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Reuters and the Associated Press both ran eye-opening stories Sunday about China´s recent pollution woes. The nation, which has undergone a headlong industrialization over the last two decades, does appear to at last be coming to grips with the toll that its lightning-fast growth is exacting on its environment. Funny how events like last November´s spill of benzene into the Songhua River tend to get people to sit up and take notice.

i came across a series of stories late last week about the EPA´s proposal to revise its rules governing air quality standards for fine-particle pollution and soot. The agency held a series of hearings on the proposed revisions, including one last Wednesday in San Francisco.

According to this article from the Modesto Bee and this one from the San Mateo County Times, EPA officials got an earful from Bay Area residents. One, a 10-year-old boy with asthma, told them, "I want you to remember me when you have to roll up your car window because your suit is getting dirty from the air pollution. Dirty air made me sick." Another, a woman holding her 7-month-old daughter, said, "How much can her little lungs take? What you´re proposing is a crime against the San Joaquin Valley."

On the other side of the coin, we have this op-ed piece from the Fox News web site, which posits that "the air pollution scare industry is at it again" and that "if there is some risk to health from current levels of air pollution and public health, it is exceedingly small and difficult to detect."

And the beat goes on.

Kansas City Infozine reports on what sounds like an ambitious and potentially very useful research project aimed at assessing the impact of Mexico City´s air pollution on areas downwind of the city. The researchers, drawn from more than 60 institutions in the U.S., Mexico and several other nations, expect to be able to apply the study´s results to the world´s other megacities.

Megacity, incidentally, is a term population scientists invented a few years back to describe really, really big cities. Ten million inhabitants is the cutoff point. For those who are curious, Wikipedia reports that 25 such cities exist worldwide today, and the number is rising fast.

How can you tell when a waste-import squabble is starting to get serious? When local troubadours start writing songs about it. Poor Wisconsin. The gloves are really off now, and the guitar picks are drawn. Hide the women and children.

Pete Fehrenbach is assistant managing editor of Waste News. Past installments of this column are collected in the Inbox archive.