China Begins Car-Rationing in Beijing Leading up to the Olympics
Will last-ditch efforts help alleviate Beijing’s air pollution problem?
There have been serious concerns about air quality in the Chinese capital of Beijing ever since it was awarded the Olympic Games in 2001. Since then, the Chinese government has spent an estimated $15 billion dollars to address the air pollution problem in Beijing. The cash has been spent on shutting down factories, unleashing cloud seeders to encourage rain, and now, on paying people to not drive their cars.
Beginning today in Beijing, cars with license plates that end in an odd number are banned from the roads every other day, alternating with cars that have even-numbered plates. It is estimated that there are about 3.5 million vehicles on the roads in Beijing and the ban will reduce the numbers of cars on the road by about one million per day. Drivers will be compensated by not having to pay road and vehicle taxes for three months.
Beijing officials claim to have significantly improved air quality, with just over two-thirds of the days last year meeting national health guidelines, up from only 20% a decade earlier. But some question the validity of the data. An article in the Wall St. Journal suggests that pollution standards may have been loosened, air-quality-monitoring stations moved and data possibly manipulated with to show better results.
The Journal reports that:
“According to the state standards, days with a pollution-index reading below 100 on a 500-point scale measuring several types of pollution are considered “blue sky days,” with good air quality. But some analysts say the data show an unusual cluster of days with levels at or just below that crucial number, and very few with levels immediately above it, suggesting days with pollution levels just above the threshold are being marked down. Under normal conditions, air quality would be evenly distributed.”
“At a press conference Thursday, Du Shaozong, spokesman for the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, rejected suggestions that the data had been manipulated. He said the pattern was the result of how testing locations are placed, and the ability of government measures to head off short-term spikes in pollution. Each testing site covers about nine square kilometers, and in some cases, the main source of pollution may be a large factory that is easily targeted.”
Will the plan work? No one really knows for sure, but with the August 8 ceremonies only weeks away, it would have to work quickly. Some are considering wearing masks to filter pollution, an image that might embarrass China’s leaders who are trying to portray Beijing (and China, more broadly) as a clean, modern, and affluent place - a place that is open for business.
The IOC has already indicated that certain events may be rescheduled if they deam the air quality is unsafe. And Australia has recently said its athletes will remain in Hong Kong during the opening ceremony to limit their exposure to polluted air.
Other Posts about the 2008 Beijing Olympics:
- “How to Make Large Events More Sustainable: Foldable Hotels!”
- “China Winds the Gold Medal in Rain Control”
Photo: kevindooley via flickr under a Creative Commons License
Too little, too late? China begins partial automobile ban to try and clear the Beijing air before the olympics
[...] stations moved and data possibly manipulated with to show better results. Read Full Article: China Begins Car-Rationing in Beijing Leading up to the Olympics : EcoWorldly __________________ Sustainable Land Use & Impact [...]
[...] China Begins Car-Rationing in Beijing Leading up to the Olympics [...]
One day we will all live better electrically,but the U.S. has to take the lead.If the U.S. had chosen to be a moral people, and leaving Iraqi oil alone, and following Al Gore, decided to develop the South Western deserts, with the technology of the times - solar/thermal-molten sodium - electricity installations, for the same amount of money as that war cost, ($650 Billion), today, we would be tapping into the largest, renewable, sustainable, energy source the world has ever known. It would have paid every energy bill in the U.S.A. for maintenance fees only - FOREVER! It would be equivalent to an oil field that can NEVER run dry! Low cost electric power, and storeable hydrogen gasoline replacement from the electricity, for all!
After the millions of murders, and $650 billions of dollars, borrowed from our children’s futures and pissed away, with thousands of our own and others maimed and disfigured for life, millions of families utterly destroyed, ours and theirs, we are no closer to Iraqi oil production than the Iraqis are!
The next time you hear a blithering idiot spoiled brat, drunken, drug addicted, sociopath, rich Arabic saber dancing daddie’s boy oilman, stand at a microphone and threaten YOUR safety with someone ELSE’S weapons, remember what you lost America, remember, and weep! (also see http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan)