Posts Tagged ‘ pollution ’

Look What I Get To Live In!

17 November 2008
Look What I Get To Live In!

(image of bicyclists in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square via nytimes) The UN Environment Program released a report last Thursday (side note: good typography, color choices, UN!) about the thick clouds of smog and soot over Asia and the likely effects it has on health, food security, and environmental changes. Due to the unprecedented nature of these noxious brown clouds, the exact consequences of their presence is not confirmed. Regardless of the consequences, it seems like countries are dilly-dallying around until the human/environmental toll is too hard to ignore, which may be years away. By then it will be too late. The world needs to get on this shit, pronto. And seriously this time. On a related note, though I may not be dying, I am still suffering. Now that I have finished consuming about 200 pills in the past two weeks, I don’t feel much better. I don’t really want to continue taking these pills. For one, I can’t bring myself to trust Western medicine produced in China. Second, I don’t like eating too many antibiotics over a long period of time. I mean, what if I created a mutant bacteria and created the next Avian Flu? Anyways, every time I

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Harbin’s “Fog”

29 October 2008
Harbin’s “Fog”

On October 17, the “fog” was unusually heavy, and I couldn’t figure out why. All I knew was that I was glad to be leaving Harbin for 9 days. I should have taken a photo of what the sky looks like on a normal and polluted day. But I stumbled upon this air quality reading from the SEPA website: The red line is Harbin. For those of you who can’t read it, it says that Harbin’s AQI is: TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-THREE. 2-7-3. Here are the Air Quality Index (AQI) ratings: 0-50 Good is usually green 51-100 Moderate is usually yellow 101-150 Unhealthy for sensitive groups is usually orange 151-200 Unhealthy is usually red 201-300 Very unhealthy is usually purple I think they chose the color purple because that’s what color you turn into after breathing dirty air for a long time. I still wonder what caused such heavy pollution in Harbin that day, though I would guess it could be the coal plants firing up to start government regulated heating.

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