The Rise of the Dragon

Am I the only person that reads the headline above and snickers/rolls my eyes/flat out laughs out loud?  Beijing’s goal was to increase the amount of “blue-sky days” to 256. That sounds pretty good right?  Considering that back in 1998 Beijing had only 100 blue-sky days, 256 is great right?  The goal was to hit this number by the end of the year.  So China was 31 days early.  Congratulations!

The problem is in the definition of blue-sky day.  If Beijing really has had 256 blue-sky days then my current home of Provo, Utah has had 94 thousand consecutive blue sky days.  I hope you can feel the sarcasm.  China’s definition of a blue-sky day is much different than what you or I would consider a blue-sky day.  All you have to do is wear heavily blue tinted sun glasses and a an empty parking lot looks like a big blue sky.  Maybe that is how they were counting.

Not to completley sarcastic.  China has spent the equivilent of Frances GDP on air pollution rduction measures. (True, the French only work 15 hour work weeks, so their GDP is not what it used to be.)  So things are getting better, but to declare victory may be a little premature.

Please share your China pollution experiences with the rest of us.