China's exports linked to western U.S. air pollution
January 21, 2014
(CNN) -- Pollution doesn't respect national borders.
Outsourcing manufacturing to China may have resulted in less pollution in some parts of the United States, but other regions have lesser air quality because of U.S.-bound Chinese products, a new study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds.
"Pollution from China is having an effect in the U.S., and we need to recognize how that is affecting both our background ozone levels and also particulates that are reaching the West Coast," said study co-author Don Wuebbles, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.