7 ms·

I'd like to be proven wrong here but I tend to suspect them of fudging their numbers, so to speak. There is a lot of corruption at the municipal level and there

I'd like to be proven wrong here but I tend to suspect them of fudging their numbers, so to speak. There is a lot of corruption at the municipal level and there is incentive for local officials to overstate their progress. That said, pollution is pretty serious in their bigger cities so I hope for everyone's sake the numbers are true.

simion314 7y ago
Is it easy to fake the numbers this days where you can automate a lot of the measurements?
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Well, it depends on who's making the measurements. How easy is it to actually measure China's emissions by a neutral third party?
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    With the proposed new set of EU's Sentinel satellites hopefully to be launched in the coming years, it should be trivial. That is, if the proposed mission actually happens.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Yes, you just put a fan in front of your pollution sensors.
  - simion314 7y ago
    I think satellites are used this days, balloons too
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      AQI is taken by fixed sensor stations, you can even get a map of them per Chinese city (along with individual readings for more localized AQI measurements). So a few Hebei officials were scamming the system by filtering the air directly around the sensor stations. Beijing was not amused.
alex_duf 7y ago
I think China is doing more for renewable energy than any other country combined. Bar maybe India. They are building solar panel, wind turbines at a frantic pace, pushing really hard for electrification because of said pollution. Yes they are still building new coal stations, yes atrocious things are happening there, but renewable energy? China is the reason it's so cheap
- WhompingWindows 7y ago
  This is a one-sided hot-take. China is not the only reason it's so cheap. If you look at the history of solar and wind energy, the USA and Europe were absolutely crucial in innovation and cost cutting for the first few doublings of production. For instance, Germany was the biggest early-adopter of solar. Furthermore, the US has time and again been the innovators on the research-front, though we are ceding that ground more and more to EU and China today. China has done some things very well, namely scaling up production massively and incentivizing via govt programs, both of which the USA has struggled to do. To say China is the only reason, that just ignores history.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
    The fact remains that currently, china is investing more in renewables than the rest of the world combined. You are right, Europe and US pioneered the industry, but that makes the fact that they are currently fiddling while Rome burns even more damning.
Aperocky 7y ago
I think number fudging goes on all the time, China probably a little bit worse, but then in the end the number has to come from somewhere. It's easy to fudge a single year worth of data but then it gets progressively harder. So while we should take all numbers with a grain of salt, the long term number will eventually reflect reality.
- dragonelite 7y ago
  Those pm2.5 number can be easily verified by others,just googled on pm2.5 sensors and they cost like 20~50 euros. So i image there's probably a whole community of pollution watchers in China given the health risks associated with air pollution. And the local governments probably don't want more green protests marches.
  - Fellshard 7y ago
    This hilariously overstates how incentivized individual citizens are to protest, when I would expect the exact opposite given how the Chinese state operates.
    - yorwba 7y ago
      Individual citizens aren't incentivized to lead a protest (because that will get them arrested), but they're incentivized to participate in a protest while avoiding arrest, because that's usually effective to extract concessions from the government who want to avoid a repeat of the Tiananmen protests. E.g. most recently in Wuhan against a trash incinerator plant too close to a residential area: "At first the Xinzhou district government attempted to calm the unrest. It issued a statement last Wednesday denying that work had started on the incinerator. It said the project hadn't even been registered, nor had it gone through any environmental assessment." https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-48904350 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-48904350

simion314 7y ago

Is it easy to fake the numbers this days where you can automate a lot of the measurements?

saagarjha 7y ago
Well, it depends on who's making the measurements. How easy is it to actually measure China's emissions by a neutral third party?
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  With the proposed new set of EU's Sentinel satellites hopefully to be launched in the coming years, it should be trivial. That is, if the proposed mission actually happens.
seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Yes, you just put a fan in front of your pollution sensors.
- simion314 7y ago
  I think satellites are used this days, balloons too
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    AQI is taken by fixed sensor stations, you can even get a map of them per Chinese city (along with individual readings for more localized AQI measurements). So a few Hebei officials were scamming the system by filtering the air directly around the sensor stations. Beijing was not amused.

alex_duf 7y ago

I think China is doing more for renewable energy than any other country combined. Bar maybe India. They are building solar panel, wind turbines at a frantic pace, pushing really hard for electrification because of said pollution. Yes they are still building new coal stations, yes atrocious things are happening there, but renewable energy? China is the reason it's so cheap

WhompingWindows 7y ago
This is a one-sided hot-take. China is not the only reason it's so cheap. If you look at the history of solar and wind energy, the USA and Europe were absolutely crucial in innovation and cost cutting for the first few doublings of production. For instance, Germany was the biggest early-adopter of solar. Furthermore, the US has time and again been the innovators on the research-front, though we are ceding that ground more and more to EU and China today. China has done some things very well, namely scaling up production massively and incentivizing via govt programs, both of which the USA has struggled to do. To say China is the only reason, that just ignores history.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  The fact remains that currently, china is investing more in renewables than the rest of the world combined. You are right, Europe and US pioneered the industry, but that makes the fact that they are currently fiddling while Rome burns even more damning.

Aperocky 7y ago

I think number fudging goes on all the time, China probably a little bit worse, but then in the end the number has to come from somewhere. It's easy to fudge a single year worth of data but then it gets progressively harder. So while we should take all numbers with a grain of salt, the long term number will eventually reflect reality.

dragonelite 7y ago
Those pm2.5 number can be easily verified by others,just googled on pm2.5 sensors and they cost like 20~50 euros. So i image there's probably a whole community of pollution watchers in China given the health risks associated with air pollution. And the local governments probably don't want more green protests marches.
- Fellshard 7y ago
  This hilariously overstates how incentivized individual citizens are to protest, when I would expect the exact opposite given how the Chinese state operates.
  - yorwba 7y ago
    Individual citizens aren't incentivized to lead a protest (because that will get them arrested), but they're incentivized to participate in a protest while avoiding arrest, because that's usually effective to extract concessions from the government who want to avoid a repeat of the Tiananmen protests. E.g. most recently in Wuhan against a trash incinerator plant too close to a residential area: "At first the Xinzhou district government attempted to calm the unrest. It issued a statement last Wednesday denying that work had started on the incinerator. It said the project hadn't even been registered, nor had it gone through any environmental assessment." https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-48904350 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-48904350