Jerry's picture Jerry Submitted by Guest on Fri, 11/08/2013 - 09:29

Quote:
To suggest that the vast amounts of Beijing pollution comes primarily from private passenger vehicles is ludicrous. New cars don't cause the particle pollution you see in this city. Unregulated diesel buses and trucks do. Coal burning does. Piles of dust and dirt, combined with toxic chemicals sitting in vacant unmaintained lots do. Sure we need to improve the traffic, but the damage to people's health is being caused by the heavy particle matter. Whenever I ride my bike, I am choked by heavy vehicles and buses spewing think dark acrid smoke. The is no subtle effect about it.

 

I agree with Squid - unless the government can do something to rein in emissions coming from all of the factories belching out pollution in the neighboring provinces that ring Beijing, I don't see the air getting substantially cleaner any time soon.

Jerry Chan, Digital Marketing & Content Strategy Director

cdn_china's picture cdn_china Submitted by Guest on Thu, 11/07/2013 - 16:59

Government obviously never learned its lesson from its experience with motorcycles. After restricting legal A plate registrations, what happened? People simply bought illegal bikes and began using fake plates, or used bikes with plates from other provinces.

I once saw a TMB estimate that 1 in 8 cars in Beijing runs with improper plates. Fake car plates are readily available (watch The Beijinger classifieds for upcoming fake-plate ads, as commonly happens with fake motorcycle plates).

Strict enforcement and/or congestion charging has been shown to work elsewhere, but somehow Beijing knows better. Sad. In my opinion, Beijing still isn't serious about the problem.

admin's picture admin Submitted by Guest on Thu, 11/07/2013 - 12:21

Meanwhile, the Beijing News had this astounding statistic showing the growth in the number of automobiles in Beijing, going from 1.1 million in 1997 to 5.4 million this year (and the year ain't over)... that's an average annual growth rate of 10% a year. If that rate continues over the next 7 years, there will be 10.5 million cars in Beijing by 2020...

 

Books by current and former Beijinger staffers

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squid's picture squid Submitted by Guest on Thu, 11/07/2013 - 12:02

To suggest that the vast amounts of Beijing pollution comes primarily from private passenger vehicles is ludicrous. New cars don't cause the particle pollution you see in this city. Unregulated diesel buses and trucks do. Coal burning does. Piles of dust and dirt, combined with toxic chemicals sitting in vacant unmaintained lots do.

Sure we need to improve the traffic, but the damage to people's health is being caused by the heavy particle matter. Whenever I ride my bike, I am choked by heavy vehicles and buses spewing think dark acrid smoke. The is no subtle effect about it.

TX_Chick's picture TX_Chick Submitted by Guest on Thu, 11/07/2013 - 09:42

And can we just state the obvious reason why this will NOT happen?

Until China gets the pollution under control, there's no way the Olympic Organizing Committee will even consider hosting a winter Olympics here. It's easy to get rid of the pollution in the summer, by shutting off factories, but how are you going to shut down coal burning heating in the winter to stop the pollution? Will everyone have to freeze for the time of the games so there's blue skies? When China can get control of pollution in winter, then they can try again, but for now, they need to focus on the problem at hand.

And I second all the reasons admin listed above.

admin's picture admin Submitted by Guest on Wed, 11/06/2013 - 16:19

Paul Ryding wrote:

Why are people down on this? This will be a good thing, no?

Let me count the reasons I would not welcome this:

a. another reason to hike the cost of living into the stratosphere

b. Beijing doesn't have the weather (precipitation) for it

c. Beijing doesn't have the water resources for it

d. More development of facilities that can then fall into disuse

e. Non stop single-minded hype about the Olympics for another 9 years

 

 

Books by current and former Beijinger staffers

http://astore.amazon.com/truerunmedia-20

Baixiaowei's picture Baixiaowei Submitted by Guest on Tue, 11/05/2013 - 19:13

Every single time Beijing "whatever" organization organizes something, it's a nightmare.

Don't you remember David Guetta's concert in the Great Wall this summer??. It took me 3 hours to catch a bus to go to the Wall because we where hundreds of people waiting in the waiting point, and maybe 4 buses arriving every 30 minutes.

Beijing has organized the Olympic Games, but I think they have forgotten how to deal with big events with laowais. That's why I didn't go to this Halloween Party.

Please Beijing, we like you and we wanna have fun. Don't let us down again and again!