I just read an interesting blog post on SexyBeijing about Beijing's blue skies.
We keep hearing about how China is doing great things to improve the levels of pollution in Beijing in time for the Olympics, and how the air quality has dramatically improved since 1998. Turns out that, according to the Wall Street Journal, the government has simply moved the pollution monitoring stations to less polluted areas! Two stations in polluted and traffic dense parts of the city were removed and three stations were added in less polluted areas, to give a better (i.e. lower) pollution average. According to Peking University professors, cited in the same article, the pollution in Beijing caused 25,000 deaths in 2002 alone.
5 comments:
OH China, when will you stop sucking? That moving of the pollution monitors is SO typical- grrrrr!
I think the Olympics is actually a big headache for China, BUT a real eye-opener for the west.
After South Korea hosted them and the athletes had to endure all the smog there you think they would have learned.
Oh well it is only the athletes and it will make big money so do it in Beijing!
Coal fired stoves to heat and cook with in a lot of homes in Seoul. They actually asked people not to use them for the duration of the games.
That worked almost as well as moving the stations. Poor athletes. The IOC has no standards other than $$$ in their pocket.
talk is that China will suspend work at the factories doing most of the polluting. only 1/2 the cars allowed on the roads and hundreds of trees being planted.
That's very true -I don't know the exact stats for the Olympics, but when I was in China they had a 'practise run' of stopping cars and factories during the 2006 African-China Summit in Beijing. It worked well to reduce the amount of pollution in the air.
See:
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/2007-10.html
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/2008/2006-11/07/content_726767.htm
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