Another report by James Fallows about Beijing air pollution

Image by kevindooley via Flickr

The image below indicates how it looked like a few days ago, mainly blue skies.

But now he seems to be saying that the hope for less smog and more blue skies over Beijing may be a dream!

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Interconnectedness, or it’s either cleaner air in Beijing

and more global warming, or enough polluted air to balance the causes of global warming. The 2008 Olympics have some interesting side effects and here is the link.

But to Veerabhadran Ramanathan, an atmospheric scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, the sporting events are just a sideshow to the real excitement: air pollution studies.

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That means that as developing nations like China clean up their conventional air pollution — as the world is seeing now in Beijing — it could paradoxically release one of the last restraints on global warming. “How large and how rapid global warming is going to be over the next few decades may depend on how fast we unmask the pollution,” says Ramanathan. “That’s the uncertainty we’re trying to narrow down.” It’s a scary thought: in making our air cleaner, we could be making the planet warmer.

So the next time some know-it-all or political blowhard announces he/she has the solution to our pollution dilemmas, just tell him to take many steps back. In our world almost all is interconnected. Make one worse and the other suffers. But what is more upsetting, make one better and you can make the other worse! Simple solutions are the best and least expensive, but they aren’t obvious.

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The latest from NY Times about air pollution in Beijing

Image by Princess Pie! via Flickr

Here’s the link and some quotes:

BEIJING — When the Canadian cyclist Svein Tuft arrived in Beijing, he feared the worst. Air pollution. Gray smog. Coughing and wheezing.

None of it occurred. When he raced for 6 ½ hours last Saturday, he was amazed. Beijing’s air, he said, was not even close to bad. The pollution concerns, he decided, “have been a massive hype.”

and another quote:

For his next research project, Rundell is investigating a possible antidote to air pollution — Viagra.

BTW dear readers, if you are Canadians are you feeling cheated by the medal results so far! I know it’s a bitch for the athletes, but even I am feeling the downer about it all.

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Most Olympic athletes are obsessing about Beijing’s air quality

BBC News offers an excellent set of photos and measurements taken from one vantage point in Beijing during the past month.

James Fallows adds another image of Beijing air

with 26 days before 08/08/08 Olympics opening day and here it is Picnik-ed up a tad:

Mr. Fallows tells us that this is before factories are shut down to give the air a better chance to lighten up!

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Beijing air on July 2, 2008 or 37 days till Olympics 2008

James Fallows has offered snaps of Beijing air as seen from his apt. window. Needless to say the heavy smog shown in every photo is disconcerting, but not surprising to me since I visited Beijing in 2004 and 2005. Here is the latest snap:

Good luck Olympians!

Oh Oh! Here’s the latest Beijing air pollution news and it ain’t good!

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