Bleeding Edge

The average life expectancy of the residents of Beijing is diminished by more than 15 years because of the polluted air they all breathe.

Naturally something must be done about it…

So the Communist PARTY’S SMART ACCOUNTANTS AND NUMBER CRUNCHERS CAME TO THE RESCUE.

They installed giant television sets so the residents can see the sun in the screens.

And then they proceeded to solve the problem by changing some numbers.

Let’s now see how they can solve any problem, by changing the numbers.

Read this and weep.

It would be awfully funny to see the stupidity of these people if it weren’t so sad for the citizens living under these conditions…

The Chinese Communist Party knows full well that to stop the pollution of the major cities they need to address the issue of burning heavily polluting sulphuric coal inside their cities in order to produce their electricity.

Yet they also know that this method of production is the reason why the People’s Army is so powerful since they own all of these coal powered electricity factories along with the leading politiburo party members.

So since they cannot “touch” that source of killing pollution that befouls the air they all breath — they’d rather die like poisoned rats, than tell the truth and face the consequences.

That campaign of Xi-Jinping against corruption of course it doesn’t include the corruption of his own party and his own pocket… so nothing is going to be done about it any time soon.

But there are other solutions….

Solutions like exorcising the spirits of the Ancestors, much as they did half a millennia ago, when China’s emperor constructed a large marble altar in Beijing for ceremonies to propitiate the sun.

These days, though, the residents of the capital are far more likely to pray for the winds, because they never see the sun so they don’t even know what it looks like…

But they understand the benefits of the winds because while many days Beijing sits in a smoggy haze, a few fierce gusts of wind can turn the sky a startling hue of blue.

So the citizens of Beijing may be wishing for more of it — and forget about the Sun…

So today the country’s environmental minister announced a Solution: He unveiled plans to unify the standards Beijing and surrounding areas use to declare emergency measures to reduce smog.

Smart accounting will allow the residents to feel better about themselves. And the clear upshot is that the threshold for triggering a smog alert in the capital is being raised, so people cannot complain now…

While residents have criticized the Beijing government in the past for failing to hoist red alerts amid choking levels of smog, the city issued two late last year during particularly nasty bouts of pollution. The red alerts trigger a series of measures to reduce pollution, including ordering half the cars off the roads, shutting down factories and halting school classes.

The new system attempts to tackle Beijing’s bad-air problem as part of the wider pollution afflicting the surrounding area, including Tianjin and four other cities in neighboring Hebei province. The area persistently experiences some of China’s worst pollution levels, thanks to a concentration of heavy industry.

Under the previous system, Beijing would issue a red alert when the air quality index, which measures various pollutants, exceeds 200 for more than three days. In the new system, red alerts will be issued when AQI is forecast to rise above 500 for a day or more or when the AQI forecast is expected to exceed 200 for four days or 300 for two days or more.

That Beijing needs better pollution control measures and more creative thinking on the problem isn’t in question. The city has launched numerous initiatives to tame its smog, from moving heavy industry out of the city to periodically ordering cars off the street and banning outdoor barbecue.

The effort has paid noticeable dividends, such as when in the first half of last year, levels of PM2.5 — the fine particulate matter hazardous to human health — dropped 16%, compared to the same period in 2014. But November’s and December’s heavy pollution offset those improvements. By the year’s end, the annual average concentration of such pollutants had fallen by only 6%, according to the environmental ministry.

Ma Jun, founder of the nongovernmental Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs, said it made sense to unify the smog-alert standards. For Hebei, he said, the common standard will mean a quicker triggering of action.

But he criticized the move’s impact on Beijing. “There are legitimate concerns about such high social and economic costs of red alerts, concerns not just only from officials but also from residents,” said Mr. Ma. “But on the other hand, there’s a very strong need to protect the health of the people, especially the young and vulnerable,” he said, calling any weakening of such protections “most regrettable.”

Hence the city’s need for more wind. In another effort to clear up its skies, the city is planning to construct channels to speed passage of the wind through the city, official news agency Xinhua reported over the weekend.

These corridors will be created by linking various parks, roads and other natural features in the city to allow for better ventilation, the agency said. Five will be 500 meters or wider while the more than 10 other planned corridors will be narrower, the agency reported, citing the Beijing municipal commission of urban planning.

This is the official response….

Pity the Fools.

Yours,

Dr Kroko

PS:

In other words they are going to be better off by erecting giant statues to the Gods of the Winds, since they have nothing practical to contribute to their environmental solutions….