151–160 of 216 posts
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Has there been any long-term research done on the health effects of particulate pollution? I was in Beijing last winter when the air pollution was nearing record highs, and every time I blew my nose after returning from being outside, it would be full of black mucus. That has to be a wakeup call. In addition, when I returned to the states (Chicago), even the air around O'Hare Airport - probably one of the more pollut…
I usually get my fair bit of black mucus in Central London. Not sure what that means but some places don't smell that good. For example, Queen's Gate road in Kensington has a very strong smell of gas.
There's also a lack of understanding on the effects of this pollution, especially as it becomes more regular. I worked and lived in China for 7 years and just getting parents to close the windows of an obstetric hospital with newborns was difficult enough. There is a belief that "fresh air" is always better than what is in the room. When I asked nurses about the public health impact of this pollution on children, the…
Had the exact same problem with my parents in New Delhi. Father was suffering from lung disease. Wanted to sit outside on the balcony - fresh air, apparently. I tried to explain to him that the air is laden with dangerous levels of particulate pollutants. He didn't care. He died earlier this year. PM10/2.5 levels continue to be disastrous (1900+/700+ on some days especially around Diwali). Mother still likes to open…
What did the cities look like in the US and Europe during parts of the Industrial Revolution? I cant imagine it was as persistent and thick as some parts of China.
As already mentioned in the thread the London "pea soupers" were as bad, or worse, than the pictures we see here. Google image search for ["pea souper"] for images from 1950s London.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2243732/Pea-souper-k...
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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…
Don't forget that burning coal releases more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear power (because of trace amounts of uranium).
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Was it possible for you to breathe the air in the surrounding areas? (Lantau, Macau, etc)
Last time I was back in April of this year, Lantau was a little better but realistically still not good enough to consider living there, much less bringing up kids. I ended up feeling out of breath crossing the road. I haven't been back to Macau since I was a kid though, so it looks very different now (Thanks to Mr Ho.) My grandfather grew up in HK too. He passed away last summer, struck down by a rather horrible res…
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I also think I read that more than 50% of the nuclear plants currently being built are in China. That is a big way that they will eventually combat this problem.
That is disheartening. For us, that is.
Today, Taipei is remarkably clean. I was stunned in 2001, when I last lived there as a permanent resident, by a visitor from Ukraine who arrived in Taiwan after visiting Hong Kong. He commented that he liked Taiwan better than Hong Kong because it was cleaner. I was stunned by that comment because the last time I visited Hong Kong (before retrocession to China), no one would have said so. Hong Kong is downwind of China, and maybe is not as cleaned up anymore now that it is under Chinese rule. Taiwan under democratization has become very clean indeed (although it too is downwind of China). Politicial pluralization through a free press and free elections (an advantage India already has) and effective rule by law (an advantage India is developing) seem all over the world to help countries prosper in a more environmentally sustainable manner. I wish China well in developing democracy and rule by law, and in any event to enjoy clean air sooner rather than later.
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
I'm not sure many young people nowadays realize how horrible the situation was just half a century ago. This is a great point. We've made so much progress in this area that "pollution" can seem like an abstraction. This is something we should be impressing upon our children, in a more serious way than stories about walking to school uphill in the snow both ways, etc. I was two years old when this picture was taken in…
Those images of Shanghai (and London 1952, and Beijing and Hong Kong and, occasionally, Singapore) are the real thing, looking like scenes from a forest fire but downtown in a major city.