For the fourth day in a row, large sections
of northeast China are troubled in the smog. The sky is darkened and the invisibility
is really low. In recent years, there will always be a period of time when the
air is very bad in winter in the northeast big cities, especially in Beijing.
As the BBC News “Beijing pollution:schools keep children indoors” tells, schools in the Chinese capital city Beijing
have been ordered to keep students indoors amid extremely high levels of air pollution.
 |
| people in Beijing wear a mask |
Now PM2.5
is very popular among northern Chinese people. PM 2.5 is a measure of pollution,
which refer to the concentrations of airborne particles smaller than 2.5 micrograms per cubic meter. The maximum limit WHO recommends
is 25 micrograms per cubic meter. Now it can hit 900 micrograms, which means the
air is really bad.
Coal is
the major factor. It is used to support the factory production and some of the
electricity system. What’s more the cold weather in November also increased the
amount of coal burning, so the heating system is a major factor. A cold front
or a wind, expected on Wednesday, should bring some relief.
Some
factories are told to cut down the production and heavy duty tracks are not
allowed in the central city. Many construction sites have stopped. The government
has taken a lot of measures to change the environment and to reduce the pollution
in the process of economic development. But it needs time to see the effects. Also,
laws from central government are commonly ignored by lower officials, particularly
when they might affect the economic growth. It is much easier to pollute than improve
the environment, so more prevention measures should be taken before pollution
occurs.
When I was
living in Beijing, some of my friends and I try to go work by public
transportation instead of driving a car. We think we should do our small part
to help. Although environmental problem is quite hard and complex, it is not a
thing that should be considered just by the prime minister.
To summary, as for environmental pollution
solution, government policy comes first, especially the enforcement of policy. The
smog comes as President Xi Jinping attends the opening of the UN Global
Conference on Climate Change in Paris. We appeal to the government for environmental
improvement. We are looking forward to see the efforts of the government and
the effects.
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Reference
I still remember those day when I was young and see the people in China use the bicycles on television or in the movies. Maybe the Beijing people has set the trend of using the bike before Northern Europe like the Netherlands or Norway. Sadly most of them has switch to use the cars as same as most of developing country with the expansion of economy, while some developed country has a social movement to make the people aware of the environmental issues.
ReplyDeleteUsing the bicycle doesn't help much like Ning's suggestion about law obligation and planning the better source of energy in the industry, but it could make the social movement to arouse this issue among the people which lead to the government's policy sooner or later. I hope some day I would see the people using the bike in their everyday life happily again in Beijing.
I was reminded of my first visit to Bangkok. Coming from Australia, I thought that the air pollution was awful. But a few weeks later I went on to Taipei, where I really learned what air pollution was like. Taipei is much cleaner now than it was then, and I'm sure that Bangkok's air is much safer today than it was in the late 1980s.
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