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Chinese cities use “mist cannon” to shoot pollution from the sky

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Re: Chinese cities use “mist cannon” to shoot pollution from the sky

#61

Post by jimworm »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #48
JadeNB wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why aren't the coal-burning energy utility companies paying for them, out of pocket? Because no-one has the power to make them, I think. If it's easier (and probably cheaper) to take measures to address the problem yourself than it is to force compliance, then that's the sensible way to go.

Their customers stop sending them money? Would probably shut down most operations pretty quickly.

If nobody sends them money they could just print more. There is only one power company and it's owned by the state.

Re: Chinese cities use “mist cannon” to shoot pollution from the sky

#62

Post by jewbacca »

Htsthbjig wrote: post #54
brenschluss wrote: post #40

Say what you will about China and its pollution, it's an interesting attempt at a solution.[1] Could you imagine something like that implemented easily in the US before caught within lawyer-string nets of liability? China has many problems, but many HN readers bashing China have probably never set foot there and are formulating their understanding based off of western media and the socioeconomic + cultural dynamics o…

"I'm not Chinese nor do I have a particular stake, but I was there for three weeks this summer and was overwhelmed by a kind of social optimism" It is normal to fall in love when you meet a different culture. It takes 6 months or so living on a country to start seeing caveats and "not so good things" in any country. "the shared assumption that services are getting better, progress will happen, and a relentless cycle…

> But now you have to use like 6 layers of VPN, change patterns of navigation

Please explain further.

Re: Chinese cities use “mist cannon” to shoot pollution from the sky

#63

Post by wooter »

analyst74 wrote: post #60
peteretep wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really really don't know what you're talking about. The State in China explicitly picks winners and losers from state companies (in particular banks), tightly controls currencies, tries to resist movement of labour, and attempts to hide moral hazard through censorship. All the while guaranteeing full employment.

There are definitely still some communist elements there, like large state owned enterprises and a very controlling/authoritarian government. But some of the key definitions of capitalism is quite entrenched in the society: - means of production are privately owned - profit-motive - market-driven economy / competition - inequality - minimal government interference China definitely does not fit all the hard-core capit…

inequality as part of the definition of capitalism? talk about intellectual dishonesty. has inequality gone up or down since when China had more "communist elements"?

Re: Chinese cities use “mist cannon” to shoot pollution from the sky

#64

Post by tokenadult »

brenschluss wrote: post #40

Say what you will about China and its pollution, it's an interesting attempt at a solution.[1] Could you imagine something like that implemented easily in the US before caught within lawyer-string nets of liability? China has many problems, but many HN readers bashing China have probably never set foot there and are formulating their understanding based off of western media and the socioeconomic + cultural dynamics o…

many HN readers bashing China have probably never set foot there

Readers of Hacker News who have been reading the Chinese press in the original Chinese since the 1970s and who have been to the Chinese-speaking world since the 1980s and thereafter (as I have) get really sick and tired of credulous Westerners believing propaganda from China, that's all. I can remember a time from the 1980s when China (by contrast with Taiwan) was praised by a French student I knew at the time for having no air pollution. I pointed out to him then that that was because China was only just beginning to develop economically at the time. (In that year, the per-capita G.D.P. of Taiwan was ten times that of China.) China has made some interesting progress on some issues, and I often appear here on Hacker News pointing out that even the United States can learn quite a bit from how China does primary school instruction in mathematics, for example.[1]

But China is still a dictatorship, with none of the free and fair elections or free press that Taiwan now has. (Taiwan was a dictatorship when I first lived there, but a thriving democracy the second time I lived there.) China's air pollution is now about the worst in the world--it could have put in pollution controls as it industrialized, as the technology for pollution control was well known by then, but the dictators of China chose to industrialize without minimizing pollution. In general, when I see a gee-whiz popular press story about China here on Hacker News, I simply don't believe the first submission. I look for comments in the thread by some of the Hacker News participants who currently live in China and who know the language well[2] (the latter criterion is more stringent, but necessary) to check whether the story is plausible at all.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematic...

http://condor.depaul.edu/sepp/mat660/Askey.pdf

http://www.ams.org/notices/199908/rev-howe.pdf

[2] In this thread, the earlier comment by a Hacker News participant who lives in China deserves an upvote.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10779183

Re: Chinese cities use “mist cannon” to shoot pollution from the sky

#66

Post by kctess5 »

afarrell wrote: post #47
analyst74 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root cause is focusing on economical development over everything else, including staggering inequality, pollution, and others. The central governments' inability to enforce local municipalities to do whatever they want, is actually result of the shifting political structure from a single autocratic ruler during Mao's era to a more technocratic/autonomous style of ruling. This is a good thing, although it does cre…

Was that policy decision worth it? Well according to http://www.globalissues.org/article/4/poverty-around-the-wor... """ Accounting for the increased population between 1981 and 2005, the poverty rate has, however, fallen by about 25%. While this at least sounds encouraging, it masks regional variations, and perhaps most glaringly the impact of China: China’s poverty rate fell from 85% to 15.9%, or by over 600 millio…

This is an interesting dilema

Re: Chinese cities use “mist cannon” to shoot pollution from the sky

#67

Post by Apocryphon »

Htsthbjig wrote: post #54
brenschluss wrote: post #40

Say what you will about China and its pollution, it's an interesting attempt at a solution.[1] Could you imagine something like that implemented easily in the US before caught within lawyer-string nets of liability? China has many problems, but many HN readers bashing China have probably never set foot there and are formulating their understanding based off of western media and the socioeconomic + cultural dynamics o…

"I'm not Chinese nor do I have a particular stake, but I was there for three weeks this summer and was overwhelmed by a kind of social optimism" It is normal to fall in love when you meet a different culture. It takes 6 months or so living on a country to start seeing caveats and "not so good things" in any country. "the shared assumption that services are getting better, progress will happen, and a relentless cycle…

It's funny, because the caveats you're describing is exactly how I feel about the SF Bay Area.

Re: Chinese cities use “mist cannon” to shoot pollution from the sky

#68

Post by r00fus »

Apocryphon wrote: post #67
Htsthbjig wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm not Chinese nor do I have a particular stake, but I was there for three weeks this summer and was overwhelmed by a kind of social optimism" It is normal to fall in love when you meet a different culture. It takes 6 months or so living on a country to start seeing caveats and "not so good things" in any country. "the shared assumption that services are getting better, progress will happen, and a relentless cycle…

It's funny, because the caveats you're describing is exactly how I feel about the SF Bay Area.

As opposed to where?

Re: Chinese cities use “mist cannon” to shoot pollution from the sky

#69

Post by r00fus »

dageshi wrote: post #41
mahranch wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest relevant fact on that page is half hidden. China pumps out 10 gigatonnes of CO2 every year. India? Just 2 gigatonnes tons. In fact, you could combine the U.S, E.U and India's C02 annual output, and it still wouldn't be as much as China. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... Why does that matter? Because India has roughly the same population size as China, but pumps signif…

Doesn't India have a generally warmer climate than China, as in no need to burn fossil fuels to keep warm?

It probably has more to do with the fact that China is the worlds factory (Foxconn?), while India has a lower portion of their economy in heavy industry.

As to why that's the case - again, this could be attributed to a political issue - government looks aside as BigCo craps on the country's environment, as long as it fuels the massive economy, keeping everyone optimistic.

Re: Chinese cities use “mist cannon” to shoot pollution from the sky

#70

Post by analyst74 »

jewbacca wrote: post #62
Htsthbjig wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm not Chinese nor do I have a particular stake, but I was there for three weeks this summer and was overwhelmed by a kind of social optimism" It is normal to fall in love when you meet a different culture. It takes 6 months or so living on a country to start seeing caveats and "not so good things" in any country. "the shared assumption that services are getting better, progress will happen, and a relentless cycle…

> But now you have to use like 6 layers of VPN, change patterns of navigation Please explain further.

Since Xi Jinping took power, the government has stepped up their internet censorship efforts, banning many well known VPN. According to some accounts, they also utilize some sort of dynamic filter to determine if you are accessing censored content or using non-blocked VPN.

How exactly they do that is unknown, but the fact is, it's much harder to visit censored websites now than before.

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