Unsafe Levels of Particulate Matter

If China has an Achilles heel, it would negative flow from a combination of unsustainable levels of pollution often exacerbated by officials who are economically incented (i) to look the other way and (ii) are still focused on growth without a concomitant emphasis on environmental standards. That vast bodies of river, lake and underground water sources are filled with life-threatening effluents is no secret, and that China’s cities, most notably her capital, Beijing, have some of the least breathable air on earth is common knowledge. It’s not that top Chinese officials don’t care; the problem is just so huge and the impact of imposing the kind of serious environmental controls is so expensive and will severely slow economic growth that Chinese officials are also trying to figure exactly how to moderate an environment that might just start killing people by the millions in the not-too-distant future.

I was in Seoul, Korea a few months ago, and they complained about air pollution that was eating the paint finishes from their building and cars, creating increasing vile air quality. I asked why they weren’t more restrictive on their pollution requirements, and they just shrugged, telling me that most of that pollution was blow-over from China. Pollution is never confined to the nation that creates it.

“It’s long been said that China was adding one new coal power plant per week to its grid. But the real news is worse: China is completing two new coal plants per week… If China’s carbon usage keeps pace with its economic growth, the country’s carbon dioxide emissions will reach 8 gigatons a year by 2030, which is equal to the entire world’s CO2 production today… That power is being used to drive an enormous manufacturing expansion. China has increased steel production from 140 million tons in 2000 to 419 million tons in 2006, the authors report. Even more recent numbers from the International Iron and Steel Institute show China’s production leading the world at 489 million tons, more than double Japan and the US combined. That steel is getting used quickly too. In 1999, Chinese consumers bought 1.2 million cars. That number had increased 600% by 2006, when 7.2 million cars were sold.” Wired, February 2008.

Statistics are hard to come by, but water pollution appears to mirror the degradation in China’s atmosphere: “China’s government [in February 2010] unveiled its most detailed survey ever of the pollution plaguing the country, revealing that water pollution in 2007 was more than twice as severe as was shown in official figures that had long omitted agricultural waste… Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a nonprofit research group in Beijing, said that government planners had estimated that the country’s rivers and lakes could handle only 7.4 million tons a year of chemical oxygen demand [the general standard of measuring water pollution]. The scale and significance of agricultural effluent was seldom recognized in previous government planning, which focused on bringing down mainly industrial emissions to around 7 million tons a year from 13.8 million tons, said Mr. Ma, a leading expert on water pollution in China.

“The new total of more than 30 million tons suggests a much bigger problem. ‘We believed we needed to cut our emissions in half, but today’s data means a lot more work needs to be done,’ Mr. Ma said.” New York Times, February 9, 2010. To China’s credit, top leaders are reconfiguring their manufacturing sector to adjust for environmental needs, encouraging new industries that actually create technologies to reduce emissions and cleanse the environment and are imposing increasing strict controls on the use of cars and trucks in major cities.

But a new controversy has arisen, most recently in Beijing (pictured above), as party leaders and industrial kingpins seem to be enjoying expensive air filtration systems in their offices, homes and even their cars to protect them from the obvious foul air outside. That Beijing chooses to measure particulate emissions that are more reflective of the desert sands that are blown across the land into the city – 10 micrometers – versus the more realistic measurement – 2.5 micrometers which are reflective of coal fires and carbon-based vehicle emissions used by the American Embassy in Beijing to measure danger levels – is most telling. “But when pressed, those same officials acknowledge that their pollution metrics willfully ignore the smaller particles, much of them generated by car and truck exhaust. In fact, the American Embassy’s monitor has become an unwelcome intrusion into China’s domestic affairs, according to a diplomatic cable released this year by WikiLeaks, which said a Foreign Ministry official had requested that the Americans stop publicizing the data.” NY Times, November 4^th. Those Embassy readings have increasingly indicated unsafe levels of particulate matter in the air.

“Officials in Beijing, however, are apparently not quite ready to embrace [the more accurate measurements]. In response to criticism over the heavy smog of recent weeks, a spokesman for the city’s environmental protection bureau, Du Shaozhong, assured the public that they should feel secure in the government’s own readings, which termed the city’s air ‘slightly polluted’ even as the embassy monitor found it so hazardous that it exceeded measurable levels. ‘China’s air quality should not be judged from data released by foreign embassies in Beijing,’ he said.” NY Times.

The companies that make the pollution control equipment used by political leaders are proud to advertise that fact, but there is growing resentment among the general populace over this apparent hypocrisy: “But in China, where resentment of the high and mighty is on the rise, news of the company’s advertising campaign is stirring a maelstrom of criticism. ‘They don’t have to eat gutter oil or drink poisoned milk powder and now they’re protected from filthy air,’ said one posting on Sina Weibo, the country’s most popular microblog service. ‘This shows their indifference to the lives of ordinary people.’” NY Times. Will China solve this problem? Any nation that has sustained growth at the level China has generated in the last decade pretty much means that China can do just about anything it sets its collective mind to do. It has the money and the technological know-how not only to conquer the problem but to implement the next generation of pollution controls… which believe me, they will sell to the rest of the world and dominate the market.

I’m Peter Dekom, and when you think about some of the problems we have in common with China, you have to shudder.