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Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

theguardian.com

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Re: Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

#131

Post by throwaway_yy2Di »

ddeck wrote: post #124
saalweachter wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really irks me whenever there's a talk about nuclear energy. Nuclear power may have its own set of challenges, but coming from the baseline of coal it's hard to do worse.

Agreed. A recent Stuttgart University report (commissioned by Greenpeace) estimated 22,000 premature deaths per year in the EU alone from coal-fired power stations. [1] I've seen estimates in the US of 10-20,000 annually depending on the source. e.g. [2], [3]. As someone who lives in a city state so small that the coal-fired power stations are literally next door to housing, I too wish there was more attention given…

That could actually be low. This paper estimates 90,000-380,000 deaths/year in the US from combustion, with 23,000-98,000 attributed to power plants (coal):

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/study-air-pollution-cause...

PDF paper: http://lae.mit.edu/wordpress2/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/US-...

(Agreeing, needless to say)

Re: Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

#132

Post by mikestew »

huxley wrote: post #79
kibwen wrote: post #69

For historical reference, here are some breathtaking photos of mid-century Pittsburgh: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2155742/Hell-lid-tak... I wonder if anyone can cite a source for one of the claims made in the article: "Also lots of people thought that high smoke output was a sign of high productivity and that coal smoke was good for the lungs and helped crops grow."

If you've lived near farms, pulp-n-paper mills or fish processing plants, you will often be told that the stink is the smell of money and you should stop complaining. I expect it was something similar.

As I would tell my father as we passed a pig farm, "yeah, but it's not the smell of my money."

Re: Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

#133

Post by Symmetry »

Houshalter wrote: post #122
icebraining wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Chinese workers have stuff like food. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China#Poverty_reduct...

We could just give people food without having to make stuff for us in return. The world does not have a food shortage.

Meanwhile, in the political system we live in, most Americans think that a balanced budget should be achieved by cutting foreign aid.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/09/americans-want-to-b...

"Market exchange is a pathetically inadequate substitute for love, but it scales better."

Re: Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

#134

Post by ams6110 »

_delirium wrote: post #68
danielweber wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, China and India are considered "developing" countries by Kyoto and can produce all the CO2 they want under the treaty, so of course they signed it. EDIT : and, of course, it was about CO2, not particulates. A country can make certain trade-offs about different types of pollution (particulates v. CO2 v. NOX).

That part doesn't seem too unfair to me, considering that China and India's per-capita emissions are still vastly below U.S. levels. It'd be one thing if they were being allowed higher-than-US-level emissions due to being classified as "developing" countries, but they aren't producing anywhere near that.

It's the total emissions that matter, not per capita, and China leads the world.

Re: Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

#135

Post by Symmetry »

aryastark wrote: post #121
ChuckMcM wrote: post #81

I see this as a difficult to fake signal that China's economic growth is more real than some folks in the West would like to believe. It is similar to the challenges faced by industrial cities in the West as they exploited the massive production capacities created during WW II. Generally the reasoning goes, high pollution from lots of power plants / factories is a function of production of those power plants / factor…

China's growth is being sustained by a development bubble, where they are accumulating the infamous ghost towns. But I've never heard anyone deny the fact that they are doing these things. And, of course, everyone in the US already knows that China makes everything. So I don't know who you are referring to here.

China has a lot of ghost towns, but remember that the ghost towns from 2008 are full of people now, so I'm guessing that the current ghost towns will up sooner or later. China has way less square footage of housing per capita than Europe, much less the US so building lots of housing is a pretty reasonable investment even if it doesn't pay off instantly.

Re: Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

#137

Post by _delirium »

ams6110 wrote: post #134
_delirium wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That part doesn't seem too unfair to me, considering that China and India's per-capita emissions are still vastly below U.S. levels. It'd be one thing if they were being allowed higher-than-US-level emissions due to being classified as "developing" countries, but they aren't producing anywhere near that.

It's the total emissions that matter, not per capita, and China leads the world.

That's a silly metric, though, because it just depends on where you divide things up politically. If China split into two independent countries, suddenly it wouldn't lead the world anymore, but the environment would not be any better off. Similarly, if Europe merged into a United States of Europe, its emissions would be much higher-ranked (maybe the largest), but it would not actually emit more than currently. The environment does not care at what scale you draw your political borders.

Per-capita emissions are one way of accounting for the obvious fact that if Denmark (a nation of 5 million people) generated as much CO2 per year as Germany does (a nation of 80 million people), Denmark would in this hypothetical be more blameworthy, and it would be fair to ask Denmark to reduce its emissions more than Germany, as it would already be emitting far out of proportion to its size. Put differently, if every country reduced their per-capita emissions to China's level, we'd actually be in great shape. That suggests that China is not the main problem.

Re: Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

#138

Post by auhnadil »

dylandrop wrote: post #21
jkimmel wrote: post #12

Is there a level of public outcry regarding the pollution? I realize that criticism may be somewhat muted given the nature of the PRC government, but I can't imagine a city as large and cosmopolitan as Shanghai merely accepting this level of environmental mismanagement. Unfortunately, articles regarding Beijing/Shanghai pollution usually fail to mention public sentiment above the level of brief individual anecdote ("…

I mean, the problem is that there's a bit of a cultural difference between Americans circa-Industrial Revolution, and the Chinese now. So saying that the Chinese will stand up and protest isn't necessarily true. I don't want to speak for all Chinese, but from what I've read -- please correct me if I'm wrong -- is that there is more of a culture of deference to authority in China. Compare this to Americans, who have a…

Agree.There have been some complains and disscussions about air pollution recently. They can easily be found online, whereas you won't find people talking about it or worry about it very much. The way of how Chinese expressing their feelings is far more different than a public outcry. Hence, people are certainly waiting for the action of their government. And, what about those who are so confident and think they will not be the next victim of the air pollution? Was Shanghai one of them who have this thought?

Re: Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

#139

Post by Crito »

Havoc wrote: post #92
petermcd wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, b…

>closed down barbecue pits Mind explaining what those are?

I am guessing coal/charcoal/wood fired street food vendors. I doubt a yearly family picnic contributes enough to worry about.

Re: Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

#140

Post by sliverstorm »

saalweachter wrote: post #109
Sharlin wrote: post #16

I wonder how this compares to the worst smogs experienced in London and elsewhere before the West got its act together with regard to particulate pollution. Apparently the Great Smog of 1952 killed on the order of 10000 people in just a few days. I'm not sure many young people nowadays realize how horrible the situation was just half a century ago. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_1952

It really irks me whenever there's a talk about nuclear energy. Nuclear power may have its own set of challenges, but coming from the baseline of coal it's hard to do worse.

It's especially dour when people celebrate getting nuclear plants shut down or blocked, and you know the unspoken result will be more coal plants. How is that a victory?
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