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Pollution is a huge problem for them also. It got really bad in places like Beijing, people here in the western USA complain about forest fires, but 150 ppm AQI

Pollution is a huge problem for them also. It got really bad in places like Beijing, people here in the western USA complain about forest fires, but 150 ppm AQI would be a clean air day in Beijing’s winter. It is survival for them, since people simply can’t live like that. Carbon is a much more abstract problem even in the USA, since you don’t feel climate change right away like you smell black dirt gas air. But that only really matters for high carbon low pollution energy sources like natural gas, and China doesn’t have so much of that anyways to use it in lieu of renewables.

culi 2y ago
To be fair, China's moving at a MUCH faster rate to clean their air than it took the US when they were at this stage of industrialization. And they've set their air quality targets much higher than the US, which hasn't updated its air quality standards in decades.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  There is a lot more technology today than back then, so it isn’t really a fair comparison. Still, it’s good that China took the problem seriously, there was some time in 2010 when they were clearly in denial (the Us embassy in Beijing crazy bad air incident that got Twitter blocked).
  - culi 2y ago
    Sure that's fair. Do you have some reading on the incident that led to Twitter being blocked? I haven't heard of that and can't find anything online
    - cntrmmbrpsswrd 2y ago
      I was in China around that time and I don't remember the incident leading to Twitter being blocked. In fact, I think Twitter was blocked earlier than pollution incident. I do remember everyone getting pissed off that the US Embassy reading was so different than the local one: https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/sensing-our-planet/crazy-bad-air https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/sensing-our-planet/craz...
      - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        It was not completely blocked in November 2010, but was completely blocked shortly there after as far as I remember (I was in Beijing from 2007 to 2016). China wasn’t measuring 2.5 ppm at all back then, and was rather touting improvements in 10 ppm because a tree planting effort in the gobi temporarily solved northern china’s dust storm problem. They were basically pretending that 2.5 ppm pollution didn't exist.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  The US didn't have solar and wind as real alternate energy options in the 1970s or '80s. They had nuclear, but all the environmentalists hated it then.
  - r00fus 2y ago
    The environmentalist hate for nuclear was definitely ginned up by the petroleum industry.
r00fus 2y ago
I recently visited Beijing for a few weeks and was worried about AQI (I have a kid with situational asthma) . Most of the time AQI was around 50, and sometimes it got to 100. Not bad at all for us. Just a point of reference: back in 2009 we transited through Beijing to fly to HK and even just spending a few hours in the airport resulted in my daughter having to use an emergency nebulizer. This time hardly anyone had a problem. Beijing used to be dry and dusty (from what my wife tells me from visiting 30y ago) now they've pulled in a lot of water through some newer canals and the humidity is really high (mosquitos are starting to become a problem). Another improvement is: nearly zero 2-stroke motors. All scooters and mopeds are fully electric. Also 50% of the cars are electric (green license plates). All city buses and taxis are electric. Road noise is greatly reduce given the sheer volume of traffic (though they love to honk - like India).
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  Beijing is pretty humid in the summer, I’m not sure where you get dry from (although my first summer in Beijing wasn’t until 2002, not quite thirty years ago). Dust storm season is spring and pollution season is winter (especially when they get inversions). Fall is the best season to tour in Beijing if you want clean air and no dust, the air won’t start getting bad until November, although moving all the farmers away from coal heating has improved things a lot (they still have bad inversions, but like LA and Salt Lake City). Two strokes have been banned for awhile, electric bikes were already taking over in 2002, you already could no longer find the tuktuks that I remember from my first trip in 1999.

culi 2y ago

To be fair, China's moving at a MUCH faster rate to clean their air than it took the US when they were at this stage of industrialization. And they've set their air quality targets much higher than the US, which hasn't updated its air quality standards in decades.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
There is a lot more technology today than back then, so it isn’t really a fair comparison. Still, it’s good that China took the problem seriously, there was some time in 2010 when they were clearly in denial (the Us embassy in Beijing crazy bad air incident that got Twitter blocked).
- culi 2y ago
  Sure that's fair. Do you have some reading on the incident that led to Twitter being blocked? I haven't heard of that and can't find anything online
  - cntrmmbrpsswrd 2y ago
    I was in China around that time and I don't remember the incident leading to Twitter being blocked. In fact, I think Twitter was blocked earlier than pollution incident. I do remember everyone getting pissed off that the US Embassy reading was so different than the local one: https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/sensing-our-planet/crazy-bad-air https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/sensing-our-planet/craz...
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      It was not completely blocked in November 2010, but was completely blocked shortly there after as far as I remember (I was in Beijing from 2007 to 2016). China wasn’t measuring 2.5 ppm at all back then, and was rather touting improvements in 10 ppm because a tree planting effort in the gobi temporarily solved northern china’s dust storm problem. They were basically pretending that 2.5 ppm pollution didn't exist.
SoftTalker 2y ago
The US didn't have solar and wind as real alternate energy options in the 1970s or '80s. They had nuclear, but all the environmentalists hated it then.
- r00fus 2y ago
  The environmentalist hate for nuclear was definitely ginned up by the petroleum industry.

r00fus 2y ago

I recently visited Beijing for a few weeks and was worried about AQI (I have a kid with situational asthma) . Most of the time AQI was around 50, and sometimes it got to 100. Not bad at all for us. Just a point of reference: back in 2009 we transited through Beijing to fly to HK and even just spending a few hours in the airport resulted in my daughter having to use an emergency nebulizer. This time hardly anyone had a problem. Beijing used to be dry and dusty (from what my wife tells me from visiting 30y ago) now they've pulled in a lot of water through some newer canals and the humidity is really high (mosquitos are starting to become a problem). Another improvement is: nearly zero 2-stroke motors. All scooters and mopeds are fully electric. Also 50% of the cars are electric (green license plates). All city buses and taxis are electric. Road noise is greatly reduce given the sheer volume of traffic (though they love to honk - like India).

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
Beijing is pretty humid in the summer, I’m not sure where you get dry from (although my first summer in Beijing wasn’t until 2002, not quite thirty years ago). Dust storm season is spring and pollution season is winter (especially when they get inversions). Fall is the best season to tour in Beijing if you want clean air and no dust, the air won’t start getting bad until November, although moving all the farmers away from coal heating has improved things a lot (they still have bad inversions, but like LA and Salt Lake City). Two strokes have been banned for awhile, electric bikes were already taking over in 2002, you already could no longer find the tuktuks that I remember from my first trip in 1999.