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Fair question. My impression here in Beijing is that people are highly dissatisfied with the pollution situation. They don't want lung cancer and they don't wa
by petermcd 13y ago
Fair question.
My impression here in Beijing is that people are highly dissatisfied with the pollution situation. They don't want lung cancer and they don't want their kids breathing this crap.
That being said, the government is taking steps to address the issue. Specifically, due to an outcry on Weibo last year about having to get PM2.5 numbers from the US embassy's twitter feed and iPhone app (twitter is blocked, but screenshots of the iPhone app were pasted on weibo), the government here has started reporting pollution numbers in major cities around the country. So there's reporting now.
Second, they've forced the state-owned oil companies to retool to start outputting cleaner gasoline, moved big polluting industry out of the cities (steel plants, etc.), closed down barbecue pits, ended the sale of some of the more polluting coal briquettes that used to be common, and are trying to get construction sites to keep the dust down.
All of those steps are helping, but not reversing the trend (so far as I can tell or have heard). There is a push to move from coal-burning power plants to gas-powered power plants, but they need to find the gas (via fracking or other means).
Is there an outcry? There are certainly people posting about the pollution on Weibo, which is China's twitter. There are also plenty of people emigrating to the US, if they can afford it (voting with their feet, even if they can't vote here). But I think for people to do more than that, they'd need to see the government just not giving a damn. So perhaps the attitude is 'wait and see'?
Hope this helps.
By the way, one of my Beijing buddies said of the Shanghai smog: "In Beijing, we call this Tuesday."
- mratzloff 13y agoI think I accidentally down voted this great post, sorry! Wish I could change it like on Stack Overflow.
- petermcd 13y agoNo problem. We're all friends here ;)
- Havoc 13y ago>closed down barbecue pits Mind explaining what those are?
- simplemath 13y agoI'm guessing public barbecues
- petermcd 13y agoYes, I guess 'barbecue pit' isn't a good choice of words. I was referring to the street vendors who sell barbecue meat, etc. The ones near my home seem to be shut down. http://inhabitat.com/chinese-government-bans-outdoor-bbqs-in-bid-to-curb-beijings-air-pollution/ http://inhabitat.com/chinese-government-bans-outdoor-bbqs-in...
- Crito 13y agoI am guessing coal/charcoal/wood fired street food vendors. I doubt a yearly family picnic contributes enough to worry about.
- jamesaguilar 13y agoI also think I read that more than 50% of the nuclear plants currently being built are in China. That is a big way that they will eventually combat this problem.
- sliverstorm 13y agoThat is disheartening. For us, that is.
- johansch 13y agoNo, you seem to be misinformed.
- sliverstorm 13y agoSomehow your comment manages to be both smugly self-assured and also clear as mud. Bravo!
- Crito 13y agoHow does that 50% stack up against how much power they use compared to all other countries that have nuclear power available to them? Wikipedia has China's power usage in 2008 as just below the US's, but growing much faster. It also has much more of their power coming from coal in 2011 (46%, to 13%). It makes sense to me that China would be expanding their nuclear power faster than anybody else right now. Of course it would be nice if we would pick up the pace too... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
- sliverstorm 13y agoRight, I have no issues with China using nuclear, it just highlights how much we aren't.
- anigbrowl 13y agoCheer up, we are building some too; there are 4 nuclear plants under construction at present, which are the first new additions to the US nuclear fleet in 30 years: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/business/energy-environment/nuclear-powers-future-may-hinge-on-georgia-project.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/business/energy-environmen...