MCLC: complaints about smog grow louder

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: complaints about smog grow louder
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Source: Sinosphere blog, NYT (2/25/14):
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/in-beijing-complaints-about-
smog-grow-louder-and-retaliation-grows-swifter/

In Beijing, Complaints About Smog Grow Louder and Retaliation Grows Swifter
By DAN LEVIN 

Nearly a week into northern China’s latest airpocalypse, the skies over
Beijing are murky and acrid with a heavy smog that shrouds the sun. On
social media sites, the yellow, choking air has become something of a
meme, as residents post depressing photos of their blackened air purifier
filters and hazy urban vistas with comments like #nuclearwinter.

Amid the latest round of smog, anger is rising over the Chinese
government’s inability to protect the nation from a pollution crisis that
has made places like Beijing “unsuitable for human habitation,” as a
prominent state-backed think tank stated in a study released this month
<http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/02/minitrue-delete-beijing-nearly-uninha
bitable/> that was swiftly censored.

Last week, the official Sina Weibo microblog account of the state-run
China Central Television Finance Channel posted two scathing indictments
of the Chinese government’s environmental failures. “Does anyone still
care about Beijing’s smog?” began one, noting that although the “pollution
index is off the charts,” no measures had been taken to mitigate the
environmental emergency. A few minutes later came the second post,
“Beijing municipal government, don’t hide behind the thick smog,” which
warned that “the people have grown numb,” but the channel was “issuing a
wake-up call: the government can’t act blind.” It must “protect its
territory and not act ignorant.”

Both posts were quickly deleted.

On Friday, after days of a growing outcry, the Beijing government for the
first time raised the air pollution alert
<http://news.xinhuanet.com/local/2014-02/24/c_119479756.htm> on its
recently established color-coded system to “orange,” the second-highest
level out of four, prompting schools to cancel outdoor activities and some
factories to close. But those measures and similar ones taken across the
region have failed to alleviate the smog. In Beijing by Tuesday evening,
the United States Embassy air quality index meter read 500, nearly 20
times the level of particulate air matter deemed safe by the World Health
Organization.

Even as the government insisted it was working overtime to address the
crisis, officials were busy retaliating against CCTV. According to
employees, an editor at the Finance Channel was fired for posting the
offending microblog posts and CCTV was banned from all reporting on
Beijing’s epic smog, because, they said, the posts infuriated the city’s
mayor, Wang Anshun. Oddly, CCTV is still allowed to report on the air
pollution hovering just outside the city’s borders in the surrounding
province of Hebei.

Reached by phone, the director of the CCTV Finance Channel, Guo Zhenxi,
said he was too busy to comment and hung up.

Censorship, however, is not preventing other Chinese in the polluted
region from taking matters into their own hands. Last week, Li Guixin, a
resident of Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital of Hebei, walked into the
district court and filed a lawsuit against the city’s environmental
protection bureau for failing to curb the increasingly horrendous smog.
The lawsuit seeks 10,000 renminbi, or about $1,600, as compensation for
the money he has spent on protecting himself against the foul air.

“Since last December, the smog in Shijiazhuang started to get worse,” Mr.
Li told Yanzhao Metropolis Daily
<http://gongyi.sohu.com/20140225/n395601444.shtml>, a local newspaper. “I
had to spend money on masks, an air purifier and a treadmill” for
exercising indoors.

Mr. Li’s lawyer, Wu Yufen, said in a telephone interview that the lawsuit
— the first of its kind in China — was rejected by both the provincial and
the municipal courts. He is still waiting to hear from the district court,
but vowed to pursue all legal recourse. “Air quality is a very important
issue in our lives,” Mr. Wu said. “When the air is bad, there is no
quality of life to speak of. You can’t even go outside.”

Back in Beijing, the authorities are taking a zero-tolerance approach to
public expressions of environmental discontent. According to a Sina Weibo
post published Tuesday morning, an artist named Du Xia was taken away by
the police in central Beijing after he protested against the smog.

A few hours later, the post had disappeared, but the smog remained.

Mia Li contributed research.
________________________________________

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: February 26, 2014

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the measures
taken when Beijing raised the city's four-tiered air pollution alert to
"orange," the second-highest level. The measures would not include
removing half the city's cars off the roads until the highest-level,
"red," is declared.