Feb 1st 2012, 7:19 by The Economist online
“PM2.5” seems an odd and wonky term for the blogosphere to take up, but that is precisely what has happened in China in recent weeks. It refers to the smallest solid particles in the atmosphere—those less than 2.5 microns across. Such dust can get deep into people’s lungs; far deeper than that rated as PM10. Yet until recently China’s authorities have revealed measurements only for PM10. When people realised this, an online revolt broke out. Such was the public pressure that authorities caved in, and PM2.5 data are now being published for Beijing and a handful of other cities.
What of the rest of China? At the moment, only PM10 data are available. But the government’s hand may soon be forced here, too. Though pollution data are best collected near the ground, a plausible estimate may be made from the vantage-point of a satellite by measuring how much light is blocked by particles, and estimating from those particles’ chemical composition the likely distribution of their sizes. And a report prepared for The Economist by a team led by Angel Hsu of Yale University does just that, drawing on data from American satellites to map out PM2.5 pollution across the entire country.
World Health Organisation guidelines suggest that PM2.5 levels above ten micrograms per cubic metre are unsafe. The boffins have found (as the map shows) that almost every Chinese province has levels above that. Indeed, much of the country’s population endures air so foul that it registers above 30 on the PM2.5 scale, with Shandong and Henan provinces topping 50. Because these readings reflect the average pollution that a typical resident in a province is likely to endure during a given year, they underplay the sharp spikes in pollution that are seen on particularly dirty days, when spot readings go much higher. That is why Beijingers should take little comfort from the fact that the capital’s pollution measures only 35.
This approach is not perfect. Satellites are not great at taking readings over bright surfaces like snow and deserts, and cannot easily distinguish particles high up in the atmosphere from those closer to the ground. And the data also have to be adjusted to take account of the fact that pollution and people tend to coincide. (Otherwise uninhabited areas would drag the figure down, below the average atmospheric conditions actually experienced by the people who live in any given province.)
Such caveats aside, however, this study shows how far China still needs to go in cleaning up its act. Pollution and development have always marched hand in hand, and may even be regarded as tolerable so long as they mark only a temporary blip on the road to prosperity. What is intolerable is that it takes outside intervention to lift the lid on what is happening.
In this blog, our Asia correspondents and our Banyan columnist provide comment and analysis on Asia's political and cultural landscape. The blog takes its name from the Banyan tree, under which Buddha attained enlightenment and Gujarati merchants used to conduct business
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i don't understand.
was caused by the release of methylmercury in the industrial wastewater from the Chisso ... Sea, which when eaten by the local populace resulted in mercury poisoning. ... The Minamata factory became the most advanced in all of Japan, both ... had jumped to 6000 tons per year and reached a peak of 45245 tons in 1960.
...
Sooner or later China?
and perhaps later India?
i live in zhengzhou,the biggest city of henna province ,the polution is so hard but people seem donot care anymore
China is one of those countries that is well known layering opposing government policy one after the other. Its like a layer cake.
1) Pollution Control
2) Subsidizing Green Energy and Technology
3) Subsidizing green transport.
But on the other hand
1) Government provides heavily subsidies loans to build coal energy plants
2) Subsidizes Gasoline, thus encourging use.
3) Subsidize the car industry in the billions.
Alot of governments do this including the US, but the PRC takes the cake. Its like if there are two governments going in the opposite direction. Its like with their smoking policy. China subsidies the treatment of hundreds of people dying every year of smoking related illness, but PRC state owned companies are the largest suppliers of cancer sticks in the world. The first solution to something often is stop, but as usually the CPC even more so than most countries around the world need a reason to exist.
Again you spreading your silly western propaganda !!
Its not anti-Western propaganda when I say that all countries do that, but China is number one when it comes to those type of policies. The second is the US.
I did not bash China for polluting etc. All I said its like most governments that tend to introduce one policy yet a couple of months later introduce an opposing policy.
You are still a propaganda machine saying China is worst than USA in this. Hypocritic
@PL123
Well, you believe what you like dude, you and your propaganda masters breath the same air as the rest of us here!!!
In this regard it is. But you wouldn't care because you don't pay taxes in China. So alot of your comments are emotional. If you were to pay taxes in China you would question why the government like to have two sets of opposing policies.
A criticism of China is that they pirate propreity Pattented software. It is legal for the proprieter to put viruses in the copywrighted software that are triggered when the software is not registerred. China is country which is strong on labour engineer trained labour, but weak on specie green back holdings. Carma is better with public source code UNIX and OpenOffice is use, versus whiteHate hacker wars with Pattented Windows and Office respectively (must make mention of Paul Allen before I forget).
Judging by the multiple atrociously written comments on this article, I'd wager that the Chinese government has a group of student minions whose sole purpose is to contradict and 'expose' any perceived criticism of their dirty country. It isn't xenophobic or racist to say that a country is polluted. All one has to do is (ahem) open their eyes and look out their windows in Beijing. Particulate matter and fog are two very different things, Chinamen.
I am sure they do. However, reading comments like "Just keep your SARS and BIRD FLU and what ever biological disasters the pollution is creating to your selves, thank you." makes you wonder what website you are on.
Pollution is a problem in China but it's a problem that is connected with far more complex issues such as trying to lift 1.3bln people out of poverty. Or providing Europeans with affordable clothing, computers, mobile phones,... If we want everybody to be able to afford a plasma flat screen tv we should understand that this is not possible anymore if CN government starts imposing stricter anti-pollution laws. It's also up to us. At the end we decide what stuff we buy and where it comes from and we decide where we transfer our production lines to in order to avoid the cost of anti-pollution measures.
[ Justin Gass February 4th, 04:17
Judging by the multiple atrociously written comments on this article, I'd wager that the Chinese government has a group of student minions whose sole purpose is to contradict and 'expose' any perceived criticism of their dirty country. It isn't xenophobic or racist to say that a country is polluted. All one has to do is (ahem) open their eyes and look out their windows in Beijing. Particulate matter and fog are two very different things, Chinamen.]
Why should you be surprised that there is a group of "student minions" since the CIA has its 1-dime army first?
Devil's
Just caught you 1 Dime agent !!
The level of anti-Iraq/anti-Saddam Hussein in the Western media, particularly U.S., wasn't even this nasty in the prelude to the war over Saddam's WDM. I hope I'm wrong, but I think the West is gearing up for something ugly militarily (esp Uncle sam); in which case my advice to ethnic Chinese students/residents is to lighten up their assets in America and start filtering home to Asia.
If Peter Lee of Asia times is correct, there might be w__ in the footing... and I don't want to be caught in US
Remmember Manzanar!!!
....let's just hope you're wrong
China is paying the price for holding the current title of The factory of the World.
This isn't a defence: China wants that title.
The whole rest of the world is pressing China to let its currency appreciate for precisely this reason. They want the jobs and industry back, and it's good for China because helps balance their industry's needs against the needs of the people who live there. Currently China chooses factories over people. They reap the rewards of the resulting economic growth, but that doesn't exempt them from the consequences and duty to provide a safe place to live for their people.
They have chosen this. Yes, there may be pressure on them from western consumers wanting cheap goods, but at the end of the day it's a choice for China's government to make. Certainly the pollution cannot grow indefinitely; sooner or later the balance will need to be corrected before the country becomes toxic.
It is really disgusting, reading through most of the comments below. This is like throwing stereotypical insults in both directions. Go and travel the countries before making one-sided statements. I'm a student from Germany, have been studying and working in Shanghai for a year and one of the main findings I brought back home when I returned in September is that western media and the average western commenters don't seem to be able to write unbiased and uninsulting reports on China very often. Of course Chinese Media is not much better but they at least don't claim to be objective.
Off course it would make sense to show some comparable results on other countries when publishing such a study. Not only because it is "fair" - which should not matter too much in science studies - but because a single point-measure without any context does not allow for anybody to draw conclusions. So what? Air over industrial belts in China is polluted. No big surprise. But how much more or less polluted is it compared to industrial belts in Europe, the Americas, Australia, Africa and Japan?
And if you want to start throwing insults and blaming people: Start thinking about how much of the pollution is caused by transfering the western Civilization's dirty work to China (I think I remember having seen data on that on TE as well?).
Nicely put, this is what I was trying to say.
You don't have to look too far, just zuHause ZDF and Deutsche Welle are extreme bias against China too. I am no more fan of ZDF of any kind of reportage of Islamist, Iran, Pakistan etc. I lost my confidence on them.
I totally include ARD, ZDF and Deutsche Welle into the western media part of my comment. I was not meaning to point the finger at any particular channel or paper. It was just the overall impression. Before going to China I was kinda proud of the German "independent" media landscape that offers rather objective reports. Turned out to be wrong. People do have very stereotypical views of countries that are very different from their own culture and you cannot really blame them. How should they know. I am sure I have a very distorted view of Africa and the Middle East as I have never been there. What you should not do, is publish oppinions based on such views. What you should do, however, is buy a two way ticket to China for 600 bucks and spend two weeks for about 6€ a night in a hostel in Shanghai or Beijing. You haven't seen all of China after that, but at least you have seen some of it. It's really not that difficult or "far" anymore.
Double posting. I don't seem to get the hang of this script.
Well, I have been living and working in China for 7 years, and I think western media and western commentators are far more accurate and fair about China than they are their own nations.
As for your last comment, that is rather simplified and naive. A company moves factories to where the policies are. If China had policies and enforced them in dealing with pollution, the factories would move elsewhere. China wants the business, thus their greed overtakes morality.
Don't use your experience in China to prove your points. There is always someone who has more experience than you.
I am not using my experience to prove anything. I am not even proving anything in my post. I am just pointing out what I experienced while staying in China and that it is far different from what is reported in western media which generally over-exaggerates when talking about China. As to your last point. It is a very convenient position to put problems caused by overconsumption completely on the producer's tab. You need a market to sell your stuff to. As long as there's a market for ever cheaper products ignoring environmental and also humanistic aspects of the production line there will be producers tending to that market. What I was pointing out is that the decision to actually move your production line there is not actually made by the Chinese people. Nor is it prohibited to supply your factories in China with adequate purification devices. It is also the greed of European producers AND customers that facilitates such development as we see it in China.
So don't use the number of years you spent in a place as replacement for reasoning.
Pollution is a good thing. It means food, clothing, power, and shelter. Pollution does not hurt you. Pollution does not hurt the Earth. What hubris, to think that plain folks could do anything to affect the Earth! Has everyone forgotten how huge the Earth is and how small the total amount of all living things? Pollute and be happy! Make more babies. The rich should live on the sterile, unchanging, pristine Moon and leave the gloriously polluted Earth to us. I insist!
Just keep your SARS and BIRD FLU and what ever biological disasters the pollution is creating to your selves, thank you.
Keep your finance crisis and "occupy wall street" at home, seal your border please. !!
Where's the actual satellites pic Banyan. You think everyone is stupid to be cheated!??
I'm doubt t much of economist's analysis and figures. Where they steal these. Rather trust Wikileak.
As someone who goes about once a year pollution makes China a much more unattractive place.
Some of the comments here are quite frankly simply xenophobic and purely racist ...as an overseas Chinese that has studied down under I know what to expect...but can u pls stop this stereotypical nonsense......current satellites already have much difficulty detecting volcanic ash and smoke haze and you are telling me they can detect pm 2.5 particles which are less than 2 micrometers from space?? You gotta be kidding me :)
I live in Beijing now. Acually, the air qualiy has improved as citizen's environmental awareness advances and related sensitive information spread easily.
There truly exists other more meaningful things to do for a developing country with so many mouths to feed except for air condition.
I guess I would appreaciate more if government pour more money into constructions in the west parts of China rather than simply deal with the problems in the east.
As you can see the west part is almost unpolluted ,that is because people need to work at a few developed areas(almost all in the east of China) to feed their families.Consequensely, these over accumulated people will undoubtly cause mass contamination.
Developing of the west would tackle many severe problems in China right now. Above all,if the west part of China is as developed as the east part,the population distribution should thus be even,and this would decrese any pollutions that caused by people in certain areas or at least make the pollution more evenly distributed.
I live in China and can attest to the fact that the pollution here is ridiculously thick and extremely dangerous!!!!
You are a very brave person to posted this. Be careful.
are you sure, your countrymen wont gag you for this ?
RUMOURER
a state which is not united and lack of money , always work hard finding problems of its crediiiitor.
Silly US Media
An authoritarian state owning lots of foreign debt, and with lots of international power/influence (although significantly lacking in "soft power"), constantly criticised for refusing to give its people the choice of their government, freedom of speech, and most importantly: ACCOUNTABILITY - what will it do?
Critisize free press and freedom activists for telling simple truths (HEY! sounds like Vladimir Putin!). Oh, and if that doesnt work, you can always execute them....because thats fair. Sure....
Also, there is a big difference between there being a lack of unity, and there simply being a variety of opinions that people arent afraid to voice. You cant force unity....whatever you may think...
China may be a massive polluter, but it should not have to start 'cleaning up its act' until the developed world actually takes action and starts altering economic behaviour that has been environmentally destructive for centuries. Per dollar of GDP, for instance, the US is the biggest polluter (meaning that it is also the most inefficient energy user).
Rather than impoverish Chinese people to effectively subsidise U.S. oil, coal and gas, the first steps towards cleaning up the atmosphere should come from those who can afford it the most.
I second your opinion.Probably what is India and China now is what the US and most of the Western countries were in the 1900's.Since effective Media platforms such as The Economist were not there,people could not converge and form opinions that time.
Instead of blaming each other,all countries should Unite and find innovative ways to deal this problem.Pollution isn't just one countries problem.Its an issue for the whole mankind.
After all we just have One Earth One mother planet to survive upon and feed our loved once.If we can't do this much,and keep blaming each other then Do you think we are doing justice to our Mother Nature ?
Promote Green ... Promote Sustainable Earth.
Note to the person in charge of the Chinese muppets on the forum -- the point here is that this is an aspect of the pollution problem that is mostly bad for the Chinese, not the whole world. It sounds like a lot of people in China what to clean up their air... so that they can breathe it safely!
So, muppet-master, perhaps this story is not just another attempt by the capitalist running dogs to avoid paying for their centuries of anti-social behavior...
Woof.
I agree that we should all be good stewards of our world but the information about China and India polluting as much as the US and Western nations did in 1900 is just not true as both nations are substantially more industrialized than the US and Europe during the 1900s with much larger populations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900_United_States_Census
Well I'm not a 'chinese muppet' - I'm Australian and I have to deal with the stupidity of conservative Australian politicians insisting that we do nothing about our pollution until the Chinese do - even though we have a much higher standard of living overall (not to mention we are the biggest polluter in the developed world, per capita). It's not a question of doubting capitalism, but of making sure it doesn't self-destruct.
It is for this reason that I took issue with the last paragraph or so of an otherwise informative and interesting article - because if the developed world keeps patronising the developing world, we are never going to solve what are undeniably global (not just national) environmental problems.
I do agree, though, obviously, that reducing pollution is in China's interests.
I think Hblain has a point. Most of China's polluted air is carried away naturally to the USA and Canada. So the USA is also being harmed in this aspect.
India and China strongly opposed the UNO's pledge to reduce carbon emission world wide and said that it is not happening till 2020. The simple argument is the west had their share of time now the east deserves their half.
America and other western nations have been polluting right from the the discovery of fossil fuels and even more from the Industrial revolution. America has conducted more than a 1000 nuclear explosions why would the east be satisfied with some 10 or 15. The west consumes more than half of the energy for just 17% of the world population. It is them not the east that is damaging the nature. Even in China the major industries are actually USA based. So it is the US who are spoiling the east as well.
Unless a crisis on fossil fuel occurs I don't think that there is anyway that pollution will come down.
With respect, this line of reasoning ignores the fact that the victims of this sort of local ground level pollution are the Chinese themselves. This isn't a case of outsiders telling the Chinese to clean up their act - outsiders are simply providing information that the Chinese Government can act on or choose to not do so.
Yes, good point - and I agree to the extent that 'the victims of this sort of local ground level pollution are the Chinese themselves'.
My line of reasoning, though, was that such issues are not just confined to national boundaries, meaning that I didn't agree with the tone in which the article finished - along the lines of - 'look how dirty China's air is, they better hurry up and do something about it'... 'shame they had to wait for us to tell them what to do'...
To be honest, I prefer your wording.
Looks nice. Could we do this for the whole world?