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China's Anti-Pollution Initiative Produces Stellar Results (popularmechanics.com)
hackingbear writes: China has declared war on its pollution -- one of the worst on the planet -- and now appears to be winning. Popular Mechanics reports: "Over the past four years, pollution in China's major cities has decreased by an average of 32 percent, with some cities seeing an even bigger drop, according to professor Michael Greenstone of the Energy Policy Institute. This decline comes after several aggressive policies implemented by the Chinese government, including prohibiting the building of new coal plants, forcing existing plants to reduce their emissions, lowering the amount of automobile traffic, and closing down some steel mills and coal mines. Some cities, like Beijing, have achieved even greater reductions in air pollution. Beijing has seen a 35 percent drop in particulates, while the city of Shijiazhuang saw a 39 percent drop. China has prioritized pollution reduction in these cities, with the government spending over $120 billion in Beijing alone."
As someone living here, I have to say that I do see more blue sky and less haze than I used to.
My phone displays the Air Quality Index and today it is bad - mid 200s. There used to be 400 days but they do *seem* fewer. Tomorrow is 12 and friday is 39.
Because the government is all powerful, they shut down 1000s of polluting businesses in Beijing and put in place requirements that made it hard for them to return to business unless they cleaned up their emissions. Of course there are complaints, but Chinese like Americans complain about government, but the Chinese mostly move on as recourse is limited and they know it.
I am limiting my stay here (one year) because of the pollution, but I may waver in that. That is, waver tomorrow, but not today.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
A win is a win, and of course a drastic reduction in pollution for China is a great thing.
But all the sources sounds extremely one sided, like propaganda or something.
32% decrease OF WHAT?
Because you know, there is a big difference between reducing 32% of normal pollution that's expected on any major urban center, and reducing 32% of a smog so dense and deadly that it looks like you are around a volcano that just erupted.
Yes, an improvement is still an improvement, but for those curious not about the reduction but about the current state, here's a more informative map:
http://berkeleyearth.org/air-q...
So the thing is, yes, 32% reduction is awesome, but it's still nowhere near good enough. It's not even close even to major urban centers in the rest of the world.
To get to the same level of some other countries, China would probably need something more towards 70 or 80% reduction.
And yes, I know that China's air polution problem is largely the fault of basically the entire global industrialized society - the polution is there because most major countries with the biggest economies in the world just shifted the entire industrial production, with all it's polution problems, straight to China, where we all knew regulation was lax, and welfare basically doesn't exist. So this isn't an attack against China.
But perhaps let's not celebrate too much when we still have such a long way to go...
I'm only saying this because perhaps some people don't realize how bad it really is there. It is not a joke when people say that kids, seniors and people with some health conditions could straight up die and suffocate in a normal hot day in some chinese cities without warning, while they could live pretty well in other parts of the world.
There were days when people walking around on big city streets there got home looking like they just emerged out of a coal mine - exposed skin brown or black with layers of particulate matter.
India is another country that will have to do a whole ton of work and invest a whole ton of money to get their pollution levels back to a tolerable state. And both countries needs help on this, because in the end it affects all of us.
We've already been through this, here in the US and Europe. They don't have to repeat all of our mistakes, and our multiple environmental and regulatory agencies make everything freely accessible to anyone who wants them.
So it should be no surprise when they make rapid advances in cleaning up things, once they get the word from on high.
No, what IS a surprise, is the fact that the word came down from on high.
It's almost as if the wealthy and powerful within China realized, "Oh, shit! I don't have anywhere I can run to, if this all goes to Hell in a handbasket! We better make sure that doesn't happen!"
This is a realization which the rich and powerful of the US and Europe have yet to arrive at.
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It's also only a "success" if you report it as a percentage. The WHO PM2.5 limit is 10 micrograms, China's average was around 40 micrograms. So with a 30% drop it's gone from four times the WHO's worst-allowable value to 2.4 times the worst-allowable value. It's still absolutely terrible, just slightly less terrible than it was.
We had rivers catching on fire and the government got serious about the pollution.
It remained serious until fairly recently. It's been backsliding in republican areas for a while.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics...
https://www.motherjones.com/en...
The devastation from hurricanes Irma and Harvey, the two weeks of catastrophic flooding, and the toxic aftermath should have been opportunities for the head of the Environmental Protection Agency to snap into action. Had Scott Pruitt done so, it would have been in stark contrast with his tenure so far, which has mostly consisted of making the case that the regulatory power of the EPA should be undermined and advocating that his agency be made smaller in size and scope, be deprived of a robust budget and enforcement power, and shift focus to what he likes to call âoeregulatory certaintyâ for polluting industries.
In the past, the EPAâ(TM)s job in the aftermath of storms has been to help ensure that victims do not return to homes and neighborhoods that are toxic cesspools. The environmental aftermath of Harvey and Irma has been particularly devastating, with Superfund sites that have flooded, pipelines that have have leaked, forced evacuations because of explosions at the Arkema chemical plant, and a hazardous mix of floodwaters and sewage.
A week ago, George W. Bushâ(TM)s EPA administrator, Christine Todd Whitman, wrote a scathing assessment in the New York Times of how Pruitt has been performing on the job. âoeThe agency created by a Republican president 47 years ago to protect the environment and public health may end up doing neither under Mr. Pruittâ(TM)s direction,â she noted. When reflecting on Pruittâ(TM)s performance during Hurricane Harvey, she added that the EPAâ(TM)s recent actions, including the EPAâ(TM)s attack on an AP reporter, âoeare only the latest manifestations of my fears.â
Whitman may have missed some of Pruittâ(TM)s other activities. During the two hurricanes, the EPA administrator has appeared in far-right media, blasted the Obama administration and the mainstream media, disparaged discussions about climate change, and rolled back more regulations. Here are some noteworthy Pruitt sightings that took place during the recent weeks when severe weather battered the United States:
Trump and Pruitt further sought to significantly shrink the EPA over the past year, proposing drastic budget cuts and offering buyouts that reduced staffing. From December 2016 to January 2018, the size of the agency has shrunk by 1,500 people, according to the Office of Personnel Management, and its current total of 14,162 employees is fewer than worked for it under President Ronald Reagan's administration.
The agency additionally altered its policy on the scientific boards that advise the agency, blocking any researchers from participating if they received grant money from the EPA.
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And governor Snyder set up the Flint Michagan disaster by assigning managers who could override local governments.
Hundreds of kids poisoned with lead. They are still on bottled water. It's just that bad.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
China is solving that with a massive build up of nuclear power.