Bejing Pollution Update, Part 3

August 9, 2008

Here is a photo of our complex on August 2, about a week before the start of the Beijing Olympics. A cool front pushed through Beijing, blowing much of the pollution out and creating what was a spectacular day for many of us accustomed to the grey haze of Beijing.

Two days later, the haze came creeping back in so that by the day before the Opening Ceremony on August 8, the air looked like this. Notice you can still make out the outlines of buildings in the background.


China Daily, the official English-language newspaper in China, came out with a headline saying that just because the air was hazy didn't mean it was polluted. They made the distinction between haze created by heat and humidity, and haze created by pollution. To some extent they are right. Heat and humidity do combine to produce haze, but pollution makes the haze even worse. It's hard to produce the kind of haze you see here in Beijing without a lot of pollution. You can't tell me this air isn't full of particulates and other chemicals!

By the time the day of the Opening Ceremony rolled around, the air had gotten pretty bad. Take a look. Notice the buildings in the background have pretty much disappeared. Oh well, at least it didn't rain. That was the main concern of the Beijing Olympics organizers. But I'm sure it's on the mind of the athletes who have to compete in this stuff.

Beijing Olympics Pollution Watch, part 2

This month, some more news has come out about pollution in Beijing that can only cast further doubts on the city's ability to clean itself up before the Olympics. On January 9, Steven Q. Andrews an independent environmental consultant based in D.C. wrote that we should be skeptical about the Chinese government's claims that the air in Beijing is getting cleaner.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Andrews, who spent 2006 in Beijing, said that the Chinese government claims that the Air Pollution Index (API) has improved significantly from 1998 to 2006. What the government didn't tell us was that the way the API data was collected changed in 2006. Two monitoring stations were dropped and three others were set up in less polluted parts of the city. Stevens states that if the two original stations had been continued, the API would have looked quite different. In fact, in 2006, 38 of Beijing's 241 "blue sky" days would not be counted as such. And, in 2007, 55 out of 246 "blue sky" days would be taken out. Stevens also discusses other ways that the Chinese government has changed data collection to minimize the pollution problem.

In short, what Andrews is saying is that the air in Beijing may not be getting that much better, but we don't really know, because the API numbers are getting better when they really aren't. An API of 100 or less is supposed to be a "blue sky" day and according to the Chinese government the number of "blue sky" days has gone from 100 in 1998 to 246 in 2007. But an API of 100 really doesn't look like a "blue sky" day; it really looks a bit on the hazy side, so you really have to wonder what these numbers mean.

And that really is the moral here, that numbers -- so-called "scientific" statistics -- can be offered up for propaganda purposes and can't be trusted, especially when you have an event that is as big as the Olympics on the line. Maybe it's time to get that mask....

Hainan Island treehouse vacation

On December 25, my family and my sister's family went to Sanya, the southernmost city in China's southernmost island of Hainan, for a week's vacation. We all stayed in several treehouses located in the Nanshan Cultural Resort Area, a kind of Buddhist theme park. Here you can see a statue of the Guanyin Buddha rising from the sea. This was the view we saw from our treehouse when we woke every morning. The statue is pretty impressive. Lonely Planet says it's the tallest statue in the world, taller than the Statue of Liberty, and it's next to a nice beach to boot!



The treehouses are built on some stout tamarind trees situated on a large sand dune next to the beach. They are now the management of the theme park, which also boasts a hotel, several restaurants, villas on the hillside and a nice outdoor swimming pool. We were allowed to use the hotel's facilities, which included internet, and the swimming pool for free. Here is the largest treehouse where the four kids stayed. You can see the suspension bridge that led from their treehouse to the other treehouses.



Just a short walk down the sand dune from the treehouse was a nice beach which could very well have been ours because no one else used it. The kids liked to walk down there and jump in the waves and make sand castles. We also had a bonfire on the beach one night. The only thing we were missing was the marshmellows.


We really had a great time (except for one hair-raising adventure I will related in a separate post). The kids played well together, the adults got a lot of reading done, and we enjoyed each other's company. One great thing about being in the treehouse is that we got away from all the tourists that flood Sanya about this time of year. It was a patch of China all to ourselves. Plus, we had a great attendant, Xiao Xu, who was always on hand to order food for us or call a shuttle to bring us to the swimming pool. If you want to see all of our treehouse pictures, go to www.flickr.com/photos/theshiehs/sets/

Beijing Olympics Pollution Watch

January 8, 2008

Alright, I admit it's been about 4 months since my last posting here but I promise I will try to be more regular. So today is 01/08/08, just 8 months from the magic number which is 08/08/08 marking the opening day of the Beijing Olympics. The Chinese government must be getting more than a little anxious about its promise of holding a green Olympics, which really means an Olympics with some blue sky overhead. Last year, the government set a target of 245 blue sky days for Beijing. The good news is that the last two blue sky days of the year came
none too late during the last 4 days of December, and Beijing crossed the finish line with 246 blue sky days.

The bad news is that on Thursday, December 27, Beijing had what was perhaps its worst day of the year. The Air Pollution Index on that day was between 400 and 500. That is an astonishing number. The worst I've seen it was over 200, and the picture of our complex in my last post showed a day that was close to 200. But an API of over 400 is something hard to wrap your mind around. Pictures I saw in the newspaper showed people in Tiananmen Square wandering through what looked like a heavy fog, only it was not fog but smog.


As you can see from the picture, Beijingers showed how tough they can be (though if they could see an xray of their lungs, they might not be so brave), or perhaps it's more accurate to say how used to the pollution they are, by going outside despite warnings to stay indoors that day.

Will conditions get better rather than worse as we approach the magic day? Stay tuned!

Pollution in Beijing

September 15, 2007

One of the first things you notice when you arrive in Beijing is the air. The haze, the smell. It's not a pretty sight. So how bad is it?

To give you some idea, here is a picture of our complex in Beijing on one of the best days this summer. This picture was taken at about 5 p.m. in the afternoon. The Air Pollution Index (API) on this day was about 30 which is very low for Beijing. Usually, Beijing's API hovers around 100 in the summer months.

API statistics for the major cities in China can be found on the Chinese State Environmental Protection Agency's website at http://english.sepa.gov.cn/ or at http://www.zhb.gov.cn/english/air-list.php3?offset=0.

An API of 1-50 is considered "excellent", 51-100 is "good", 101-200 is "slightly or lightly polluted" (rating a warning to reduce activities outdoors for people with cardiac and respiratory problems), 200-300 is "moderately polluted" (rating a warning to same people to stay indoors).


Here is a picture of our complex on one of the worst days this summer. This picture was taken at about 3 p.m. in the afternoon, but notice how much darker it looks than the above picture which was taken later in the day. Keep in mind that this was a "clear" day, or at least there was no threat of rain. The “clouds” you see in the background is actually haze which is produced when particulates in the air get trapped in drops of moisture in the air. Haze thus tends to be worse on more humid days. Whether there were actually any clouds behind that haze is anybody's guess. The API for this day was very close to 200. On an average day, Beijing rarely gets this bad, but the haze is still pretty thick.

The Chinese government is obviously hoping for more of the “blue sky” days pictured above when the Olympics opens next August, but chances are not likely. This summer, Beijing fell below the number of “blue sky” days that the government set as a target. The 100 meter dashers may not feel the effects, but you have to feel a bit sorry for the marathoners.

You might wonder about the health effects of breathing in this air. There is no definitive study about how many years it can take off your life, but one thing we know is this: it's not good for your health, and it certainly aggravates your respiratory system. Sooner or later, everyone develops the "Beijing cough" which usually goes away after your lungs acclimate. My sister, who is a doctor in an American-run hospital here in Beijing, says there's not much you can do about it short of moving out of Beijing. Apparently, exercising in smog is better than not exercising in it. There are also some pretty good masks you can wear if you don't mind standing out in a crowd. Check the masks sold at this website: http://www.respro.com/home.php. For the more academically inclined, there is now a book published by MIT Press titled Clearing the Air: The Health and Economic Damages of Air Pollution in China (2007). You can read sample chapters at http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/search/default.asp?qtype=c&query=clearing+the+air.