Many of you have probably seen this, but there is an interesting article on HK's air pollution and how it affecting the election. You can read the article here:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/21/news/hong.php

Nancy

Well spotted Nancy. I managed to find time to nip out of the office and go to the Civic Exchange press conference yesterday - Keith Bradsher who wrote the Herald Tribune piece was also there.

The new report finds that HK is to blame for much (53%) of its pollution, so the ball is very much in HK's court. So Donald won't be able to keep blaming Guangdong and doing nothing - or next to nothing. It also found that marine pollution (ie. from ships) is much more of a problem than was thought - I commented on that in the Cleaner Air Petition posting but maybe you didn't see it.

Here's the link to the press release and full report:

http://www.civic-exchange.org/publicati ... archPR.pdf

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“We can confirm that the ferry has sunk."

I feel stongly about having scientific evidence to support our assertions, but all one needs is a single trip through the harbor to realize that the ships must be making a fairly significant contribution to the pollution here. The black smoke coming out of some of the tugs is unbelievable. Though it would probably cost quite a bit to get those ships retrofitted with some kind of pollution control device, I bet it would do a lot to improve air quality here.

It is actually a relief, in some ways, to know that the origin of more than half of the air pollution is local. That means something can be done about it.

Actually, that isn't what the report says.

it says:


I think that means that there is a fairly constant level due to local sources, and a variable but occasionally very high amount from the mainland, presumably depending on wind direction.

That 80% figure appears to be from a 1999 government-sponsored study.

On page 7 (section 2.2) of this new study it says:
It was concluded that in terms of mass concentration, regional sources from the PRDEZ accounted for approximately 60% of the pollution level in the HKSAR in annual average terms, but that this percentage would rise to 70% in wintertime.
http://www.civic-exchange.org/publicati ... archPR.pdf

Yes, but Civic Exchange aren't disputing that.

The new report used a (new) time-based rather than (old) quantity-based assessment of the pollution problem. They are not disputing that the PRD region still causes most of the regional pollution, but they estimate that on 53% of days during the year, local pollution (from our traffic, our power stations and ships etc.) causes more of a problem in HK than regional pollution. At least, that's my understanding of it.

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“We can confirm that the ferry has sunk."

how on earth can they tell where each particle comes from -- there's probably a simple and reasonable explanation, but I can't see it being that easy