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Gray Wall Dims Hopes of 'Green' Games
Bikers wait at a light in Beijing last month as smog shrouds buildings a block away. Environmentalists and experts fear the city will be unfit to host next year's Olympics.
(By Shuji Kajiyama -- Associated Press)
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Officials with China's State Environmental Protection Administration declined requests for interviews.
The lack of transparency and China's failure to take more stringent measures are worrying environmental activists. Economy said there appears to be a reluctance to do anything that would hinder the country's galloping economic growth.
"I think it is a striking indication of just how deeply capitalism, or perhaps individualism, has permeated China that some people would put profit before national pride," Economy said.
China is trying hard to ensure that it is seen as a modern, technologically advanced and open country during the Games. Beijing residents are famously proud of their home town; many activists who normally oppose the government are loath to use such an important moment to embarrass the country.
But hosting the Olympics is a huge undertaking. Communist Party authorities have issued self-conscious slogans declaring that China is ready to welcome the world, but have registered shock when human rights activists raised political concerns that the government here sees as immaterial to a sporting event. The pressure to deliver a safe and secure event, in which athletes don't keel over because of health problems, is enormous.
For now, Beijing officials are playing down worries about pollution and asking visitors to trust them. After all, they note, the 1984 Olympics went off smoothly in Los Angeles, where pollution at the time was worse than it is today.
Joe Cassmassi, a meteorologist who helped monitor and forecast air pollution during the L.A. Games, said organizers managed to substantially reduce traffic at the time, thus easing concerns about air quality. But he suggested that Beijing could do even better.
"We could only ask for people's cooperation," he said. "China has a lot more control over sources of manufacturing. You're dealing with a country that has a little bit more authoritarian capability."
Critics say that it's clear Beijing is not using all the tools at its disposal. Ozone, a colorless gas and critical pollutant arising in large part from car exhaust and factory emissions, regularly goes unmeasured, even though more than 1,000 new cars take to the capital's streets each day.
Beijing also fails to monitor certain kinds of particulate matter. Authorities regularly track what is known as PM 10, particulate matter with an average diameter of 10 micrometers, but not PM 2.5, smaller particles that are far more dangerous and can trigger asthmatic problems. PM 2.5 has been the standard measurement in the United States for a decade.
Studies have shown that average concentrations of the larger pollutant, PM 10, often exceed China's own national standards. Concentrations of the less frequently monitored PM 2.5 register well above U.S. standards.
Beijing has also refused to release details on the actual amount of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone or particulate matter in the air during the August driving ban. Those individual components are important because they can have acute as well as chronic effects on people's health.
