I found this article from RT.com, it reminds me of my home town, Nanjing. I think the the most direct action right now to reduce the air pollution is to slow down the development speed a little bit. reducing the number of large-size projects in a certain time period and extend the length of the total time limit of all projects will observably decrease the pollution degree. You will be amazed when I tell you my personal experience in Nanjing before and after the Youth Olympic Games: before the opening ceremony about a month ago, we still have more than 20 large-size construction projects working normally and the AQI number is about 200 which means the air is very unhealthy. Before the opening ceremony about weeks ago, the government finally decided to close some of projects. By the day that half of the LSP( large-size project) were closed, the blue sky came out. By the day that all the LSP were closed, the AQI dropped massively into about 100, which is medium, and even lower. However, after the Olympic Games, those projects were opened again, and suddenly the air pollution became heavy again. The main problem is that most of the government officers in China have limited eye-sites, and are too focusing on their personal contributions and something can be done fast. Every one want to make some big deal before they “leave their seats” and the only thing they can imagined that can be done quickly and can represent the sign of economy development is large-size construction projects. Thus the development of the city or country becomes the game of who can build more buildings within a limited time. If they cannot slow their speed and calm down, paying more attention on those long-term sustainable new project, the current situation of China’s air pollution will never get better. I will bring more figure next time.
Heavy air pollution blankets northern China, reaches ‘hazardous’ levels
http://rt.com/news/194956-air-pollution-china-hazardous/
Wei Dai
This is a really interesting post. Your personal take on the pollution is something that I can’t quite understand because I’ve never been to China. I understand that pollution is a worldwide problem, but we always hear that it is exponentially worse is China and your experiences mirror that. I imagine that we will cover pollution at some point in this course and I’m sure that you will be see parallels between the motives of the Chinese politicians to Pennsylvania politicians that push for fracking. I see the economic gains but the environmental strain is so great because they show no mercy for our planet and resources. I often wonder where the happy medium is. How do we find a peaceful harmony where we’re still being productive, but not being destructive in the long run?
This got me thinking about pollution more than I usually do, especially in regards to places with heavy pollution. Last semester I took a course on the architecture of cities and we talked about Beijing and how they reduced pollution for the Games but it is now back. I wonder what we can do with water and other resources to slow and even reverse the negative effects of pollution…