Friday, August 08, 2008
The air in Beijing
I did not stick around this morning to watch the opening ceremonies, but the air did not look good in the teaser shots. James Fallows, who is in China, pronounces it a "disaster" notwithstanding the very confident prediction of Chinese scientists only a few weeks ago.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that smoggy skies in China during the Olympics will put a nail in the coffin of the idea that we can get meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions without the participation of China (and, presumably, India). Politically, the interesting question is whether pictures of soupy Chinese air will help or hurt the movement to regulate greenhouse gases in the rich countries. Will the Olympics renew the sense of urgency over climate change (after, of course, the rich and famous make it back home in their private jets) or will people resist burdening their own economies unless China and India do the same?
4 Comments:
By 
SR, at
Fri Aug 08, 09:19:00 AM:
I always thought Athens was pretty smoggy.
Is Beijing that much worse?
Of course, by comparison, any US City is like a clean room where you could build microchips.
By Georg Felis, at
Fri Aug 08, 09:42:00 AM:
It is not CO2 which is the major pollutant that China needs to be worried about and “do something” about fairly quickly, it is all those particles and chemicals they are pumping into the air. They really need something somewhat equivalent to the “Clean Air Act”, make sure their new power plants are not cranking out Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrous Oxide, and a host of other smoggy contributors, put solid pollution controls on all new cars, etc… CO2 is plant food, the other stuff will kill you.
By 
, at
Fri Aug 08, 12:02:00 PM:
Just a few comments by someone who was once in Beijing.
1) a lot of cabs are fueled by propane to help reduce smog
2) I don't think any of the cars have catalytic converters, or the equivalent. That may be coming.
3) There are several LARGE coal burning power plants in the city of Beijing, and that don't help much.
Most of the coal burned for fuel, etc in China comes from Shanxi province. The Chinese use coal for just about everything. Most construction is done with bricks, and there are coal-fired brick kilns all over the countryside. A lot of people heat their houses and cook with coal. And I saw brand new coal-fired power plants with no pollution abatement equipment whatsoever; no electrostatic precipitators, dust collects, etc. I think most of the coal from Shanxi is also fairly high in sulfur (1-2%).
The air quality in Beijing reminds me a lot of Chicago, which can be pretty bad on some days. The big steel mills, etc., near Chicago and the general industry there give it about the same air quality.
Also, Beijing is on the eastern edge of a pretty arid, semi-desert area, which contributes to dust and "smog" effects from unburned car exhausts (no cat. converters on the cars).
-David
By , at
Fri Aug 08, 01:04:00 PM:
Smog is a side effect of NOx, not CO2. Enviro-weenies have written many thousands of words for the purpose of getting the general public to conflate the two. It is politically convenient for them to have the general public think CO2 (which is harmless) is the same thing as NOx (which is not).
