Experiencing Clean Air – For a while

Beijing has started to implement its government imposed plan for reducing air pollution for the Olympic Games. Some of the plan is temporary, like limiting car use to every other day based on even/odd license plate numbers. Improvements to mass transit, like two new subway lines and an airport rail link will provide ongoing improvements.

Beijing has closed many of its pollution causing factories and removed older diesel trucks from service for the next two months. The plan started on Sunday and the initial reports are that the hazy, polluted sky has mostly cleared. Changes in air quality will be monitored by experts from the city's environmental protection bureau, which has 27 survey stations around Beijing and another 18 in Olympic venues.

Athletes are very concerned about the air quality, particularly athletes involved in long duration outdoor events. International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge has said outdoor endurance events lasting more than an hour will be postponed if air quality is poor. Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia, the world’s greatest distance runner, will not participate in the Beijing marathon because the pollution irritates his asthma.

Some athletes have plans to wear masks for the games to help against the pollution. Masks would not be very welcome, especially at the opening ceremonies. Hopefully they will get their air clean enough for the games that it won’t be a problem for the athletes (or the visitors).

This is a huge event for China; sort of like a coming-out party, where they can show off all of their accomplishments of the last 25 years to the world. China has been running full-speed ahead in economic development to create jobs and growth and doing it on the cheap. China burns a lot of very cheap and dirty coal to generate electric power and to run their factories. Many facilities operate without any pollution controls. They are currently the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, having passed the United States this year. China’s economy is roughly one quarter the size of the US economy so this makes them very polluting for the amount of products they produce.

I was wondering what will happen in China after the games. The people of Beijing will get quite a contrast in cleaner air quality for the games. They might like living in a clean environment. Environmental protests already happen in China and are tolerated by the authorities to some extent. Hopefully the Olympics may be the start of a larger environmental movement in China with the goal of permanently cleaning up the air and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It will be expensive to develop clean energy infrastructure, but you have to start somewhere.

Topics: Global Warming , Coal , China , Greenhouse , environmentalist , electricity , energy policy