.

That's a big demand, though. As the world competes more and more to squeeze every last bit of waste out of every manufacturing and transport dollar, the demands of the world market directly contradict the needs of our biological and ecological systems.

There isn't an easy solution. Asking a country like China to change its ways is one thing, but we're in effect asking them to put thousands (or even millions) of people out of work if they can't compete for manufacturing with other countries... their very economic existence depends at the moment on being one of the least expensive places in the world to mass-produce consumer goods. How do we bring about that shift?

Beijing has decided to make clean air a priority, at least for the short term. Only time will tell if the changes will last. Still, we should celebrate their efforts and encourage the Chinese government to bring about more changes like these moving forward.

I know in my lifetime I won't see clean air over any major city the way I remember when I was young. However, perhaps my son will. I'm just happy to see that people are starting to wake up to the problem. I'll call that a win... it's a first step to great changes.

Resources:

• Easy Breathers [www.easybreathers.org]
• Will the 2008 Olympics in Beijing Showcase Pollution as Well as World-class Athletes? [knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu]

Other news

• News flash! Eat your veggies! What to eat and what to avoid to cut cancer risk [www.msnbc.msn.com]
• Put... the knife... down: Jewish ‘intactivists’ stop circumcising [www.msnbc.msn.com]
• Running your way to the grave...: Popular big-city marathons run health risks [www.msnbc.msn.com]

From the editor

I have finally settled in and am starting to figure out life in Korea. Like many places, the people are extremely friendly once they figure out you are trying your hardest in making the effort to communicate. We may not understand each other, but at least we can be confused happily.

For some reason, my feedback form is broken at the moment. I should have that fixed soon (I hope!). As always, however, you can leave comments at the end of every article on the website.

Healthy thoughts,
Jeff

Copyright 2007, Jeffrey Eliasen.
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