Airborne crud from the China boom is settling in the High Sierra, according to this story my employer published today.

For China, the 21st century holds boundless possibilities. The awakening economic giant could surpass anything that has come before it. But China is also an environmental time bomb.

Its polluted air is not only choking its citizens but also spreading 6,000 miles across the Pacific, giving Californians – even those with no other ties to China – a personal stake in that country’s exploding environmental crisis.

Microscopic soot particles belched from coal-fired plants across the ocean are settling in Sierra Nevada snowpacks. Low levels of mercury from those plants are showing up in soil and water. And dust from expanding deserts in China and elsewhere in Asia can be found in the air high above the state.

Pollution migration is not new – Europeans, for example, get it from the United

States. And the current levels of pollutants from Asia do not pose an urgent health or environmental threat. But experts worry about the potential increase of emissions from China as the world’s fastest-growing economy continues to expand. At the very least, pollution from China will add to the cost and difficulty of cleaning up California’s skies.

This story hammers home the myth of “cheaper goods from China.” These goods are not cheap, they’re just being sold at a discount against their environmental costs, which are spreading around the globe, and will have to be paid. All buying cheap stuff from China accomplishes is fobbing off the rest of the cost on future generations.

The story notes that China is primarily poisoning itself — which comes as small relief, frankly. Our buying their stuff is causing this to happen.