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NASA Releases Orbital Photos of Beijing's Air Pollution
skade88 writes "This story should remind us all that air pollution controls are not just about addressing global warming. They also help us have cleaner air and fewer health problems resulting from smog and haze. Starting earlier this month, Beijing, China started having worse than normal air pollution issues. On January 14, 2013 the U.S. embassy's air pollution sensors in Beijing found the density of the most dangerous small air particles, PM 2.5, at 291 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The World Health Organization's guidelines for air pollution state that PM 2.5 above 25 micrograms per cubic meter of air is dangerous to a person's health. To put the problem into perspective, NASA has released two orbital photos of Beijing showing before-and-during images of the air pollution. The photo from January 4 shows parts of Beijing still visible from space. The photo from January 14 shows nothing but a huge, thick cloud of haze with no buildings visible."
In a rather Bender-esque way, the literal translation from Mandarin for its populi (the PM2.5 breathers) is "Meat vacuums", and not in a good way I might add.
H.
I remember from my youth that's what LA used to look like in the 70s. Those were back in the days we had to walk 5 miles to school each day in the dirty gray snow. Course once we realized it was not actually snow, but several inches of dusty sooty crud, we stopped wearing our parkas.
Go go gadget smokescreen!
Those Romans had a phrase for everything. This may be true, but I'm sure we're jumping to a conclusion.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Smog in some US cities was bad way back in the '70's but nowhere near what it's like in Beijing this month. When you call US environmental conditions "woeful" attached to an article about the pollution going on in China, it really lets your ignorance shine. The US environment isn't perfect, but yes, it is vastly superior.
on days like these, you can see it, smell it and... taste it.
So you should tell us what bliss feels like.
The EPA has actually made huge strides in the U.S. To the point that big cities which used to have smog constantly and you could see the air are now clear.
There is always room to approve...but if you think we are anywhere near China...you aren't really paying attention.
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penny wise and pound foolish.
give me 'teh shiney!' right now and I want it cheap. the rest be damned.
sadly, I don't think we'll learn our lesson or see the trend. half of the US is global-warming doubters or deniers and there is little sign of any of those people really wising up. most of them are older guys who DON'T CARE since they'll be dead in a decade or two, tops; and they think that they can stick it out this far on our destroyed earth.
the pessimist in me says that we will only realize what we've done once its too late. and then, well, it will be too late!
but KEEP BUYING and feeding landfills with your old electronics. that 2 yr old phone is 'not worth having' anymore so just chuck it. let it be someone else's problem, "later on".
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
China has been dragging its feet on global warming reforms. China has been emphatically objecting to any cut in its produce of green house gases (and other pollutants).
Now that Beijing (and surrounding cities in China) are being blanketed by the thick polluted and toxic fog, the Chinese leadership may be forced to alter their strategy and move away from pollution-generating industries.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
PM 2.5 stands for particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers.
According to the Wikipedia particles of this size cause a broad array of terrible consequences in the body.
Perhaps Americans should consider improving their own woeful environmental standards before throwing stones at other countries, as good as it may make them feel.
Aaaannndddd there it is.
I propose a new 'law', similar to Godwin and others.
Any discussion pointing out a countries problems will include, within the first 20 comments, a reference to how the USA is worse with regard to that particular problem.
We could call it the 'Dumbfuck Law'.
NPR has an article about this as well, apparently it's affecting more than 30 cities in China
Nice try, but no. Beijing isn't that big of a manufacturing center (relatively speaking) - most of the pollution comes from IC engines and (especially important this time of year) the decentralized system of coal powered hot water plants that provides most of the cities heating.
I also like how representatives of other countries point to the issues the US had decades ago, in regards to manufacturing standards, health, labor laws, etc. Sure, there were growing pains, but should you not learn from them? The US was after all at the forefront of industrialization. Should you not vaccinate people, but instead wait until your own scientists learn about invisible bacterial, or about penicillin, or about carbon emissions?
That whole argument is very weak to me.
Landfill is a management issue, not a volume issue.
We could dig a hole a mile to a side, put all are garbage into it and it would be half full in about 700 years at our current rate of growth.
frankly I would have separate holes, for different material so we will have easy access when we figure out how to effectively recycle them.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
US environmental conditions are much better, especially since we decided to offshore our toxic manufacturing needs to China.
US standards are PM2.5 of 15ppm annually and 35ppm over 24 hour average, and regions are considered "non-compliant" and have to take corrective action if they don't meet that. China hit 800ppm on 1/12/13. And you know who's fault that is? China's. Don't even pretend their government is somehow owned by US interests. It's getting closer to the other way around.
So, yes, the US is a HELL of a lot better environmentally. Please do the tiny bit of research it takes before saying stupid shit like that.
China has replaced their "One Child" program of population control with a new "One Lung" policy.If you can't get rid of the babies, at least you can weed out the weak, the old, and the heavy breathers.
nuf sed
Table-ized A.I.
The EPA has actually made huge strides in the U.S. To the point that big cities which used to have smog constantly and you could see the air are now clear.
So, naturally, Republicans want to end the EPA. Can't let the hippies win!
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
I'm from LA, too... I can't remember the last Smog Alert we had.... And when I was a kid, most of the summer was First Stage, with a few Second Stage alerts every year.
Outsourcing works both ways I guess. China might get the jobs but they also get stuck with the pollution.
Relatively speaking?
Have you been outside the 5th ring road? Ive seen factories the likes id never seen in my life. Sprawls of smokestacks just chugging away. Not to mention the fact that DAMN NEAR EVERY RESTAURANT AND MANY HOMES STILL USE COAL.
During the Olympics in 08 they had all the factories shut down for a month prior and seeded the clouds for a week to wash the city and air. Worked wonderfully.
Cars are a problem - and a growing one to say the least - but dont be too quick to discount the manufacturing and a city of 16 million still using coal.
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At what point do the particulates start to cause problems with Internal Combustion?
I can find plenty of information on what it does when humans breath that stuff in (hint: a coal miner is you!) but little on when the engines start to choke on their own output.
Diesel engines can operate on some pretty ridiculous fuel mixtures as long as there is enough oxygen. Considering how nasty oxides can be once mixed into water I'd expect something else in the power train (beyond the operator's lungs) would break down before the engine couldn't cycle on that mix of "air".
"You cannot have a General Will unless you have shared experiences. You cannot be fair to people you don't know."
This is a Chinese attempt to obfuscate their landscape from American spy satellites.
Who is "we"?
If it's the US, each person creates about 3.5 pounds of trash per day. Let's make the generous assumption that it compresses to 1kg/l, and feed it into GNU units:
So the total annual US volume is 0.04 cubic miles, and your cubic mile hole (which would be impossible to actually dig, BTW, and pointless too because where would you put the dirt?) would fill up in only 24 years, not 1400 years.
Many view it as too damn costly for the benefit seen,
Mostly tea party types. Considering that 8.6 billion is less than the cost of a single week of all Medicare benefits that those mostly tea party types collect, I'd say the EPA is a bargain.
Why don't we cut out tea party types' Medicare benefits in excess of what they paid in? Now that would really save money.
considering that it overlaps heavily with State functions.
So we could have yet another race to the bottom in standards as various states try to "create jobs" by luring short-sighted business owners from other states with promises of lax regulations.
You really need to learn about what exactly bankruptcy entails.
Iceland went bankrupt a couple of years ago. The effects make a good case study.
We send manufacturing over there because it's cheaper. A major reason why it's cheaper is the lack of regulations. No need for smoke filters, no worries about dumping waste in waters. Then we take pictures and post it on the internet. And we feel good about our yard and complain about theirs.
The GP was not right. Being off by orders of magnitude is not something to brush off.
The problem may be largely political, but that doesn't mean it's not real. Each potential landfill site is surrounded by about a hundred of square miles of NIMBY, and rightfully so. Landfills stink, and looking at a mountain of garbage topped by swarming seagulls is downright creepy. Nobody wants to live anywhere near that, and they don't want their property values ruined. That's why they find it hard to open any new landfills.
Quoting theoretical volume numbers without real-world context is silly.
Not true. They may get the jobs, but we also get the pollution. The planet is a living thing, and things that happen in China don't stay in China.
Much of the particulate pollution over Los Angeles originates in China, according to the Journal of Geophysical Research.
China dust storms travel to California
* It's communist
* Rampant pollution
* The kleptocracy that festers when communism fuses with capitalism
* One-child policy plus a society that devalues women means women are shrinking as a percentage of the population; translation, China is a sausage fest.
But, it's a capitalist's eutopia!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
It was a standard Soviet rhetoric tactic, and earned the nickname of "whataboutism".
I wonder, how sick do you have to be to believe that Al Gore has anything at all to do with global climate change?
That is exceedingly sloppy thinking. Pollution is a problem of combined effects from multiple sources. Your claim that the USA, or Europe, or Japan reducing their respective pollution outputs "won't make a difference" isn't just an overstatement, it is false. EVERY bit makes a difference. The same logic you just used justifies every kind of petty offense in the world.
Collective problems require incremental solutions. Just because you cannot personally observe the effects of every increment doesn't mean it's irrelevant.
A 10 minute walk outside is all it takes for a thin film of talc-like dust to settle all over your clothes/hair/skin. For someone exposed to it for a long time, I would imagine it's akin to working in an autobody shop spray painting cars without a respirator.
The stench of sulfur from burning coal is prevalent since many large housing complexes (and even individual homes) use coal fired boilers to create steam heat in the winter. The government hacks that are profiting handsomely from this situation don't care. Their children and their cash are safely stowed overseas.
I don't see any sign of improvement over the past 7 years other than the temporary cleanup for the Olympics in 2008.
If that pressure is unconstitutional, then we need to revise the constitution. I want "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and EPA helps preserve two of the three. I think liberty should always be subject to restrictions when it effects the life of others.
Libertarian here who isn't collecting Medicare or any other entitlements
But almost certainly will when old enough, just as Ayn Rand did.
And based on actuarial statistics, will collect far more than was ever taxed.
I agree that's a problem, but that can be fixed by substantially raising the eligibility age to match current lifespans. Eliminating or privatizing Medicare is NOT the way to fix the problem.
and actually sees the actions of the EPA against individual citizens as far more harmful that its cost.
I see the actions of would-be polluters against individual citizens' lungs as far more costly than anything the EPA has ever done. After all, that was the point of this whole article about China.
I'm sorry. No matter what you may believe (and as a libertarian, your beliefs are probably highly resistant to actual reality, so I don't expect this to have any affect on you), you just simply don't have a right to ruin the environment for everyone else.