China's Pollution Quietly Taking Toll On Japanese Environment - AFP

[hatrack]

With a smile on her tanned face, skiier Kazumi Furukawa can vividly recall the time three years ago she stood here on Mount Zao and looked down at fir trees turned into glittering crystals. "The sky was cobalt blue and I could see the tiny snow crystals on the tips of the tree branches," Furukawa, 56, remembers.

But these days the natural phenomenon is growing rarer and scientists say the culprit is beyond Japan's control -- industrial pollution from China. Mount Zao is whipped every year by wet winds from across the Sea of Japan (East Sea) that form layers of ice and snow that shine like crystals. The Japanese call them "juhyo," or ice trees. Skiiers from Japan and other Asian nations regularly fly to the 1,600-metre (5,280-foot) mountain just for a glimpse of the juhyo, which local people describe as little monsters for their intricate twisted shapes.

Fumitaka Yanagisawa, an assistant professor of Yamagata University who has studied the juhyo for nearly two decades, warns that the frost is increasingly mixed with acid, spelling danger for the trees' future. This year he recorded the highest yet levels of acid, "which could have severe ramifications on the eco-system," he said.

Looking at satellite data, he and another professor, Junichi Kudo of Tohoku University, concluded that the acid in the trees came from sulfur produced at factories in China's Shanxi province. Since he first wrote about his research in a scientific journal in 2006, elementary school teachers have asked him to give lectures to local children. "It's hard to explain this kind of scientific evidence to children, but finally they seem to come up with the same question: 'What are you going to do about the problem?'" Yanagisawa said. He regretted that he had no good answer.

EDIT

http://www.france24.com/en/20080403-chinese-pollution-quietly-takes-toll-japan

[hogwyld]

1. It would be nice if we could encapsulate China

And let them keep their crap in their yard!