Beijing is blanketed in haze with low visibility. The weather forecast authority insists that the the haze is caused by the moisture in the air and not by the polutant. There is no cause for alarm.
I am not a scientist. I don't know what is the cause.
What is true is that Beijing is hazy today, on July 27, 12 days before the openning of Olympics and 7 days after the city implemented the "odd and even number plate" traffic rule to reduce by almost half of traffic volume on the road. No question, the traffic has improved significantly. It remains insufficient.
Situated closed to Gobi to the west and blocked by mountain range to the north with a wide plain to the south and the east, Beijing is not geologically the best place for a Swiss hamlet.
Sandust from the Gobi, smoke polutants from the farms and factories in Hebei, dust and waste from the never ending construction and the exhaust smoke from the car numbered in millions as well as discharge and dispose of 16 millions residents have combined to aggravate the fragile and arid ecological condition of Beijing.
The taxi drivers whom I spoke to are concerned with the image the Beijing project to the visitors. No amount of Olympics athlete's prowess and records and the host hospitality are going to change what is breathed into the lungs. That will be a more lasting impression.
The government must not be so narrow minded to impose measures just for the sake of Olympics. The visitors may number in hundred of thousand during the one month sports event. There are however 16 millions of Chinese nationals living in the capital, most of whom live for their entire lifes.
The taxi driver I spoke to cherish his youthful day in 1950s when he was able to swim and catch fish at a river near the Zhongwenmen. The river has since gone paving ways to road.
This remind me of Chongqyechon of Seoul. Chonggyechon was originally a small stream but paved with concrete to make way for an expressway. Few years ago, the former mayor and the present president Lee Myun Bak restored the stream and return the source of life back to Seoul. Singapore river is another example which is so much an attraction now that the tourists are happy to dine along the once poluted river at Clark and Boat Quay.
Will these be learnt by Beijing whose obsession seems to be building signature architecture forgetting that however adorable the architectures, they are nothing if visibility is hampered by haze, dust and polutants.
Certain Chinese green activists have advocated relocating the capital for ecological reason. However the proposal doesn't attract any mainstream debate seemingly it maybe too political a topic to discuss.
Moving the capital is not the panacea. Ultimately, there has to be long term green policy to keep the ecology.
I remember reading a history book on China ecology - the retreat of elephans - an environmental history of china. Once upon a time in China, rhino and elephant were roaming in large number. Where are they now? We have them in the muzium in the form of cups and other carved out of the rhino horn and elephant ivory.
Another more recent example, the Tai lake, once regarded as the land of fish and rice. What happens to her now? The green algae made the lake worse than a sewarage. Another algae example is Qingdao. It was as recent as 3 weeks ago where thousand of PLA soldiers were sent to clean the bay infested by algae to make it in time to host the Olympics sailing event.
Not to mention the carbon belching out and the toxic pouring out of the factories collectively known as the Made in China. They are hardly regulated by the local governments whose primary interest is tax collection rather than conservation of nature and environmental protection.
30 years of economic expansion has taken the toll on the Chinese ecology. It's time for tough conservation and environmental policies and enforcement for the healing to begin. Officers with conservation accomplishment should be exemplified and made a hero and be called the "Green Lei Feng".
This maybe out of fashion.
A better suggestion is to allow a healthy and vibrant Chinese society to evolve where the peoples are empowered to promote conservation and defend against environmental encroachment by authority or business interest establishment. What does that mean? (to be continued)
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Bro KY, Beijing is not in the best possible location for a mega-metropolis. And the major challenge will be for people and industry to co-exist with depleting water resources. Unfortunately, the factors for selecting a capital 800 years ago is no longer that relevant to the criteria for the 21st century. But as you say, moving the capital misses the point.
Last night, I watched 3 episodes of an amazing series of documentaries on Travel Channel on Wild China. It is an authoritative look at the landscape, vegetation, wildlife and human cultures of various parts of China. Beautifully shot, it was made by the same people who made the acclaimed "Planet Earth" series.
In it, I saw a China that is not often seen; such as the vastness of the limestone formations in the Southwest, the temperate rainforest wonderland of Yunnan, the mighty gorges of the East Tibet, the lakes of Qinghai, the terraced fields of Guizhou..to name a few. These are areas of vast and rugged beauty, amazing animal life and ancient minority cultures. This shows there is much much more to China than the relatively small (30%?) percentage of land that is arable and heavily populated.
It also makes me speculate how different perhaps the sensibilities of Han vs non-Han parts of China. You know, the difference between a utilitarian material and humanist culture as opposed to one that is more spiritual and naturalistic. Perhaps Chinese has both as reflected by the conflicting traditions of confucianism and taoism. I think my father in law has a point in saying that the only reason India can sustain so many people is that Hindus are vegetarian!
China knows what the right thing is - on this, there is no argument. Otherwise it would not try so hard to deliver blue in the skies, blue in the water and green on the land for the olympics.
Perhaps even they are surprised at the extent of the problem and how much harder they need to work. As we watch the government struggle to clear the air for the Olympics, one can only hope it was also a very big wake-up all of how far reality is compared to what is desired.
As for whether China will clean up its act, that I have no doubt. One thinks of government and activists but I believe that ultimately the main driver is public opinion. With the one-child policy, the burdens of population will soon peak and then stabilize; but more importantly, every parent will want a better environment for the sake of their child's health. For every bureaucrat and businessman, I propose that the strongest measure the government can make is to ensure that decision-makers keep their family where they work (so they can't ship their family off to Australia!). Capitalism depends on enlightened self-interest and policy should ensure that their self-interests are aligned with that of the local people.
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