Air is burning in Shanghai

So yeah, for about a week now the pollution has been horrendous. Pollution is actually off the charts in terms of hazardous. The air smells like the inside of a coal furnace, visibility is about 50 yards. Check this (for reference, most of US falls in 35-50 range):

I'm basically ignorant as to shanghai and the pollution. I've heard it's really bad in general... but... what is causing it to be so shitty?

And why doesn't the gov't step in?

fucking hell

I think it's mostly coal power plants, China consumes 50% or more of world's coal.

Rest is probably factories.

Govt. doesn't say where it comes from, but they do make cryptic announcements, for example, they are now saying it "will get better by the 9th". So, they don't say where it comes from but they know exactly when it will start to improve :-)

By the way during the Expo in 2010 we had good weather all year. My guess is they turned off all the factories/power plants near Shanghai. Then in September suddenly one day the air was yellow again. Just jokingly, I told my co-worker, "well, I guess the Expo is over". He looked online and said "yeah, it ended yesterday". So they had literally waited until the day after the Expo ended, and then flipped all the switches for further air apocalypse.

Fun fact: apparently 30% of the air pollution in my hometown of San Francisco comes from China...blows across the Pacific

I'm confident that in the next 20 years we'll have solutions for our environmental problems.

That's disturbing. When I was younger, and saw pictures of China, I used to think it was just really foggy/cloudy over there.

On a lighter note, "Air is Burning in Shanghai" sounds like the name of an ambient instrumental indie band.

  On 12/6/2013 at 4:08 AM, LimpyLoo said:

I'm confident that in the next 20 years we'll have solutions for our environmental problems.

I share this optimism, but temper it with some cautious cynicism.

If I'm recalling correctly (can't be arsed to search it right now), some kid invented a thing that scoops up plastic from water for recycling, intending the design to be used on a larger scale to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. As long as people far more intelligent than I care about the planet & have access to the necessary resources, we might just survive this century.

craziness

that seems... not very fun

  On 12/6/2013 at 3:25 AM, lumpenprol said:

So yeah, for about a week now the pollution has been horrendous. Pollution is actually off the charts in terms of hazardous. The air smells like the inside of a coal furnace, visibility is about 50 yards. Check this (for reference, most of US falls in 35-50 range):

 

 

Why do you live there lumpenprol?

used to be for the girls, but now I'm married with kid (soon to be plural) so I'd really like to leave. Problem is I have my own business here, so I can't just uproot...

china seems like a drag

I assume this is because of factories producing a lot of cheap stuff to the rest of the world. If that's the case, I want to thank the people of Shanghai for sacrificing their own well-being so me, and everyone else in the west, can have a better/cheaper life. It really means a lot to me and I want you to know that your sacrifice will not be in vain.

  On 12/6/2013 at 6:33 AM, zaphod said:

china seems like a drag

haha @ foil

yeh that looks like a situation there tho

i guess it's easier to catch up to the rest of the world if your country was in many ways decades behind, if you just don't care about your citizens like at all. it'd be a lot harder if they had to abide by the same regulations the countries they are competing with have to follow. i guess the rest of us get cheap stuff out of it though, like foil says. yay

and in the meantime, our politicians over here in the US will be passing stricter and stricter regulations that are impossible to meet while remaining profitable, driving more production to places like china, and those same politicians for some reason have no problem with us buying that stuff that was made in what they consider to be inhumane or unsafe conditions here. like it's ok to support those conditions if they are taking place somewhere else, i guess.

  On 12/6/2013 at 7:27 AM, Friendly Foil said:

I assume this is because of factories producing a lot of cheap stuff to the rest of the world. If that's the case, I want to thank the people of Shanghai for sacrificing their own well-being so me, and everyone else in the west, can have a better/cheaper life. It really means a lot to me and I want you to know that your sacrifice will not be in vain.

We are the ones sacrificing for stuff to be made in china, in the form of all our well paid and secure manufacturing jobs being offshored to china of the last few decades leaving us with part-time careers in the service sector as pizza delivery drivers and customer service drones. And if the factories had remained here the environmental standards of our first world countries would have seen massively reduced output of pollution and more efficient use of power. It's a lose lose situation.

On top of that we've gifted china economic supremacy over us. And lets not forget that the products we are sold aren't that much cheaper, the margins are just higher for the western brands that make stuff over there. blah, the idiots that were allowed to run us fail at the Game of Economics.

  On 12/6/2013 at 8:06 AM, MisterE said:

and in the meantime, our politicians over here in the US will be passing stricter and stricter regulations that are impossible to meet while remaining profitable, driving more production to places like china, and those same politicians for some reason have no problem with us buying that stuff that was made in what they consider to be inhumane or unsafe conditions here. like it's ok to support those conditions if they are taking place somewhere else, i guess.

fucking lol

yeah over-regulation puts a strain on the job creators

makes it harder to pollute the rivers

fucking right-wing propaganda bullshit

*vomits*

Is there a huge incidence of health problems and untimely death due to that air? Does everyone have 10 air purifiers in their homes?

  On 12/6/2013 at 8:21 AM, delet... said:

 

  On 12/6/2013 at 7:27 AM, Friendly Foil said:

 

I assume this is because of factories producing a lot of cheap stuff to the rest of the world. If that's the case, I want to thank the people of Shanghai for sacrificing their own well-being so me, and everyone else in the west, can have a better/cheaper life. It really means a lot to me and I want you to know that your sacrifice will not be in vain.

 

We are the ones sacrificing for stuff to be made in china, in the form of all our well paid and secure manufacturing jobs being offshored to china of the last few decades leaving us with part-time careers in the service sector as pizza delivery drivers and customer service drones. And if the factories had remained here the environmental standards of our first world countries would have seen massively reduced output of pollution and more efficient use of power. It's a lose lose situation.

 

On top of that we've gifted china economic supremacy over us. And lets not forget that the products we are sold aren't that much cheaper, the margins are just higher for the western brands that make stuff over there. blah, the idiots that were allowed to run us fail at the Game of Economics.

  On 12/6/2013 at 4:08 AM, LimpyLoo said:

I'm confident that in the next 20 years we'll have solutions for our environmental problems.

Tou gonna die when you're 50 if you live there any longer.

  On 12/6/2013 at 8:29 AM, LimpyLoo said:

 

  On 12/6/2013 at 8:06 AM, MisterE said:

and in the meantime, our politicians over here in the US will be passing stricter and stricter regulations that are impossible to meet while remaining profitable, driving more production to places like china, and those same politicians for some reason have no problem with us buying that stuff that was made in what they consider to be inhumane or unsafe conditions here. like it's ok to support those conditions if they are taking place somewhere else, i guess.

 

fucking lol

 

yeah over-regulation puts a strain on the job creators

makes it harder to pollute the rivers

 

fucking right-wing propaganda bullshit

 

*vomits*

 

ok but your sarcasm that apparently indicates that you don't think regulations make it any tougher at all for a business to operate, just completely ignores the hypocrisy of the mostly democrat politicians who push to get these regulations passed but then do absolutely nothing to try to dissuade countries like china from going way beyond the practices they want to regulate here. these politicians see dollar signs in green energy which they invest in and which happens to benefit from those regulations that are passed on the competition, as well as from the grants given to the green energy types in exchange for handsome campaign contributions. plenty of those green energy companies then end up bankrupt but surely the ceos got their cut. but if these politicians really think the world is going to end because of some pollution, why wouldn't they use the america's position as a consumer as leverage to get countries like china to play according to the same rules? are you, or are these politicians too dumb to not understand that tons of pollution being pumped into the planet would have the same long term affects regardless of where it's happening? no, i don't think anyone is that dumb. so i have to assume they really aren't so committed to their supposed goals, don't i? otherwise they'd cut back on trade with china to make them feel pressure to abide by similar regulations. until they do that or support motions to make it happen, no american politican who talks about pollution destroying our future will be seen as anything less than a hypocrite, lying, asshole, who is probably making tons of money from 'green energy'. if there's a flaw in my logic here please do point it out.

let me just summarize it first though.

a) politicians think pollution is going to kill us so they pass regulations that benefit competitors, which often those same politicians can be seen to be invested in and making money from in return for campaign contributions

b) regulations push production to china

c) politicians like our president who are behind this have been borrowing tons of money from china to pay for their out of control spending, so maybe his not minding pollution in china to make goods we buy, or not seeming interested in working a call for them to stop manipulating their currency into the trans pacific agreement, has something to do with that? or maybe he has other, more personal interests in china, besides his trust fund and the well connected (in chinese business/gov) US citizen who owned O's campaign website?

d) these politicians don't mind all the pollution coming out of factories over there, even though over here, they tell us that our pollution will kill everyone.

yeah. makes sense all right. if you don't think about it for a couple of seconds. how do you say 'pollution is bad and will kill all future babies so we can't do that' then continue buying products from countries that do, and from companies that were founded by americans who your regulations drove over there? how is that anything less than a complete joke?

oh and throw in the inhumane working conditions. it's bad to have that over here, but ok for you occupy protestor types to get your iphones from a 3rd world where it does happen, so you can continue protesting capitalism. right-o

*pukes*

  On 12/6/2013 at 9:00 AM, Friendly Foil said:

 

  On 12/6/2013 at 8:21 AM, delet... said:

 

  On 12/6/2013 at 7:27 AM, Friendly Foil said:

I assume this is because of factories producing a lot of cheap stuff to the rest of the world. If that's the case, I want to thank the people of Shanghai for sacrificing their own well-being so me, and everyone else in the west, can have a better/cheaper life. It really means a lot to me and I want you to know that your sacrifice will not be in vain.

 

We are the ones sacrificing for stuff to be made in china, in the form of all our well paid and secure manufacturing jobs being offshored to china of the last few decades leaving us with part-time careers in the service sector as pizza delivery drivers and customer service drones. And if the factories had remained here the environmental standards of our first world countries would have seen massively reduced output of pollution and more efficient use of power. It's a lose lose situation.

 

On top of that we've gifted china economic supremacy over us. And lets not forget that the products we are sold aren't that much cheaper, the margins are just higher for the western brands that make stuff over there. blah, the idiots that were allowed to run us fail at the Game of Economics.

Well... that too.

 

Sorry, i was feeling a bit moany after i woke up. Not the only thread that copped it. heh.

dey turk err jurbz!