$17B, 1 Million Cars Lighter, China Still Mired In Smog

BEIJING -- China has gone to Olympian lengths to try to ensure that its skies are clear for the Summer Games, which formally kick off in 10 days. It has spent $17 billion on antipollution measures in recent years. Last week, it forced more than a million cars off the streets, halted construction in and around the city, and temporarily closed hundreds of factories in surrounding provinces.

But despite these measures, the Chinese capital remains mired in a gray haze, and the government's pollution readings have exceeded its own safe levels four out of the past eight days.

Now, with the prospect of international embarrassment looming, officials are considering even tougher measures, including shutting more factories. They might also ban as many as 90% of Beijing's private vehicles on especially bad days during the Games, a government adviser said Monday. Special lanes for Olympic VIPs may be abandoned because officials say they're causing extra congestion and making the air worse.

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Comments

[Mr Grey]

Closing the factories for a few days and stopping the cars temporarily just to clean up the air for a few days is an interesting experiment. Scientists measuring the atmosphere during the grounding of planes after 9-11 noticed profound changes in the skies. The big question, the important question is what happens after the Olympics? When all those factories and cars start back up.

People should read up on the London smog disaster in the winter of 1952. It is estimated that the formation of deadly smog killed 12,000 or more people depending on who was counting. The primary culprit, coal. Now China has coal and cars. A World Bank study on the cost of pollution in China found up to 760,000 premature deaths each year. Also, it estimated 300,000 deaths from poor-quality air indoors and 60,000 die from poor- quality water each year.

Getting stats on the United States is somewhat harder. However, the NRDC did a study which estimates 64,000 premature deaths from particulate pollution in the USA.

Short term changes in China or the USA are no solution. This should be a wake up call for the world. We all have to breathe. Pollution doesn't care about national borders. Polluted air kills. It will kill the rich as well as the poor. Need a good reason for change. How about self survival, now there is a cause celeb. We need to act now, like our lives depended on it. Oh by the way, it does.

[sassafra]

watch china wail as entire teams start dropping from competition rather than subject themselves to breathing bejiing's atmospheric swill.
happy, happy china.
censor away.
1936 olympiad mark II here we go.

[hellinabucket]

Bingo-KTM:
This is hardly anywhere close to US CO2 emissions from traffic, let alone electricity generation. The US burns 18.5 million barrels of petroleum a day. Since a barrel oil contains about 0.12 tons of carbon, this is 2.2 million tons of carbon a day burnt just for transportation. Per year that's over 800 million tons. Another billion tons of coal is used every year in the US alone. Multiply that with four and you get to roughly the consumption of the world.

China, China, China-Quick look over there! The audacity that China is a greater polluter vs the US just boggles my mind! As if Beijing looks any worse than some of our big US cities! We should be wearing face masks too!

[Kevbo68]

Yeah, progress is a beeyotch. Wait until they double the number of cars they have.

This is definitely not Mexico City. Kudos for at least trying to do something about it though.

Sadly, their efforts to clear the air will not be as daring when the games are over. Let's hope they will find reasons to seek cleaner air other than just saving face.

[MizLiz]

I have a feeling this is going to be the worst Olympics ever. Expect distressing political persecution stories, and a total lack of good times. I feel sorry for the people who spent thousands on tickets...let's hope they don't have breathing problems.

[coyote4]

No problem. Throw some money at Global Climate Destabilization or Energy Scarcity and they will go away too.

[OldKnute]

Well,, I still say, this is a very good thing. This same level of pollution used to plague American Cities, still does in many. China is gaining a fast track education of Fossil Fuels, their pollution and harm, their scarcity and expense and ultimate obsolescence.

This is especially distressing to me, nearly 20 years ago, I sent an emissary to Beijing, to Beijing University and to the Norinco company with a gift of infinite and non polluting, alternative energy. Steam production, ceramics and glass making, non-rusting steels, nuclear waste remediation even deep sea diving and breathing media.

Oh well, we tried.

Now China will have to fine her own way in things.

A gift refused or not understood, finds its own way of showing its loss.

A Shame.

All we can do is HOPE now. They have all the knowledge we could offer, the rest was up to China.

*Sigh *

All the best

Knute Neo-LIB

[Egalitare]

The first Olympic games where most track athletes will be wearing gas masks. I'm not sure that has been part of anyone's training.

Oh well, it's an equalizer, right?

[SouthJerseySteve]

Let's see the Chinese government censor THIS from the world media outlets!!!

[KillTheMessenger]

They are not trying to. If you haven't noticed it, yet, the Chinese have found out that their efforts are earning them as much (and maybe more) respect as the, frankly, vanishing chances of success.

The US could take a piece from that play book...

[Furby]

Kind of looks like LA on a good day. Nobody ran away from those olympics on the grounds that the smog was too thick, so what's the problem this time?

[DarwinAtWork]

On a *bad* day, visibility is 200 yards, and that's the smog, not LA fog!

[darthdarcy]

I have been writing about Red China's pollution for years..

It's not just their cars it's all the coal they burn that follows the pollution belt to eastern China and then eventually California...

The Red Chinese Coal Seam Fires alone produce as much CO2 as all the cars and light trucks in the United States...

These fires burn out of control and can be seen from space with the naked eye..

They produce nothing just a polluting waste of a valuable resource and they can be put out now with existing technologies...

[KillTheMessenger]

Nice try. Except, of course that what you write is hogwash. There are plenty of coal seam fires burning all over the world, including the US. The estimated annual carbon supply of these Chinese coal seam fires is maybe up to 200 million tons, i.e. they produce some 800 million tons of CO2 annually.

This is hardly anywhere close to US CO2 emissions from traffic, let alone electricity generation. The US burns 18.5 million barrels of petroleum a day. Since a barrel oil contains about 0.12 tons of carbon, this is 2.2 million tons of carbon a day burnt just for transportation. Per year that's over 800 million tons. Another billion tons of coal is used every year in the US alone. Multiply that with four and you get to roughly the consumption of the world.

Are these fires a waste? Absolutely. But are they as bad as you claim they are? Nope.

Would they, all by themselves, lead to noticeable global warming? No. What leads to global warming is the carbon burning in our power plants and engines.

Sorry Darth, I suspect you are getting your "information" from the wrong sources and you never check them.

;-)

[KillTheMessenger]

This is an absolutely fabulous science experiment that can only happen in one place: China!