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HumanCar Powered by Human Energy, Not Ethanol
Charley and Chuck Greenwood, a father-son combo, think they know the secret to the future of cars: rowing.
And they founded their company HumanCar to prove that human energy, not biofuels, is the gasoline of the future. Their Imagine_PS car seats up to four in a low-slung chassis; the passengers get to help row the lightweight car.
Think of it as an ergonomic, efficient and sneaker-saving Flintstone's car for an oil-free future. The front two 'drivers' get to steer, which is done with a talented and coordinated lean.
"Body steering comes from the hips," CEO Chuck said. "It's just like a properly performed ski turn."
But revolutionizing steering is not the point of these Oregon entrepreneurs. "It's about thinking about days per life versus miles per gallon," CEO Chuck Greenwood said.
When powered by four people rowing, the car will go about as fast as the 'drivers' would on bicycles, on average.
But, that's only if they were driving in a flat city like Chicago, where the car is currently on display for two weeks during the Wired NextFest future-tech expo in Millennium Park.
For hillier locales or higher speeds, there's electric assist motors and regenerative brakes that funnel the vehicle's momentum back into the batteries.
The Greenwoods plan to sell Imagine_PS as a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle, a state-by-state designation that frees it from requirements such as air bags and in some states, even the need for a licensed driver or insurance.
But to qualify, the top speed will have to capped at around 20 mph -- though the Greenwoods say the chassis can easily handle sports car speeds in excess of 100 mph.
Hear that, hot rodders?
Though not yet for sale, advanced models of the Imagine_PS for corporate campuses will be available soon for $35,000 to $50,000, while the consumer model is slated to be be priced at $15,500. Charley and Chuck Greenwood, a father-son combo, think they know the secret to the future of cars: rowing. ... more -
Plant, NO help in Global warming!
Plants are unlikely to soak up more carbon dioxide from the air as the planet warms, research suggests.
US scientists found that grassland took up less CO2 than usual for two years following temperatures that are now unusually hot, but may become common.
The conclusion parallels a real-world finding from Europe's 2003 heatwave, when the continent's plant life became a net producer, not absorber, of CO2.
The latest study is published in the scientific journal Nature.
Researchers extracted four intact segments of grassland, about 3 sq m in area and weighing about 12 tonnes each, from the prairies of Oklahoma, and placed them in special chambers at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno, Nevada.
Conditions in the chambers, such as temperature, moisture and sunlight, could be precisely
controlled.
Drying out
Two of the four chambers were given a set of conditions mimicking what actually happens, on average, on the wild prairies. Temperatures rose and fell with days and nights and seasons, and "rainfall" was injected in a realistic pattern.
The other two chambers received the same prescription with the exception that for a whole year, temperatures were always 4C higher.
The warmer plots saw a shortfall in carbon dioxide uptake of about 30% during the warm year and the one following.
DRI's Jay Arnone, who led the study, said two different mechanisms appeared to be responsible.
"So in the warm year, the temperature goes up and causes more evapotranspiration from the plants," he told BBC News.
"But plants have evolved to 'know' that when it gets dry they should curb their water loss, so they reduce the apertures of their stomata (pores) to conserve water, and that constrains the amount of CO2 they can take up (by photosynthesis)."
This response has been understood for some time. But what happened in the following year, when temperatures returned to "normal", was not so familiar.
Even during the warm year with its meagre amount of photosynthesis, plants had put carbon in the soil.
So during the normal year following, soil microbes had extra carbon to process, which they did, emitting more carbon dioxide into the air. Plants are unlikely to soak up more carbon dioxide from the air as the planet warms, research suggests. ... more -
Cops Might Get Pollution Sniffers
How clean is the air outside your home, local school, or athletic field?
You’ve undoubtedly heard those news reports — probably several times this summer: It’s a bad air-quality day, so stay indoors as much as possible and avoid strenuous activity if you must go out. But you may have wondered if that really applies to you, particularly.
When the government issues the information that prods air-quality alerts, it's based on readings from several air-monitoring stations set up around a city. These pollution-sensor centers are anchored in place, often fairly high off of the ground, which puts them well above the intake zone of your sniffer and mine.The state then takes readings from several stations around town and averages them to suggest what community residents might encounter.
The problem here: None of us breathes average air.
We suck in the idiosyncratic mix of pollutants that exist at some particular time and at the precise place we happen to be — sitting beside a secluded stream, walking along a busy highway, enjoying the hammock in our backyard a quarter-mile from some manufacturing plant, or biking past a recycling center. It’s a good bet that the air is considerably and reliably dirtier in some parts of town — or rural regions —than in others. Yet stationary pollutant monitors can’t identify where these spots are.
Which is why Akos Ledeczi is designing small and eminently portable air samplers — ones that street cops could snap onto their belts while patrolling their beats, couriers could strap onto their bikes, or mail trucks could carry on every dashboard. Each of the smaller-than-a-sandwich size devices would collect air-pollution data about once a minute and temporarily store it on a flash drive. Whenever the units fell within range of a Bluetooth-enabled device in the system’s network or wireless relay station, they’d spit out their data.
Fitted with a global-positioning-satellite chip, each sensor-packed device knows precisely where it is, and links those coordinates to the air-sampling data collected from each spot, explains Ledeczi, a scientist at Vanderbilt University’s Institute for Software Integrated Systems in Nashville. An on-board accelerometer identifies when the device is moving, and uses that cue to wake up its pollutant sensors. Once all movement stops, the system goes to sleep, prolonging the charge in its battery. (For infinite life, the system can be plugged into a vehicle’s cigarette lighter.) In its snooze mode, the system only momentarily rouses to take readings once an hour.
The goal would be to deploy an army of these things to meander throughout a community, collecting up-to-the-minute, street-level data on air quality.
Right now, however, this system is “a work in progress,” Ledeczi acknowledges. Only five prototypes exist. Still, they’ve been spitting out air-quality readings as they’ve been ferried by cars throughout Nashville. Last Friday, at a Workshop on Environmental Sensing Networks convened at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Ledeczi illustrated how the data could be overlain on maps of a community to depict precise and ultra-local air quality.
Environmental agencies have deployed their stationary existing air-sampling stations relatively sparsely. For example, just 10 stations collect air-quality readings for Nashville’s 526-square-mile area, home to 545,000 people. Results of a locality’s stations are compiled and analyzed. Then, state and local environmental agencies issue a composite air-quality index for the day — a single value that attempts to account for all types of regulated pollutants.
******************CONTINUES******************** How clean is the air outside your home, local school, or athletic field? ... more -
Asian Soot, Smog May Boost US Warming
"Smog, soot and other particles like the kind often seen hanging over Beijing add to global warming and may raise summer temperatures in the American heartland by three degrees in about 50 years, says a new federal science report released Thursday.
These overlooked, shorter-term pollutants — mostly from burning wood and kerosene and from driving trucks and cars — cause more localized warming than once thought, the authors of the report say. They contend there should be a greater effort to attack this type of pollution for faster results.
For decades, scientists have concentrated on carbon dioxide, the most damaging greenhouse gas because it lingers in the atmosphere for decades. Past studies have barely paid attention to global warming pollution that stays in the air merely for days.
The new report, written by scientists with NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, makes a case for tackling the short-term pollutants, while acknowledging that carbon dioxide is still the chief cause of warming.
That concept is also the official policy of the Bush Administration, said assistant secretary of commerce Bill Brennan.
In the United States, this approach would mean cutting car and truck emissions perhaps before restricting coal-burning power plants. In the developing world, especially Asia, it would mean shifting to cleaner energy sources, more like those used in the Western world. Much of this type of pollution in Asia comes from burning kerosene and biofuels, such as wood and animal dung."
More at link... "Smog, soot and other particles like the kind often seen hanging over Beijing add to global warming and may raise summer temperat... more -
Scientists fear impact of Asian pollutants on U.S.
From 500 miles in space, satellites track brown clouds of dust, soot and other toxic pollutants from China and elsewhere in Asia as they stream across the Pacific and take dead aim at the western U.S.
A fleet of tiny, specially equipped unmanned aerial vehicles, launched from an island in the East China Sea 700 or so miles downwind of Beijing, are flying through the projected paths of the pollution taking chemical samples and recording temperatures, humidity levels and sunlight intensity in the clouds of smog.
On the summit of 9,000-foot Mt. Bachelor in central Oregon and near sea level at Cheeka Peak on Washington state's Olympic Peninsula, monitors track the pollution as it arrives in America.
By some estimates more than 10 billion pounds of airborne pollutants from Asia - ranging from soot to mercury to carbon dioxide to ozone - reach the U.S. annually. The problem is only expected to worsen: Some Chinese officials have warned that pollution in their country could quadruple in the next 15 years.
While some scientists are less certain, others say the Asian pollution could destabilize weather patterns across the North Pacific, mask the effects of global warming, reduce rainfall in the American West and compromise efforts to meet air-pollution standards.
"East Asia pollution aerosols could impose far reaching environmental impacts at continental, hemispheric and global scales because of long-range transport," according to a report earlier this year in the Journal of Geophysical Research. The report said that a "warm conveyor belt" lifts the pollutants into the upper troposphere - the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere - over Asia, where winds can bring it to the U.S. in a week or less.
The National Academies of Science, at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and in consultation with the State Department, has assembled a panel to examine the problem and its impact. Its report is due next summer.
"Everyone realizes this is an issue of growing importance," said Laurie Geller of the National Academies of Science. "This is very challenging science with lots of complexities and a lot of uncertainties."
Though the problem of Asian air pollution has been known for years, no one has a handle on how much is blown in and what it includes. Scientists say Washington state and Oregon might be feeling the brunt of the effects.
"This pollution is distributed on average equally from northern California to British Columbia," said Dan Jaffe, a professor of environmental science at the University of Washington's Bothell campus. "Anyone who has gone out to measure it has found something."
Particulates such as dust and soot, along with heavy metals, pesticides, PCBs, mercury, ozone, carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide have all been found. Jaffe said the pollutants can't be tracked to a single source such as a particular coal-burning plant, but their "chemical fingerprints" can point to a specific country.
Viruses, bacteria and fungi also can be transported on dust particles, though, so far, they've been found only on the dust and sand blowing off African deserts, not Asian ones.
Mercury, one of the most hazardous pollutants from the hundreds of coal-burning electricity generating plants in China and elsewhere in Asia, is of particular concern. One study estimated a fifth of the mercury entering Oregon's Willamette River comes from overseas, with China as the mostly likely source.
(continued)
-By LES BLUMENTHAL From 500 miles in space, satellites track brown clouds of dust, soot and other toxic pollutants from China and elsewhere in Asia as th... more -
Pollutants cause birds to sing tainted love songs
Traces of a chemical once used by power plants leave birds looking fit, but singing another tune altogether.
Wild chickadees exposed to permitted levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) can't keep a tune as well as other birds.
Because females go for males with the best songs, PCB-exposed birds might lose out on mates, says Sara DeLeon, an ecologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who presented her research at a recent conference at the university.
"The birds are living, not dying, but [PCBs] are affecting some part of their life cycle," she says.
Researchers have long known that some chemicals, such DDT, can throw off a bird's song, but none have determined whether exposure to trace amounts in the wild can influence songs and mating. Traces of a chemical once used by power plants leave birds looking fit, but singing another tune altogether. ... more -
Olympics makes Beijing air clean
Sorry here's the link: http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Olympics-makes-Bei...
Olympics host Beijing enjoyed its cleanest air in 10 years this month and will adopt strict new measures to ensure its notorious smog does not return, a top environment official said on Tuesday.
Over the past 18 days, air quality in the capital ranged between excellent and fairly good on China’s index, Du Shaozhong, deputy director of the Beijing environmental protection bureau, said. And he pledged good conditions would continue.
“Beijing will be built into a liveable city,” Du said. “We will take some new measures to ensure that air quality will reach a new level after the Olympic Games.” Du said those measures would be announced after the Games end on Sunday, once officials had studied Beijing’s “successful experiences”.
“Whether it is automobile emissions reduction, or construction site dust reduction or coal pollution reduction, I believe that the requirements will be more stringent,” he said, naming three of the top sources of the air pollution that has bedeviled the fast-growing city of 15 million.
Dirty air was one of the biggest worries in the run-up to the Games and the opening ceremony on August 8 was held in a swirl of hot haze.
Hundreds of factories in Beijing and surrounding provinces have closed temporarily in a crackdown on polluters. And traffic has flowed unnaturally swiftly since late July, when the city adopted even-odd license plate number restrictions aimed at taking half its 3.3 million cars off the roads each day.
Three days of rainfall had also helped clear the haze since the Games started, Du said, and he confirmed more showers were forecast for Wednesday and Thursday.
While a cloudy day is predicted for the Games closing ceremony on Sunday, artificial cloud seeding that helped ensure a rain-free opening may also be used before the finale in the roofless Bird’s Nest stadium,Du said.
To reassure anyone fearing that the clearer, fresher air would vanish along with the athletes, Du stressed officials were committed to a long-term assault on pollution.”We have noticed overseas and domestic public opinion has pinned high hopes on the efforts,” he said. Sorry here's the link: http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Olympics-makes-Beijing-air-clean/350925/ ... more -
Shell rebuked for 'greenwash' over ad for polluting tar sands project
The Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell misled the public about the green credentials of a vastly polluting oil project in Canada, in an attempt to assure consumers of its good environmental record, a media watchdog will rule today.
In an embarrassing rejection of Shell's "greenwash", the Advertising Standards Authority said the company should not have used the word "sustainable" for its controversial tar sands project and a second scheme to build North America's biggest oil refinery. Both projects would lead to the emission of more greenhouse gases, the ASA said, ruling the advert had breached rules on substantiation, truthfulness and environmental claims.
Carried by the Financial Times on 1 February to accompany Shell's financial results, the company claimed: "We invest today's profits in tomorrow's solutions."
The advert continued: "A growing world needs more energy, but at the same time we need to find new ways of managing carbon emissions to limit climate change. Continued investment in technology is one of the key ways we are able to address this challenge, and continue to secure a profitable and sustainable future."
Shell explained it was harnessing its technical expertise "to unlock the potential of the vast Canadian oil sands deposits".
The WWF (formerly the Worldwide Fund for Nature) complained that extracting low-grade bitumen from sand was highly inefficient and destroyed huge tracts of virgin forest. In its defence, Shell maintained that new technology was reducing pollution from the Athabasca Oil Sands Project in Alberta in which it owns a 60 per cent stake.
Shell quoted a critical WWF report as rating its Muskeg River Mine one of the least damaging coal-tar sands projects because it sought to limit emissions of nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide and organic compounds.
Making its ruling, the ASA quoted Canada's independent National Energy Board that oil sand developments had considerable social and economic impacts on water conservation, greenhouse gas emissions, land disturbance and waste management.
David Norman, the WWF's director of campaigns, said: "The ASA's decision to uphold WWF's complaint sends a strong signal to business and industry that greenwash is unacceptable." The Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell misled the public about the green credentials of a vastly polluting oil project in Canada, in an at... more -
"Great American Detour" Grabbing Headlines in Texas
The Port Arthur News caught up with Lauren and Tyler on their swing through Texas.
From the article:
From the moment Lauren Cerre stepped off the big Greyhound bus in Port Arthur, her nose for news got a good whiff of the city that lives and breathes in the shadow of the petrochemical industry.
The 25-year-old journalist from San Francisco was in Port Arthur this week to capture the concerns of young people across America. In Port Arthur, she interviewed young people, ages 18 to 25, on a variety of topics including air pollution in a city that is experiencing one of the largest industrial boons in the nation.
“From the taxi driver to the store clerk at the convenience store, everyone is aware the odor and air quality of Port Arthur. It’s just a matter of how they deal with it,” Cerre said during a telephone interview Thursday.
Port Arthur is one of 10 U.S. cities included in Current TV’s Vanguard Special, “The Great American Detour.” The show will air on Current TV in early October at a yet-to-be-determined date. The Port Arthur News caught up with Lauren and Tyler on their swing through Texas. From the article: ... more -
China's Changsha city plans to trade dust and CO2
The city of Changsha, the capital of Hunan province in south-central China, is preparing to launch an emissions trading scheme, its mayor said on Tuesday.
Changsha's plan is a local version of a tentative outline drawn up by the central bank, for a domestic emissions trading scheme that could cover everything from greenhouse gases to water pollutants, and speed China's push for greener growth.
Changsha would assign its local districts quotas for dust, carbon dioxide and chemical oxygen demand (COD), a measure of water pollution, Zhang Jianfei told a news conference.
"We are considering innovations like an emissions trading market," Zhang said, as he listed other pollution-reducing measures like taxation and pricing schemes.
Changsha will assign levels to each district and then fine them if they exceed the level or give incentives if they are under. They could then trade those quotas, Zhang said, estimating the system could be in place as early as next year.
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This may be the first dust trading market in the world! Companies will probably pump water from the local river and spray it on their factory roads to decrease dust. Nevertheless, kudos to the Chinese for getting with it and innovating in the world of pollution! The city of Changsha, the capital of Hunan province in south-central China, is preparing to launch an emissions trading scheme, its ma... more -
United States athletes arrive at the Beijing Olympic with face masks
Olympic athletes from United States arrive in Beijing waring face masks to help combat the pollution in the air.
The United Stats Olympic Committee had advised the athletes to ware the masks on the plane and as soon as they stepped foot in Beijing.
The Chinese and the International Olympic Committee have stated that athletes are not at risk from pollution and they have been doing daily test to monitor 5 types of pollutants. Olympic athletes from United States arrive in Beijing waring face masks to help combat the pollution in the air. ... more -
Beijing may ban 90% of cars to clear skies for Olympics
Beijing is considering banning 90 percent of private cars from its roads and closing more factories in a last-ditch bid to clear smoggy skies for the Olympics, state media reported Monday.
With just 11 days to go before the start of the world's biggest multi-sports event, Beijing was blanketed in a dense white haze on Monday that cut visibility in the city of 17 million down to just a few hundred meters.
Acknowledging the failure of the initial car ban introduced on July 20, Beijing authorities are expected to announce more stringent emergency measures soon, the China Daily quoted the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau as saying.One plan under consideration was to ban 90 percent of all private vehicles from the streets of the capital during the Games, the paper said.
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[personal comment]
I left China on July 2 and the air was extremely bad because car ban had not taken effect, factories had not yet shut down, and construction was still happening at breakneck speed. Three weeks later, all measures have taken effect and still mixed results (supposedly there were some "blue sky days" but mostly smog). Beijing is considering banning 90 percent of private cars from its roads and closing more factories in a last-ditch bid to clear smogg... more -
Time’s up for the anti-social boy racers
BOY racers who have inflicted years of misery on Neath residents may have met their match.
Skewen Neighbourhood Policing Team said months of speaking to offenders and the cooperation of bosses at Vale of Neath Retail Park, meant a long-term solution was almost in place.
Opsss! Forgot the link, here it is the rest of the story;
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/south-wales-news/neat...
by Anthony O'Connell, Neath Guardian BOY racers who have inflicted years of misery on Neath residents may have met their match. ... more -
Poison and Flowers
Never mind the blue skies, the beautiful days, the wind breeze. That will not prevent you from being poisoning by traffic pollution anyways. Here is the true that you do not bother to pay attention on the daily basis and our giant media sleeper won't report it. That is the true quality of the air you are breathing here on Russian Hill, San Francisco, California. I can imagine in other parts of the City or this Country. Dig it! Move, Act, Report and Change it! Never mind the blue skies, the beautiful days, the wind breeze. That will not prevent you from being poisoning by traffic pollution an... more
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Study shows air pollution doing serious harm to ecosystems
If you are living in the eastern United States, the environment around you is being harmed by air pollution. From Adirondack forests and Shenandoah streams to Appalachian wetlands and the Chesapeake Bay, a new report by the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and The Nature Conservancy has found that air pollution is degrading every major ecosystem type in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic United States.
The report, Threats From Above: Air Pollution Impacts on Ecosystems and Biological Diversity in the Eastern United States, is the first to analyze the large-scale effects that four air pollutants are having across a broad range of habitat types (see inset). The majority of recent studies focus on one individual pollutant. Over 32 experts contributed to the effort; the prognosis is not good.
"Everywhere we looked, we found evidence of air pollution harming natural resources," comments Dr. Gary M. Lovett, an ecologist at the Cary Institute and the lead author of the report. "Decisive action is needed if we plan on preserving functioning ecosystems for future generations."
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This is the world our younger generation will inherit. They must begin to get serious about working to preserve it and to hold this generation accountable for leaving it sustainable. I have always been baffled at how we humans can know doing something is dangerous and toxic to the future and to the present regarding the quality of our air, water, and land, and yet we continue to do it. We cannot continue on this path. This is one of the most important challenges our younger generation will have to face, and I truly wish there was more of an urgency about it. Pollution is not a 'natural' occurence of nature, we are doing it, and only we can make it right. If you are living in the eastern United States, the environment around you is being harmed by air pollution. From Adirondack forests a... more -
Switchover to Fuel Cell Vehicles Will Cut Emissions, Cost Billions
Fuel cell technologies have the potential to greatly curtail the U.S.'s oil use and carbon dioxide emissions, but extensive public and private investment are necessary to make a significant impact in the coming decades, according to the National Research Council.
The group researched and developed a best case scenario for fuel cell development and deployment in the U.S., publishing it's findings the report "Transitions to Alternative Transportation Technologies: A Focus on Hydrogen." The main barriers to widespread use of fuel cell vehicles, the report concludes, are vehicle price and lack of production and distribution infrastructure.
Even with increased funding and research, the cost of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles won't be competitive with fossil fuel-burning vehicles until 2023. The Council says fuel cell vehicle production could start ramping up in 2015, with about 2 million vehicles maximum on the roads by 2020.
Once the cost barrier comes down, there could be 60 million fuel cell vehicles zipping around by 2035 and 200 million by 2050. The Council takes into account the cost of hydrogen fuel over a vehicle's lifetime in comparing its cost to conventional vehicles.
That best case scenario can only be met with vigorous investment and action. The Council says the government will need to put up $55 billion in funding from 2008-2023, and private industry will need to pump $145 billion into fuel cells during the same period.
Currently, the federal government is running the $1.2 billion Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, which was announced at the 2003 State of the Union Address. On the West Coast, the California Fuel Cell Partnership is working to spread the use of fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen fueling stations. Fuel cell technologies have the potential to greatly curtail the U.S.'s oil use and carbon dioxide emissions, but extensive publi... more -
Pew Center and Toyota Team Up to Research Energy Efficiency Best Practices
The Pew Center on Global Climate Change and Toyota have launched a project to research energy efficiency strategies among top companies to discover, document and disseminate information about corporate best practices that reduce energy use and related greenhouse gas emissions.
The research and communications project, announced July 16, also will address the market and internal challenges companies encounter while attempting to implement energy efficiency strategies, Toyota and the Pew Center said.
The Pew Center is managing the research and communications for the project, which is being funded with a three-year, $1.4 million grant from Toyota.
"Energy efficiency is the simplest, most cost-effective way for companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions," said Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, in a statement. "This project is designed to give companies the tools to ramp up efficiency efforts and simultaneously address growing concerns about climate change and skyrocketing energy prices."
Patricia Salas Pineda, group vice president of Toyota North America, praised the center's long experience in "engaging the business community in the development of pragmatic solutions to climate change."
"We are pleased to work with them to develop this initiative and educate corporations on the most effective ways to reduce energy use," Pineda said in a statement announcing the project. The Pew Center on Global Climate Change and Toyota have launched a project to research energy efficiency strategies among top companie... more -
Beijing traffic cut to help clear air for Olympics
Morning haze hung over Beijing on Monday, the first workday for restrictions on car use under a bold plan to clear the Olympic city of its notorious smog-choked skies.
Under a two-month plan that started Sunday, half of the capital's 3.3 million cars will be removed from city streets on alternate days, depending on whether the license plate ends in an odd or even number.
It could be several days before the impact of the cleanup plan, which also includes cutbacks on construction and factory closures, is noticeable. The government has not made public a specific target for vehicle emission levels, one of the city's biggest sources of pollution, or said how it will measure air quality.
Experts say the plan could still go wrong because unpredictable winds could blow pollution into Beijing from other provinces or the lack of wind — common in August — could enable local pollution to build up.
However, Sun Weide, spokesman for the Beijing Olympics organizing committee, was optimistic. Morning haze hung over Beijing on Monday, the first workday for restrictions on car use under a bold plan to clear the Olympic city of... more -
The ballooning problem of air quality in Paris?
Very neat idea whereby air quality is displayed according to coloured balloons floating above paris...
To paraphrase an old english saying...
Red sky at night, shepherd's delight
Red balloon in the morning, health warning
d Very neat idea whereby air quality is displayed according to coloured balloons floating above paris... ... more -
Beijing's air still not up to Olympic standard
Beijing is still failing to meet air quality standards set by the World Health Organisation, which it promised to uphold in 2001, whilst bidding for the Olympics.
The BBC tested air in the Chinese capital using a device which records the presence of airborne particles known as PM10's, which are emmitted by vehicles and facories. It was found that on 6 out of 7 days, the city's air "failed to meet the WHO's air quality standards". On one particular day, the reading was SEVEN times over the guideline level.
This news comes only a month before the start of the games: Beijing insists that "there is still time to get it right". The government is expected to take cars off the streets and shut down building sites in a bid to improve the siuation by the time thousands of spectators will descend on the city in August.
But if the citizens of Beijing have to live in this toxic air 24/7, shouldn't the WHO be concerned about what happens AFTER the games as well? Beijing is still failing to meet air quality standards set by the World Health Organisation, which it promised to uphold in 2001, whil... more
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Air Pollution
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Air Pollution
