Shanghai Street View: Gaguing Air Quality 沪经动向：检测空气质量
When is a cold, wet autumn day something to smile about? The answer: When you’re the Shanghai government, and you’re rolling out a new state-of-the-art air quality tracking system for the city’s millions of pollution-wary residents. After flawless, clear weather for much of October, a near non-stop series of hazy days settled on Shanghai in November, sending pollution levels to unhealthy levels just as the city was preparing to launch its highly anticipated new air quality monitoring system. The smoggy weather was creating serious headaches not only for city residents but also for government officials, who were hoping for a positive reading on the system’s launch day last week.
The new system was designed to better reflect true air quality by including a wider range of pollutants, including for the first time PM 2.5 particles — tiny particles that are largely responsible for creating the haze that often envelopes many Chinese cities. Before the new system’s roll-out, many residents like myself would often scratch our heads in puzzlement when the city would report “excellent” air quality even on days when a clearly thick haze hung in the air.
So city officials must have been quite relieved when a cold front passed through Shanghai last week just before the new system’s launch, pushing PM 2.5 and other pollutant levels to some of their lowest levels in weeks. I’m not a big believer in conspiracy theories, but one can’t help but imagine a roomful of Shanghai city officials secretly gathered in one of their back offices trying to pick the day most likely to give them a positive reading for the launch of this new air quality monitoring service.
The choice of Shanghai as the first major Chinese city to launch this stricter monitoring isn’t really a surprise, and reflects the city’s cutting-edge position in trying to curb nationwide air pollution that has grown quite serious with China’s its rapid modernization. Beijing city officials were probably happy to let Shanghai take the lead in this latest effort to inform citizens about the quality of their local air, since Beijing itself is famous for its near constant haze due to its dry climate, prevalence of dirty coal-burning power plants and too many cars.
Beijing’s air quality even became the subject of an international incident earlier this year when China accused the US of interfering in its internal affairs over the matter. Beijing leaders were apparently upset that the US embassy in Beijing was publishing PM 2.5 readings on its website taken from an on-site monitoring station at the diplomatic compound. No further explanation was given, but most people suspected that Beijing city leaders were embarrassed by the US site’s PM 2.5 readings that differed widely from the official data being provided by Beijing.
But let’s return to Shanghai, where the new air monitoring system was the pride of city and filled local headlines upon its launch last week. The new system uses color coded characters to keep city residents informed, centered on pictures of a little pig-tailed girl in various states of happiness or sadness, depending on the air quality. At the best end of the scale, the little lass has green pigtails and a broad smile on her face, reflecting excellent air quality. From there, her peppy pigtails darken to yellow, then orange, red and finally to purple and brown when air quality is at its worst. Her mood also darkens as the air becomes worse, with a steady stream of tears flowing from her eyes by the time the air quality reaches the brown level, called “serious pollution”.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the wet, cool weather on the day of the system’s launch allowed the city to claim an “excellent” air quality rating, the best air in 16 days, just as reporters were scribbling in their notebooks at a news conference for the occasion. Of course, the air quality deteriorated steadily after that and was back in the yellow and orange ranges in the following days, indicating “good” and “light pollution” days as the smog returned.
Observers are quick to point out that this new system is simply informational, and won’t do anything to actually improve Shanghai’s air quality. But the way I see it, the introduction of this kind of informational system, which adopts many worldwide standards and protocols, is a critical step to informing and educating the public about the quality of the air they breathe. It’s only through this kind of educational campaign, which is being driven largely by the central government, that citizens will have the information they need to pressure local leaders to improve their environment. That’s an important and critical step that Shanghai must take if it ever hopes to reclaim its place as a world city with international standards.
