MCLC: air pollution activists

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: air pollution activists
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (1/27/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/world/asia/internet-criticism-pushes-chin
a-to-act-on-air-pollution.html

Activists Crack China¹s Wall of Denial About Air Pollution
By SHARON LaFRANIERE

BEIJING ‹ Weary of waiting for the authorities to alert residents to the
city¹s most pernicious air pollutant, citizen activists last May took
matters here into their own hands: they bought their own $4,000
air-quality monitor and posted its daily readings on the Internet.

That began a chain reaction. Volunteers in Shanghai and Guangzhou
purchased monitors in December, followed by citizens in Wenzhou, who are
selling oranges to finance their device. Wenzhou donated $50 to volunteers
in Wuhan, 140 miles inland. Officials have claimed for years that the air
quality in fast-growing China is constantly improving. Beijing, for
example, was said to have experienced a record 274 ³blue sky² days in 2011
<http://www.china.org.cn/environment/2011-12/18/content_24184374.htm>, a
statistic belied by the heavy smog smothering the city for much of the
year.

But faced with an Internet-led brush fire of criticism, the edifice of
environmental propaganda is collapsing. The government recently reversed
course and began to track the most pernicious measure of urban air
pollution ‹ particulates 2.5 microns in diameter or less, or PM 2.5. It
decreed that about 30 major cities must begin monitoring the particulates
this year, followed by about 80 more next year.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection also promised to set health
standards for such fine particulates ³as soon as possible.² Last week,
after years of concealing its data on such pollutants, Beijing began
publishing hourly readings from one monitoring station.

Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs
<http://en.ipe.org.cn:90/>, a Beijing nonprofit group, credits the Chinese
public for the breakthroughs. ³At the beginning of last year, we had
almost lost hope that the PM 2.5 would be integrated into the standards,²
Mr. Ma said. ³But at the end of the day, the people spoke so loudly that
they made their voice heard.²

The fine particulates, caused by dust or emissions from vehicles, coal
combustion, factories and construction sites, are among the most hazardous
because they easily penetrate lungs and enter the bloodstream. Chronic
exposure increases the risk of cardiovascular ailments, respiratory
disease and lung cancer. The Chinese government has monitored exposure
levels in 20 cities and 14 other sites, reportedly for as long as five
years, but has kept the data secret.

It sought 18 months ago to silence the American Embassy in Beijing as
well, arguing that American officials had insulted the Chinese government
by posting readings from the PM 2.5 monitor
<http://twitter.com/beijingair> atop the embassy on Twitter. A Foreign
Ministry official warned that the embassy¹s data
<http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/07/09BEIJING1945.html> could lead to
³social consequences² in China and asked the embassy to restrict access to
it. The embassy refused, and Chinese citizens now translate and
disseminate the readings widely.

While China has made gains on some other airborne toxins, the PM 2.5 data
is far from reassuring in a country that annually has hundreds of
thousands of premature deaths related to air pollution. In an unreleased
December report relying on government data, the World Bank said average
annual PM 2.5 concentrations in northern Chinese cities exceeded American
limits by five to six times as much, and two to four times as much in
southern Chinese cities.

Nine of 13 major cities failed more than half the time to meet even the
initial annual mean target for developing countries set by the World
Health Organization. Environmental advocates here expect China to adopt
that target as its PM 2.5 standard.

Wang Yuesi, the chief air-pollution scientist at the Institute of
Atmospheric Physics
<http://www.iap.ac.cn/english/iap/scientist_detail_WANGYuesi.htm> of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences, estimated this month that Beijing needed at
least 20 years to reach that goal. The embassy¹s monitor showed that fine
particulate concentrations over the past two years averaged nearly three
times that level 
<http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/4661-Beijing-s-hazardo
us-blue-sky>, and 10 times the World Health Organization¹s guideline, said
Steven Q. Andrews, an environmental consultant based in Beijing.

In fact, Mr. Wang told Outlook Weekly
<http://www.lwdf.cn/wwwroot/dfzk/bwdfzk/201043/bmbd/254057.shtml>, a
magazine owned by China¹s official news agency, Xinhua, that Beijing¹s PM
2.5 concentrations have been increasing by 3 to 4 percent annually since
1998. He said the finer particulates absorbed more light, explaining why
Beijing so often is enveloped in a haze thick enough to obscure even
nearby buildings. Air pollution in the city and in nearby Tianjin is so
severe that ³something must be done to control it,² he wrote on his blog
<http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_89d105bb0100ypsb.html>.

Such sentiments are increasingly common on weibos, the Chinese version of
microblogs like Twitter, especially among elites. International schools
here are doming their athletic fields because pollution so often requires
that students stay indoors.

In November, Pan Shiyi, a Beijing real estate tycoon, asked his seven
million microblog followers whether China should employ a stricter
air-quality standard. Shi Yigong, a molecular biologist who left Princeton
University in 2008 to lead Tsinghua University¹s life sciences department,
complained in a December blog post
<http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=46212> that air
pollution was the single ³most upsetting and painful thing² about life in
China.

Some Chinese citizens remain stoic or unaware. One afternoon last week
when smog cloaked Beijing and the American Embassy monitor edged toward
the top of the chart, parents flocked to the Capital Institute of
Pediatrics, a children¹s hospital in downtown Beijing, towing children
with respiratory ailments.

One mother of a 6-year-old awaiting treatment for her child¹s chronic
cough said: ³I think it¹s good for the child¹s immune system to be exposed
to tough weather like today¹s. It will make them tougher.²

Chinese statistics indicate that urban air quality has improved over the
past decade as cities have relocated factories, reduced coal burning and
adopted stricter vehicle emission standards. The World Bank¹s analysis of
the government¹s data found that average concentrations of particulates
measuring 10 microns or less ‹ a group that includes both fine and coarser
particulates ‹ fell 31 percent from 2003 to 2009 in 113 major cities.

Still, only a few cities managed to meet China¹s own toughest standard,
which is twice as loose as the World Health Organization guideline. Mr.
Wang, the researcher, contends that while Beijing¹s PM 10 level fell
nearly a third from 2006 to 2009 ‹ for the most part, in the years leading
up to the Beijing Olympic of 2008 ‹ it has been edging up ever since.

Whether government statistics are reliable is another matter. While some
argue that the release of ever more detailed data makes fudging ever
harder, Mr. Andrews, the environmental researcher, contends that the
government systematically manipulated data and standards to create more
³blue sky² days. Although attention focuses on Beijing, at least 16 other
cities are more polluted, the World Bank says. Their efforts to clean up
the air are partly offset by rising populations, an avalanche of vehicles
and never-ending construction.

Some experts contend that the government shies away from epidemiological
studies on pollution¹s health impact. ³They are really unwilling to match
it to the health data because that would be much more alarming,² said one
specialist who spoke anonymously for fear of angering Chinese officials.
³They want to get the counts down first.²

The World Health Organization estimated in 2007 that 656,000 Chinese died
prematurely each year from ailments caused by indoor and outdoor air
pollution. The World Bank placed deaths related to outdoor pollution at
350,000 to 400,000, but excised those figures from a 2007 report under
government pressure.

Zhong Nanshan, a respiratory expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering,
told China Daily 
<http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-12/06/content_14216428.htm> last
month that without intervention, PM 2.5 particulates would replace smoking
as China¹s top cause of lung cancer. Beijing health experts told the
newspaper that while smoking rates were flat, the city¹s lung-cancer rate
had risen 60 percent in the past decade, probably as a result of air
pollution.

Feng Yongfeng, a Beijing father of a 3-year-old who founded a nonprofit
environmental group called Green Beagle <http://www.bjep.org.cn/> in 2009,
argues that the Chinese should protect themselves by investigating their
surroundings.

³If the data is real, officials keep it to themselves,² said Mr. Feng,
whose organization began this July to lend two PM 2.5 monitors to anyone
who completes an online application. ³You should not wait for the ministry
to tell you the truth. You can find it out for yourself.²

Only 30 people accepted the offer in the first five months. But Wang
Quixia, the project manager, said interest had skyrocketed since publicity
made PM 2.5 a household phrase in Beijing.

Now there is a two-month waiting list.

Mia Li contributed research.