Slashdot Mirror
China Races To Clean Up Olympic Air
Hugh Pickens writes "With the Olympics due to start in less than three weeks, Beijing is cranking up antipollution measures by yanking cars off the roads, expanding mass transit and staggering work hours in a bid to meet its pledge of a 'green' Olympics. Beijing has gone on a spending spree, relocating factories, seeding clouds, retiring old vehicles, planting millions of trees and halting building construction amid concerns that athletes and visitors could suffer breathing problems. For the next two months, owners of 3.3 million private cars can drive only on alternate days in China's capital, based on whether the last digit of their license plates is even or odd. Environmental and sports performance experts have cast doubt on the effectiveness of the measures taken so far. 'Arguably these are all short-term measures, just designed to control air quality for the time when the Olympics are on,' says Dr Andy Jones. Dr Angus Hunter warned that athletes are at risk for low performance if the air quality cannot be brought down to acceptable levels. 'Average times could be lower and the chances of records being broken become less. It's a bit like trying to exercise in a room when the gym is full of smokers.'"
China is the one of the worst, if not THE WORST environmental disasters this world has ever had. They are having one HELL of a time trying to clean up the mess they've created for themselves.
By the time the Olympics comes around, I hope that the Chineese government has enough Egg Foo Young on their face to cause them to loose face to the whole world.
Then maybe, just maybe they'll clean up their act. Naaaa, what I am thinking.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Just got an email from my PCB Fabrication house :
"For our Printed Circuit Board customers using Chinese vendors, please be aware of the following air quality policy announcement from Chinese authorities:
In preparation for the Olympics, China has announced a factory shutdown for 9 weeks to clear smog and improve air quality in a 200 kilometer radius of Beijing. The shutdown begins July 17th and will extend until September 20th. Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and Shandong provinces are affected by the shutdown.
If air quality does not improve before the start of the Olympics, there may be an expansion of the shutdown. There are concerns there could also be a bottleneck at two main ports. "
Wonder how it will affect Chip prices
Ummm, no kidding? What does he mean, "arguably"? It's like how Athens temporarily incarcerated the city's thousands of stray dogs and then turned them all loose when the Games ended.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I apologize profusely for not posting this in a more relevant spot, and for not finding where I originally heard this suggested, but, one interesting theory is that the reason for this nearly doubling of oil prices in the past year is that China is stockpiling it to run diesel instead of coal plants, so as to clean up their air for the olympics.
Considering how inscrutable these recent price increases have been, this one seems really good at explaining things. Just a thought.
For now, check out item 3 from a while ago, which mentions China trying to clean up for the Olympic games, and how they're importing more diesel.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
It will be interesting how this will play out in the social/economical dynamics of China.
Will the employees be paid during the shutdown?
Have downstream manufactures in other areas made provisions to get alternate input sources?
Will there be any unexpected interruptions in the supply chain? Either domestic consumption or export goods.
If downstream factories in other areas have to shutdown there will not be government support, there will be unhappy workers.
Having unhappy idle workers while the government is telling everyone to be happy about the Olympics is not a good thing.
Also if US orders for Christmas are down because of US domestic fears then some idled factories might not find it easy to restart.
I usually hate following the Olympic because it's such a bore.
This year, all the stuff "around" the competition is WAY more interesting:
-How many people will be arrested for silly things?
-Will the athletes choke on the smog?
-Will anything be allowed to be broadcasted out of China?
-How many Chinese will try to defect?
-And of course: The badly translated sign of the day.
I don't think leaders of China will be able to stand have a spot light on them for the full 2 weeks. Imagine the fallout from regular Chinese people getting unfiltered news from the mouths of so many non-controlled people!
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Happens in every olympics.
During the Atlanta Olympics, many homeless people were taken for a bus ride to different part of the state.
Many of the homeless were jailed for silly offenses.
http://www.straight.com/olympic-cities-punish-poor
There seems to be a lot of incredulity about Beijing's ability to clean up for the Olympics, but you are all forgetting that the government here is doesn't have the same limitations of a democracy, and can implement massive policy changes immediately. There are shutting down over 350 (!) factories down here, and have taken 60% of the cars off of the road. Most construction has stopped. I was here on Sunday, the first day this process went into effect, and we had a brilliant blue sky. Things are a little hazy again today, but they're not done shutting down everything yet. Expect a relatively pollution free Olympics. Sorry to rain on your hate parade guys. This is only a temporary solution though, which is amazing considering they spent 40 billion on infrastructure change to support the cleanup effort.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
I've been reading this guy's blog off and on because he's posting pictures of the air quality. Compare this picture with this one to see what difference is being made.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
if you consider the pollution on a per person basis, the Chinese are polluting far less than most developed nations.
When you're talking about a finite resource like clean air, a per capita analysis is worthless, the total effect is what's important. China has 1 billion+ people.