China's Air Pollution.

[vash]

what's up with the big cloud of pollution in Bejing? is it a geographic feature just holding the smog in place?

i just heard on the news a passenger jet had to pull out and fly to another airport on the last wisp of fuel because there was not enough visibility to land.

and they just held a Bejing marathon..folks running with mask. the lead Kenyan tapped out halfway thru. participants were directed to wash their skin at the race end.

i cant see how they can keep this up.

[BE911SC]

But it's so profitable not to have regulations.

[RANDY P]

It's no joke. It's disgusting. It's so bad when I was landing in Beijing I thought it was fog....

Try breathing it for a few days when you're not used to it.

rjp

[vash]

what is holding it there? mountain ranges?

[RANDY P]

no wind, not enough rain, it's stuck

[kach22i]

We have killed them with unvetted capitalism.

We are winning.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Originally Posted by vash

what is holding it there? mountain ranges?

I don't think anything's holding it there. It's just being replenished faster than it can dissipate.

[TimT]

I have been lucky to have been in Beijing a few times on some super clear crisp blue sky days....

On other occasions... I was sealing the windows in my my apartment in Chao Yang to keep out the nasty...

I'll try to scrounge out some pics for comparison

[M.D. Holloway]

I was in China a few times...love many things about it but there the pollution was a deal breaker for me moving in.

[widgeon13]

My guess would be that the pollution is generated as quickly as it dissipates into the atmosphere. Not a healthy situation.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

American demand for cheap crap.

[Rick Lee]

What's really crazy is that they don't have any cars older than 10 yrs, so they all have modern emissions and cats. I don't think Beijing has a lot of factories either. And they're not real good about heating bldgs in the winter. I don't know where it all comes from.

[M.D. Holloway]

cigarettes

[jcommin]

It is in other cities too: Shanghai, Nan Chang. Go to the interior of the country, the sewer and water system and not good either.

[KNS]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

What's really crazy is that they don't have any cars older than 10 yrs, so they all have modern emissions and cats. I don't think Beijing has a lot of factories either. And they're not real good about heating bldgs in the winter. I don't know where it all comes from.

Even new cars are gross polluters depending on where they're sold. Take a brand new car purchased in Mexico City or Calcutta and bring it to California and it would fail its smog test miserably.

GM, Ford, Toyota, etc all love to tell us how green they are with their emissions equipment installed on new cars but they put the bare minimum on cars sold elsewhere on the world. Many countries around the world are supposed to have adopted the latest Euro 6/VI stage emissions standards, but haven't.

http://www.theicct.org/global-health-roadmap

[TimT]

Beijing Jan '11

I've also been in Beijing where you can barely see 50 feet

"underpants building"



A little accident



Forbidden City



About 2 hours nw of Beijing... nice mountain road



Tianjin May '10

Off to work comrades




Stepson bust in some moves on decommissioned battleship(light haze)

[red911sc]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

American demand for cheap crap.

This cracks me up. I won't PARF the thread.

[J P Stein]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

American demand for cheap crap.

You can always depend on the "blame America firsters" to chime in.

[island911]

I've heard that 1/3 of the air pollution in SF bay comes from China. (and we're told CO2 needs to be taxed to save-ah the planet )

Anyway, only 10% of the 10x population in China lives like the well to do in the States - IOW, they have as many higher-end consumers as we have people.

[Hawkeye's-911T]

As in both our countries, our west coasts are 'downwind' of China & subsequently catch tons of mercury, ozone & all other forms of nastiness due to China's dependence on the extensive use of coal to fuel their economy. I recall reading a figure of 1400 tons annually of mercury alone. It behooves me to add, we have a lot of dirt under our respective fingernails when it comes to screwing up the environment to feed & sustain our own economies.

Cheers
JB