Cleaner Skies in Beijing
Beijing environmental officials announced today that the past six months have seen the clearest air since 2000. They cited less frequent sandstorms and sustained emissions control efforts as the major causes for the improvement in the city's notoriously smoggy skies. By taking 55,000 of the city's most polluting cars off the streets, Beijing was able to sustain the addition of 200,000 new vehicles since January without any decrease in air quality, the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau said.
One factor the environmental officials did not note was the weakened economy. A $586 billion stimulus program and extensive govern-directed lending has enabled China to avoid a severe downturn, and some observers have recently raised their expectations for growth this year. But exports, a major contributor to the country's economic expansion, have declined since last winter. And electrical output, which contributes to air pollution via power plant emissions, has dropped since September.
The improved air gives Beijing's environmental officials something to be happy about, but they spent much of their press conference Friday responding to doubts about the veracity of their numbers. Last year an American environmental consultant pointed out that the official numbers showed a disproportionately high number of days that fell just within the official target for a "blue sky day." Yu Jianhua, head of Beijing's environmental monitoring center, said the local government used emergency measures such as closing down construction sites on days when it expected pollution would exceed targets. That led to the high number of days just under the cutoff, Yu said.
The U.S. Embassy's installation of pollution monitor for its staff has raised other questions about how Beijing reports air quality data. The embassy provides hourly readings of fine particulates that are considered especially dangerous to human health. Beijing doesn't monitor that type of pollutant, and only gives daily readings each afternoon for an average measurement of the previous 24 hours. Yu said that those fine particulates, called PM 2.5, aren't reported because China doesn't have a national standard for their measurement. He cautioned that the U.S. Embassy monitor isn't reliable for broader analysis because it only measures a single location, while the official pollution numbers rely on a network across the city. He wouldn't say if more timely emissions numbers would be available soon, though as we noted yesterday, China is already doing that for water quality.
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1
It is right for China to complain about the US Embassy pollution readings. It is only one location in China. The US should have monitored all of China. It is the responsibility for the US Embassy to do so and to report promptly and frequently the real situation in all of China, not just at the Embassy. Reporting readings just from the embassy is a misleading indicator of how clean the air is in China.
China is reporting daily temperature in Chinese cities, because there is a national standard for temperature for Chinese cities: 37.8C. But since China do no have a standard for PM 2.5, China is correct not to report it.
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2
In the days leading towards the Olympics, I remember seeing BBC's Bejing correspondance James (forget the last name) holding a seemingly scientific instrument standing on the the sidewalk beside one of Beijing's busiest streets and telling "the world" that his reading from this seemingly scientific instrucment was not consistent with the "official readings" provided by Beijing's environmental regime.
I guess he tried to make a point, certainly not an environmental one, but a political one, that the so-called communist regime could not be trusted, even on the readings of environmental datas.
I suppose Austin is doing the same thing in this post ... distrust of the regime.
While it is perfectly fine for a professional journalist to challenge any authorities for their "readings" on certain things, to pull a seemingly scientific instrument out of the back pocket and say that the "backpocket reading" is more scientific than the "official reading" is also quite amusing.
So, this time, it is the US Ambassy who are doing this "backpocket reading".
Scientific things aside (since I am no expert on how to do a scienfitic reading on those contamination things), how could the US Embassy's reading more trustworthy than the reading of the authority of Beijing?
Let's take a look of the track record. And we don't need to travel too further into the history. Amongst a long list of other things, the "misreading" about the nuclear situation in Iraq, which justified the invation of this oil-rich country is still quite a fresh memory for many. And where were BBC's James and Time's Austin back then to challenge in a professional way the readings of the authorities in Washington DC? -
3
Er, quiet! Most propaganda cadres got off work, but one still struggling here for overtime wage.
Regarding the "cleaner sky" in China, here's my opinion: By printing astronomical sum of money, the CCP have successfully saved the stock market and real estate but ignored the private firms and the grass roots. On one hand there are re-rocketing prices thanks to the unprecedented money supply, on another hand there are ceaselessly deflating domestic demand due to the more and more closed companies and laid-off workers. So, many Chinese people even cannot afford the expensive meats, mostly replaced by the relatively cheaper vegetables. Yet the vegetables are much good for people's digestive system, thereby the gas egested from intestine is much cleaner than before. Imagine a billion Chinese are cleanly farting now, why hasn't the sky been cleaner?
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4
We must congratulate China again for another successful missile launch by China's best friend and closest neighbor. These are 500km range missiles capable of reaching the capital of North Korea's most hated enemy (except South Korea, of course). And seven were launched all in the same day, with most needed technical, material and financial assistance from China. China succeeded in embarrassing US again, and show how well North Korea is under Chines control.
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5
Different from you, we have a life...I don't have to work as hard as you to get money...
plus, now I found here too boring... -
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"By printing astronomical sum of money, the CCP have successfully saved the stock market and real estate" Shhh... Everyone suppose to believe that the US and western countries are the only ones printing money, not the Chinese.
Oh, by the way, Chinese government agencies who were ordered to spend money on infrastructure construction suppose to raise money on their own, and not getting the money from the central government. The ability of Chinese local and provincial governments to raise money from the people is, of course, world famous.
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7
Because of the US misreading of information and concluded Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, China should be able to falsify its air quality measurements in China which is much more difficult to read and analyze than weapon information behind enemy lines. Difficulty in reading air quality instruments is a state secret in China, of course, and therefore cannot be released on pain of death.
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8
CIA spies sabotage Chinese dam, again:
http://tinyurl.com/m2vmd4 -
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This can only happen in prosperous China, who can waste billions in bribes received by millions of officials:
http://tinyurl.com/lqkvxsAnd Wuhan is not a small no name city either.
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When spreading swine flu didn't kill, the CIA sent in their spies to electrocute the victim:
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11
Better read this before it is harmonized, if it is not already:
http://tinyurl.com/kvqgt4 -
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And no one died here. The red color on the street was ketchup. http://tinyurl.com/kjpnta
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In the recent NEF's HPI, China ranked only 20, lower than Laos, Philippines and Cuba, which is, of course, ridiculous. US and all other western nations are ranked very low, as it should be. US was ranked 114. UK at 74.
What went wrong was that many important happiness factors were ignored. Like population size, how often people are inconvenienced, irritated and burdened with the duty to vote, low fertility rate, non-residency rate, and GDP growth rate. These are indicators that must carry majority of weight in any comparison between nations.
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14
"Er, quiet! Most propaganda cadres got off work, but one still struggling here for overtime wage."
by conscienceinchina -
15
Why you got such guilty and sensitive?! You are "there's no silver but 300 liang(此地无银三百两)".
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conscienceinchina,
I apologize for my previous assault on you - I had mistook you for someone else who has been harassing china blog readers these past years.
I am deeply sorry.
chinabriefing -
17
No one govement is perfect on this earth, But China govement already done his best.
Why you keep on to critcize China with you big mouth. Unless you have your own agenda.what is that?
one thing i knew China govement crack down one evil and FLG cult.
To me, this is very great thing China govement have done. -
18
chinabriefing, just forget it. In fact, I am so happy to have you here to fight the Wumaos(five-jiao) and damn the CCP.
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19
Pathetic!
Assuming a bunch of hypothetical enemies and then fight against them ... who did that in Spain long time ago?
Your battel ground is not here but on the streets of Beijing if you indeed are a freedom fighter not a refugee status fighter. -
20
"No one govement is perfect on this earth, But China govement already done his best."
You are wrong again. Chinese government is perfect. It has not just "done his best", it is the best. If you don't believe that, just ask the Chinese government. You should realize by now the all things Chinese government has done are great. Especially eliminating tens of millions of mouths to be fed in China, and ensure that Chinese will always look forward, and never remember a thing in the past. What WWII ? What Japanese invasion ? What Nanjing incident ? No, no body killed.
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21
[...] China Daily: Beijing air cleanest in 9 years 7/3 Time blog: Cleaner Skies in Beijing 7/4 Xinhua: Chinese Minister refutes doubts over air quality results during Olympics 7/6 CELB: [...]
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[...] highlight a rather unexpected comment from the Beijing EPB at a press conference in early July. As reported in the Time blog: [The Beijing EPB] spent much of their press conference Friday responding to doubts about the [...]
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