China Races To Clean Up Olympic Air 362
Hugh Pickens writes "With the Olympics due to start in less than three weeks, Beijing is cranking up antipollution measures by yanking cars off the roads, expanding mass transit and staggering work hours in a bid to meet its pledge of a 'green' Olympics. Beijing has gone on a spending spree, relocating factories, seeding clouds, retiring old vehicles, planting millions of trees and halting building construction amid concerns that athletes and visitors could suffer breathing problems. For the next two months, owners of 3.3 million private cars can drive only on alternate days in China's capital, based on whether the last digit of their license plates is even or odd. Environmental and sports performance experts have cast doubt on the effectiveness of the measures taken so far. 'Arguably these are all short-term measures, just designed to control air quality for the time when the Olympics are on,' says Dr Andy Jones. Dr Angus Hunter warned that athletes are at risk for low performance if the air quality cannot be brought down to acceptable levels. 'Average times could be lower and the chances of records being broken become less. It's a bit like trying to exercise in a room when the gym is full of smokers.'"
Re:License plates (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Chairman Mao says take the bus! (Score:5, Informative)
Such propoganda posters are often artistic works, not photographs.
Re:Just now? (Score:5, Informative)
They've spent a fortune relocating factories including one of the world's biggest steelworks. They are not going to spend a fortune moving them all back again. They are not going to close the new metro lines. Even some of the temporary measures may have long term effects; people using the new transport networks while their cars are banned may switch permanently. This isn't just window dressing.
That said, I returned from Beijing a week ago and the smog is terrible. I still have a very nasty cough. Though the air quality is much improved, it's still rubbish.
Re:License plates (Score:3, Informative)
Any number that is even can be represneted in the terms of 2j where j is an integer any odd number can be represented in 2j-1 where J is an integer.
So...
2j=0
j=0/2
j=0
0 is an integer. So 0 is even.
Now lets check to see if 0 is odd.
2j-1=0
2j=1
j=1/2
j=0.5
0.5 is not an integer so 0 is not odd
therefore 0 is even.
Re:Yeah... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Shutting Down PCB Factories (Score:5, Informative)
Big chip production is done off shore in Taiwan. Not affected. And a lot more around Shanghai. Not affected.
Page 10 of document with world map of IC plants [cicmt.org]
does not show an FABs around Beijing in 2005.
IC fabrication does not have a big supply chain. Just sand and rare elements as inputs.
PCB and product manufacturing can be expected to be hit in strange ways. There are product paths, for connectors, cable assemblies, etc, that no one really understands that could be going through the affected area.
Re:Shutting Down PCB Factories (Score:3, Informative)
Opps mistaken. As of 2005 there were a 0.35 and 0.8 lines in Beijing. But again very little appear to be some plants in Tianjin. Overall this will be 1% of global IC manufacturing. But if it affects a supply chain anything downstream will be hit.
Re:Yeah... (Score:3, Informative)
A fate much better than that of the half million or so stray cats in Beijing:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-528694/Olympics-clean-Chinese-style-Inside-Beijings-shocking-death-camp-cats.html [dailymail.co.uk]
(sorry to link to such a rag, but it's the only one that popped up on my Google search.)
Re:License plates (Score:4, Informative)
I stared at your post for 10 seconds before realizing that 2j was supposed to represent an integer and that you were in fact not calling upon the quater-imaginary numeral system [wikipedia.org] to prove the evenness of zero. Now that would have been overkill :-)
The license plate issue, by the way, is actually discussed in the "evenness of zero [wikipedia.org]" Wikipedia article:
Re:Environmental Wackos (Score:1, Informative)
Really? You're going to say that it's wrong to chastise China for their CURRENT behavior, when you admit that we KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE about the problems and how to correct them? For once, I thought that this would be a perfect opportunity to highlight liberal hypocrisy -- for instance, calling for the US to support Kyoto when countries with bigger problems wouldn't -- but you've gone and compounded it with the usual "we can't comment because we've had bloody hands" line. (AND BEEN MODDED TO A +5!) Good game, dude. Good game.
No, I don't believe that man-induced global warming has been PROVEN, but all I'm asking for is for people who think there's a problem to fix to hold other countries with larger problems to OUR CURRENT STANDARDS FIRST, THEN worry about further reducing American corporations' ability to compete in the global econom... er, further tighten our national emissions standards. (And I even make my living currently because of them!)
This is exactly the same sort of argument that I hear about religions as well. People on the left scream to take Christianity out of schools (and bible study sessions, et. al.), yet we're using public tax dollars to put in Islamic-based schools in Detroit. Where's the moral outrage on the left over this? The point is: Why is it always the old white Christian guys who are the problem? Why is it bad for a fundie Christian to shoot a abortion clinic doctor (and it IS), but it's okay for a fundie Muslim to blow up a school bus full of kids? Why do they get a pass because "that's the only means that they have at their disposal?"
I know I lose points for bringing religion into the argument here, but it's the SAME LOGICAL FALLACY. If you're going to hold people to a standard, then it has to be the SAME STANDARD. You don't get "evil offset credits" just because your rulers have held you back from entering the 20th century, let alone the 21st. And, then, while were all singing out of the same hymnal, let's PUT THE PRESSUE on those who are FURTHER AWAY FROM THE STANDARD, THEN worry about take the whole standard higher.
Re:Just now? (Score:3, Informative)
> something they can get for next to nothing in the way of costs, unlike oil based products which they have to import.
You'll love this...
Yes, China has vast internal coal potential. Internal in terms of geography - it is far from the coastal regions where it is most needed. Initially the coal was transported by rail, but this used too much precious diesel so instead China now imports coal by sea. Yes, imports.
http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10795813 [economist.com]
China is currently consuming around 30% of global coal production.
Re:Just now? (Score:5, Informative)
and most of that air quality has to do with the coal power plants which run with no emission controls like other countries have.
I hate to break it to you, but at least in the US the average coal plant is way over the allowable limit of emissions. We can find out-of-compliance coal plants in the US as fast as we can secure money to send people up smokestacks to check emissions. I know one person formerly in the stack-sniffing business with whom I have discussed the situation (among others) and it's very, very dirty.
and they aren't interested in spending money on economically friendly "alternative" energy sources that wouldn't supply 1% of their needs when they can again, spend next to nothing (including wages and other costs) to just use something they have.
The overall cost of burning fossil fuels is much higher than they think. Cancer rates doubled in the industrial revolution.
China isn't really known for paying its laborers fairly anyway, I'm sure they could do solar and wind quite cheaply. They are working on bringing up wind power, but not as hard as they're working on coal.
Déjà vu (Moscow Olympics) (Score:3, Informative)
Not sure how many people remember or care to know about the games of 1980 held in Moscow, but similar things happened there in order to promote the image of the USSR.
All people with questionable reputation were ordered to leave the city and the communist party spent a lot of time and money to ensure that everything was top notch (well, at least by the Soviet standards). Guess what happened when the games stopped?
If people cannot see through this dog and pony show that every country is going to put up in order to look good, then yeah, China's new green image is a great success!
Re:Western world's creation (Score:2, Informative)
The Western world has made China one giant production facility
It's called poor leadership.
US: Hey, lend us money and we'll encourage our citizens to buy your wares with ridiculous tax breaks for corporations.
China: Buy 5x junk, and it's a deal!
In the end, they lent us the money, and now because we are stuck with their shit products, and inability through gross negligence on the part of US leadership are reduced to selling prime real estate and property to the bastards.
Post not meant as a troll, maybe a rant, but surely not a troll.
Re:uh, wtf? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Didn't they learn from Mexico?? (Score:5, Informative)
Mexico tried the whole "even or odd" license plate thing a while back (for similar reasons) and it was an epic failure.
Uuuh, as far as I know (asking to my relatives living in Mexico D.F.) the "hoy no circula" program is still going on strong in Mexico City, moreover, the program has just been extended for Saturdays (since July 5).
Saying that it didn't work is a big claim. Granted, some people bought another car, however that is not very common, given the general population does not earn enough money to buy a second car.
And moreover, the IMECA (Metropolitan Index of the Quality of Air, used to monitor the pollution in Mexico City) or AIQ [wikipedia.org] (nowadays between 50 and 70) is not as high as it used to be say, 10 years ago when it usually was between 80 and 110...
You can check it from yourself, all the yearly data for Mexico City atmospheric conditions can be obtained from here [df.gob.mx].
Re:Just now? (Score:3, Informative)
You didn't understand why China and India were left off of Kyoto?
Let me explain - China said that they wouldn't sign Kyoto if it set binding CO2 targets on China. Just like China said recently that they won't sign the Kyoto follow-on if it requires binding targets for China.
Ditto for India.
Note that one of the arguments used to try to convince the USA to sign Kyoto was that China would sign on to binding targets in the next go-round of the Treaty. I notice that when China and India said that they wouldn't sign on to the next round, noone bothered to mention that the USA seemed to have been right about that point after all....