Tag: air quality

Not my kind of death wish

July 29, 2010 / / 7 Comments

Note:  Please take all of my “calculations” below with a huge grain of salt.  I’m not a statistician, a mathematician,  an air quality expert, or a public health expert (the truth comes out – I’m not much of anything).   As always, comments are welcome!

I’m back!  It’s been a hectic few months, but now I’m newly unemployed and back in the driver’s seat.  So let’s go.

As you may have heard, the air quality in Beijing is just shy of phenomenal.   In March 2009,  ECA International, a global human resources service company, ranked Beijing as the city with the second worst air pollution in the world, behind only New Delhi.

Back in 2000, I spent a summer in Beijing and almost forgot that they sky is supposed to be blue.  This summer, I’ve seen blue skies twice so far.   Despite this anecdotal evidence of improvement, the air quality here is still dismal, a fact that even the mayor of Beijing acknowledged earlier this year.  Here’s a picture I took this afternoon:

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First hike of spring

March 27, 2010 / / 2 Comments

Note:  Thanks to all who participated in the bio-processor contest.  I will spend some time researching all of your leads and announce the winner within 2 weeks.

Last weekend, I went hiking for the first time in Beijing.  The trip was organized through a free on-line forum called 綠野, which literally means “Green Wild”.  Unfortunately, the hike was neither green nor wild.  The buds of spring have yet to appear in Beijing, and the mountains on which we hiked, though about 30  kilometers (18 miles) from downtown, still put us in view of Beijing’s urban sprawl.

Please note that I am definitely not ragging on Green Wild.  The hike was well-organized and I met some interesting people.  The existence of groups like Green Wild reflects a growing interest in wilderness appreciation and preservation among professional urban Chinese, and that’s a great thing.  I’m sure that I’ll post more about Green Wild activities in the future.

As you may have read in the news, last weekend welcomed the first major sandstorm of the year in Beijing.  These sandstorms are a yearly occurrence in northern China, significantly worsening over the past several decades as deforestation and poor land management resulted in rapid desertification.  China’s government started tackling this problem in earnest through reforestation and re-introduction of wild grasses and shrubbery about ten years ago, and Beijingers thought that the worst was behind them after the last two years passed with no major sandstorms.  There has been progress, but last weekend’s storm showed clearly that the war is not over.

When I woke up on Saturday, the day of the hike, the sky was yellower than my urine after a hard day of digging ditches.  I’m now kicking myself for not taking a picture.  At the time, I was more concerned that the hike would be canceled.  But the Green Wild forum did not announce a cancellation, so I set off into the maelstrom. Continue reading