Editorial: An ill wind gathers

Thursday, June 15, 2006 | 7:19 a.m.

High in the Sierra Nevada near Lake Tahoe, atmosphere detection filters are being fouled by increasing amounts of sulfur compounds, carbon and the other byproducts of coal combustion.

But the pollutants aren't coming from U.S. urban centers. They're from China, researchers say. According to a recent story by The New York Times, China's coal-burning output of soot, toxic chemicals and global-warming gases is, over the next 25 years, expected to exceed that of all industrialized countries combined.

In China, the Times reports, the sulfur dioxide emitted by coal burning contributes to 400,000 premature deaths annually and creates acid rain that has poisoned that nation's surface waters, forests and crops. But it is not just the Chinese who suffer. In April a dense cloud of pollutants traveled from northern China to mountaintop monitors in California, Oregon and Washington.

Chinese officials are trying to do better, the Times says. They have set a five-year goal to reduce by 20 percent the amount of energy used to produce goods and services, and they have enacted strict fuel-economy standards for all new vehicles. They are exploring energy alternatives, but coal remains the cheaper fuel of choice. And Chinese officials freely admit that they often miss their own deadlines.

What is happening in China shows how much one government's energy decisions can affect the global environment. And the United States, which has the money and technology to install pollution controls and develop alternatives, is hardly doing anything.

Experts told the Times that the average American consumes more energy and releases 10 times the carbon dioxide than the average Chinese citizen. U.S. fuel-economy standards are less strict than China's new ones. And the Bush administration has loosened, rather than strengthened, air pollution control requirements on coal-fired plants and continues to reject the Kyoto Protocol treaty to reduce emissions of global-warming gases.

By offering China assistance on developing cleaner technologies and alternatives, the United States could become a leader in global pollution control while developing better relations with China. But it would seem somewhat hypocritical for the current administration to tell other nations how environmental cleanup can be improved when we need so much improvement here at home.