Dust storm in China - Research Paper Example

He, indeed, has showed an aversion to industrially produced because of the biological, chemical and industrial pathogens which can cause serious diseases and grave illness. Therefore, he prefers personally foraged food produced in natural setting. But in this industrial age, since industrially produced foods are much cheaper than the foods produced in a natural setting, modern people are in a dilemma whether they should eat those organic/ personally foraged foods which are “floating on a sinking sea of petroleum” or not.

But the question which arises here is: Is Michael Pollan aware of the fact that the nature itself has been polluted with the man-made chemical and biological industry? Natural disasters like dust storm in China have showed ample evidences in support of this claim that nature itself has been severely polluted by chemical and biological pollutants. Therefore, Pollan’s hope to get pollution free food from nature is also diminishing day by day. The Industrial and Chemical Pollutants in the Dust Storm in China Dust storm in China is considered as a natural and meteorological event which occurs normally in the arid and semi-arid areas of the world.

It is caused by a gust of wind which blows dust particles, sands and dirt from the dry plains. Dust storm ferries these particles with a geographical process of transportation, called “saltation and suspension” which involves moving the dust particles from one place to another through the air. It may occur in any part of the world where there are vast dry plains containing loose dust particles on the surface. It also occurs in China. Referring to the occurrence of dust storm in China, Gou and Xie comments, “North-west China lies in the inner part of the Asia-Europe continent, the climate is dry and there are many winds and desert storms” (1619).

But this dust storm in China is far more different from those in other parts of the world in terms of its threat to health. Researches show that the dust storms in China are more threatening to human health because of the industrial chemical pollutants they ferry, as referring to the threats posed by the Dust storm, Chiu and his co-authors note, “However, statistically significant associations were found between ADS events and hospital admissions for primary intra-cerebral hemorrhagic stroke” (778).

Because of the recent rapid industrial growth, China is releasing more industrial pollutants to its environment than ever. Though natural particles such as sand, earth particles, etc are less harmful to human health, the industrial pollutants such as sulfuric components, industrial ashes, vehicular lead, carbon monoxide, mercury, Zinc, chromium, cadmium, arsenic, copper, etc are seriously injurious to health. In this regard, they say, “Many epidemiologic studies have provided evidence of an association between airborne particles and daily mortality…Fine particles typically contain a mixture of soot, acid condensates, and sulfate and nitrate particles.

They are derived chiefly from combustion of fossil fuels” (Yang et al, 817). Scientists assert that naturally these components remain in composite forms which are not so much a threat to health. But due to the industrial growth of China, these carcinogenic materials are exhumed from the earth and used