How China Is (Surprise!) Winning Its War On Air Pollution

[Dungeness]

The first time most people ever heard of any serious air pollution problem was during the Beijing Olympics. Only because you guys had to do some kind of emissions crackdown that was noteworthy.

I remember that. If they do something, they are damned; if they don't do something, they are damned, just because they are "commie".

Then there was some issue with the US Embassy giving out readings that was causing some consternation by the Chinese government, So back in the news the air pollution came.

China censors US embassy pollution data during APEC
"Authorities have ordered one of China's most popular air pollution-reporting apps to remove data provided by the US embassy, a company spokesman said Tuesday, as Beijing hosts a high-profile gathering of world leaders.

Well, I don't call it "censor". China is not supposed to use some dubious foreign data as official air quality data, as they have their own organization to do that job. But the PM 2.5 daily reading was published by US Embassy on their Weibo account everyday, and some eager Weibo VIPs broadcast it to hundreds of million Weibo users everyday. Is this still a "censorship"?

You see, you only get one side of story that "free" mainstream media try to feed you, and you subconsciously fall for it but never know you could be a victim of "brainwash" not by state sponsored propaganda machine, but by corporate media with an agenda.

Time to watch RT and CCTV, and listen to different version of "truth", before you come to your own conclusion.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

I remember that. If they do something, they are damned; if they don't do something, they are damned, just because they are "commie".

Before the pollution levels became a concern for the Beijing Olympics do you think the air pollution in China ever made news here?? No, it never did. It was completely off the radar.

Go google it yourself. I'll start a year before the Olympics and go back to 1990.

beijing air pollution -olympics - Google Search

I
Well, I don't call it "censor". China is not supposed to use some dubious foreign data as official air quality data, as they have their own organization to do that job. But the PM 2.5 daily reading was published by US Embassy on their Weibo account everyday, and some eager Weibo VIPs broadcast it to hundreds of million Weibo users everyday. Is this still a "censorship"?

You see, you only get one side of story that "free" mainstream media try to feed you, and you subconsciously fall for it but never know you could be a victim of "brainwash" not by state sponsored propaganda machine, but by corporate media with an agenda.

Time to watch RT and CCTV, and listen to different version of "truth", before you come to your own conclusion.

Well apparently the reason people had to resort to using a foreign source is because apparently people didn't trust the Chinese government as a source. You have to admit that is pretty desperate to even consider using data from a foreign country for local weather. That's really a bad sign.

 

[xunzi]

You know you have a serious problem in pollution when you are not even a industrializing country.

 

[Dungeness]

Before the pollution levels became a concern for the Beijing Olympics do you think the air pollution in China ever made news here?? No, it never did. It was completely off the radar.

International pressure or China bashing sometimes worked for the people of China though it was not the intended purpose. The OP shows the progress. It says something about this "evil commie" state. It actually responds to the demand of people after all. Try to do this to New Delhi!

Well apparently the reason people had to resort to using a foreign source is because apparently people didn't trust the Chinese government as a source. You have to admit that is pretty desperate to even consider using data from a foreign country for local weather. That's really a bad sign.

If I remember correctly, US Embassy actually was the first one to introduce the PM 2.5 concept to Chinese masses, and caused an uproar in social media. Chinese Government scrambled to find a way to deal with the public outcry, and eventually came up with their own monitoring system. We just have to give the credit to the Americans for that.

People change along the time. In China, VOA once was deemed THE source for the truth, until people gradually find out it was just another propaganda machine, just from a different camp. I admit the West still have a huge influence on many young people in China, some even worship everything about the west. They will grow up once they have a chance to see the bigger picture, just like PDF Chinese members did. Chinese society is not as closed as you might think, people are talking all kind of things freely that might have earned them jail time in some democratic countries. By the way, there is no PC in China that forces people to watch their mouth all the time.

 

[AndrewJin]

You know you have a serious problem in pollution when you are not even a industrializing country.

And they don't think it's a problem.
They spend more time on "pollution of China".

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

International pressure or China bashing sometimes worked for the people of China though it was not the intended purpose.

If the Olympics were never held in Beijing your air pollution would be getting just as much media attention as it did in the last 20 years before it...zilch.

Just like when Brazil got to host the World Cup in their country all the bad things (poverty, crime, etc) came into the media spotlight. If they didn't get to host it... they would get zero attention.

If I remember correctly, US Embassy actually was the first one to introduce the PM 2.5 concept to Chinese masses,

They seem to have been posting it since at least 2001 from that google link i posted. It didn't seem to attract much notice.

caused an uproar in social media. Chinese Government scrambled to find a way to deal with the public outcry, and eventually came up with their own monitoring system. We just have to give the credit to the Americans for that.

Well I don't remember an outcry in 2001 so maybe people were taking the government explanation of "fog" as the truth...but then they smartly wised up.

People change along the time. In China, VOA once was deemed THE source for the truth, until people gradually find out it was just another propaganda machine, just from a different camp. I admit the West still have a huge influence on many young people in China, some even worship everything about the west. They will grow up once they have a chance to see the bigger picture, just like PDF Chinese members did. Chinese society is not as closed as you might think, people are talking all kind of things freely that might have earned them jail time in some democratic countries.

People usually only start to listen to outside news when they deem their own news untrustworthy,

 

[Dungeness]

If the Olympics were never held in Beijing your air pollution would be getting just as much media attention as it did in the last 20 years before it...zilch.

Just like when Brazil got to host the World Cup in their country all the bad things (poverty, crime, etc) came into the media spotlight. If they didn't get to host it... they would get zero attention.

They seem to have been posting it since at least 2001 from that google link i posted. It didn't seem to attract much notice.

Well I don't remember an outcry in 2001 so maybe people were taking the government explanation of "fog" as the truth...but then they smartly wised up.

I guess it did not grab people's attention until Weibo became very popular, and some social media big shots got involved in "broadcasting" business and became a mouth piece.

People usually only start to listen to outside news when they deem their own news untrustworthy,

Smart people always seek information from different sources. There is no any news source is trustworthy to the point it should be the only source.

 

[GS Zhou]

That's only because you guys tried to censor it. Before that it was never even a blip on the news.

while the "air quality" & "China" results on Weibo is 1600x of that in twitter, so you must mean the Chinese government has done a superb job on the twitter censorship. Don't you?

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

I guess it did not grab people's attention until Weibo became very popular, and some social media big shots got involved in "broadcasting" business and became a mouth piece.

Well that's not the US Embassy's fault....go blame it on your countrymen.

Smart people always seek information from different sources. There is no any news source is trustworthy to the point it should be the only source.

Well go read the Rwanda New Times or Chile Noticias. Can't have enough sources.

while the "air quality" & "China" results on Weibo is 1600x of that in twitter, so you must mean the Chinese government has done a superb job on the twitter censorship. Don't you?
View attachment 285643

I only said this company -> China Air Quality Index | Fresh-Ideas Studio. was told to stop grabbing data from the US Embassy site during the November 2014 APEC conference week. That made the news. http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com...p-stops-providing-data-from-u-s-embassy/?_r=0

So I'm not sure why you are posting today's Twitter/Weibo air pollution totals as the conference has been over for a year.

 

[Dungeness]

Well that's not the US Embassy's fault....go blame it on your countrymen.



Well go read the Rwanda New Times or Chile Noticias. Can't have enough sources.



I only said this company -> China Air Quality Index | Fresh-Ideas Studio. was told to stop grabbing data from the US Embassy sight during the November 2014 APEC conference week. That made the news.

So I'm not sure why you are posting today's Twitter/Weibo air pollution totals as the conference has been over for a year.

I did not blame US Embassy, I actually give them credit to PM 2.5 awareness among Chinese.

How much you want to read depends on how sincere you don't want to be brainwashed by single "trustworthy" source.

 

[GS Zhou]

I only said this company -> China Air Quality Index | Fresh-Ideas Studio. was told to stop grabbing data from the US Embassy site during the November 2014 APEC conference week. That made the news.

So I'm not sure why you are posting today's Twitter/Weibo air pollution totals as the conference has been over for a year.

The key reality is that air pollution is an open discussion in China, a frequently-discussed topic on social network, newspaper, TV news, etc., and the Chinese government is doing all that it could to deal with it.

But compared with another country that with similar population size to China, although the air pollution is much more serious than China, there is almost no open discussion on this serious issue in that country, people there spend more time on "Pollution of China" than "Pollution of my own country". Government there even don't want to adopt Air Quality Index system to let its citizens know how serious the air quality problem is. What's more, this country is called as "largest democracy country", while China is believed to be the "largest dictation country". Don't you think it is a funny thing?

 

[Aepsilons]

Good dissemination read:

http://www.pecj.or.jp/japanese/overseas/conference/pdf/conference14-11.pdf

Enjoy.

 

[TaiShang]

I am wondering why. I guess Americans love Chinese more!

They care about us more than they would care about people in Ferguson. That's my impression.

But seriously, US corporate media is chronically fascist when it comes to news on China. That's why an automatic skepticism comes into play anytime this fascist-leaning US media does some reporting.

It is a good progress in the long run.

 

[Solomon2]

How China Is (Surprise!) Winning Its War On Air Pollution

....A separate analysis by Berkeley Earth found an 8 percent year-on-year decrease across much of the country during April-November 2015, though the group cautioned that it was too early to call it a definitive trend.

Credit for those gains goes to falling demand for coal as Chinese heavy industry slumps -

 

[GS Zhou]

How China Is (Surprise!) Winning Its War On Air Pollution

....A separate analysis by Berkeley Earth found an 8 percent year-on-year decrease across much of the country during April-November 2015, though the group cautioned that it was too early to call it a definitive trend.

Credit for those gains goes to falling demand for coal as Chinese heavy industry slumps -

The falling demand of coal is a positive signal to China, it is primarily driven by power generation from other resources, plus higher efficiency on coal power plant:

Power generation from other resources
According to China Electricity Council, during the period of Jan. to Nov. 2015, the total electricity consumption of China grows by 0.7%:
- coal power declines by 2.4%
- hydro increases by 3.6%
- nuclear power increases by 29.8%
- wind power increases by 20.4%

Higher efficiency on coal power plant
According to China National Energy Administration, during the period Jan. to Nov. 2015, in average, the coal power plants needs 316g coal for 1kwh electricity, which is 2.1% lower than the same period 2014.

Article of China Electricity Council
Article of China National Energy Administration