Letters: China's air quality worsened by American appetite for new stuff

Virginia Streitberger makes some very good points ("Olympics a way to learn about abuses by the Chinese," Aug. 26). One or two could be added.

The air-quality degradation that starts in China does not stay there, but contributes to acid rain and other problems around the world. Air pollution does not stop at national borders or even oceans.

As long as Americans have such an appetite for new stuff, nations like China and India will take advantage of it to the detriment of workers' welfare and environmental concerns.

In the early '70s a commission appointed by the California governor and headed by a Dr. Hagensmith, the researcher who linked California smog to automobile exhaust, concluded that the problems of air pollution would not be solved without a change in American lifestyle. Since then, the American lifestyle has become vastly more lavish and the air-quality problems have escaped California's borders and become world-wide.

Dale Watson

Crescent City