Beijing Pollution: Continuing Highs

In January and February of this year the air quality in and north-eastern China has been reported to have deteriorated to the extent that the smog so thick that it was visible from space (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/china-pollution-bad-visible-space-article-1.1253838). The rise in pollution has reported caused increases in hospital admissions of respiratory problems and, according to the report above, even resulted in an official recognition of the problem, the article stating that the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection stating that the haze covering Chinese cities covered over 500,000 square miles. The problem has been officially identified as being caused by unregulated industries, vehicle emissions and cheap gasoline.

The identification of the ‘causes’ is interesting. The focus is upon the action of individuals with respect to vehicle emissions and the use of cheap gasoline. This implies that the cause is a matter of individual responsibility. Placing causation at the feet of individuals means that there is justification for taking action against individuals for not taking appropriate steps deemed vital to reduce pollution by authorities. The focus on unregulated industries implies that regulated industries are not contributing to he pollution level. Again responsible and fault is placed onto individuals who run firms that do not conform to state regulations. Politicians, according to the report, even closed these firms for 48 hours as well as urging individuals to stay off the road. The implication is that the pollution is an inevitable result of the outcome of ‘development’ or ‘progress’ with the individualistic bend of capitalism.  The pollution is as predictable a result of economic progress as were the dark satanic mills of nineteenth century Manchester were of progress in Britain. By implication, the more measured and responsible activities of the state have no role in producing this smog.  Despite the state setting the economic regulatory climate as well as enforcing regulations relevant to pollution production, the role of the state is regulated to a backseat in the internal pollution narrative that is emerging from these reports.

The pollution does, however, have a flip-side in the new China – the hazard is an economic opportunity for the few. Anti-pollution domes, with interiors of pollutant-free atmospheres have been jointly developed by a Shenzhen-based manufactuer of outdoor enclosures and a Calfornian-based company (UVDI) that specialises in air filtration and disinfection systems (http://wallstnews.blogspot.co.uk/p/asia-edge.html#!/p/asia-edge.html ). Combining these existing technologies it is possible to create a pollutant free environment within outdoor activities can continue. Additionally, face masks, ranging from high-tech neoprene masks to strips of cloth, have been increasingly sold to try to prevent inhalation of pollutants. Within homes air filtration units are being employed to ensure a clean supply of domestic air.  This, however, also means that there is increasingly a social, or even a class, aspect to this hazard. The emerging middle-class in China can afford to buy these new ‘must-have’ accessories to sustain urban life. The poor are left to cope using tatters of cloth across their mouths and noses to filter their domestic air.  How long before your income determines your ability to survive extreme pollution episodes?

One enterprising individual has even taken to selling cans of fresh air to hassled urbanites, for 80 cents a can. Although to be fair, Chen Guangbiao, although promoting himself says that the sale of the fresh air cans is a tactic to push ‘mayors, county chiefs and heads of big companies’ not to just pursue economic goals but also to consider the impact of their actions on the future.

 

Beijing Air Quality – Citizen-Science Approach to Mapping Levels?

A recent article in Environmental Technology Online reports on a community-based science project called ‘Float’ that is actually part-science and part-art project. The idea is that pollution-sensitive kites will be flown over Beijing. These kites contain Arduino pollution-sensing modules and LED lights and will indicate levels of volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide and particulate matter by changing colour to green, yellow or red depending on the pollutant levels. The kites are attached to GPS device loggers and the real-time data website Cosm.

The project is designed by students Xiaowei Wang from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and Deren Guler from Carneige Mellon and is designed to involve local residents in data collection. The project relies on public funding and is still raising funds. The project derives its funds from Kickstarter, a website devoted to creative projects and obtaining funding for such projects (The Float project on Kickstart). The project also has funding from the Black Rock Arts Foundation and the Awesome Foundation.

The project has generated a lot of interest on the Web:

Fighting China’s Pollution Propaganda, with Glowing Robot Kites For the People

Pollution-detecting kites to monitor Beijing's air quality
Glowing Pollution Sensor Equipped Kites Replace Beijing's Stars
Kickstarter Project Plans to Measure Beijing Pollution Using Kite Sensors

Only a couple of comments and an expression of interest in the results really.


The project is undoubtedly part of the growing and, in my view, superb trend towards more inclusive community or participatory science (choose whichever term you prefer, Guler uses citizen-science). The ideal of getting local communities involved in the data collection as well as involving them in all aspects of the research process is an excellent way to raise awareness of an issue as well as educate people about the scientific approach and its problems and potentials. The Float project has involved local communities, young and old, from the start with workshops in Beijing and as well as in the design of the kites. In terms of how to organise a community-based, participatory science project it is one that I will advice my students to look at. It is just a shame that the descriptions of the project veer from highlighting the science to highlighting the arts aspects as if the two are, or need to be, distinct. It should also be remembered that this project, as any project involved in monitoring pollution, is entering the political as well as the scientific arena. Involving local populations is a political act (as is their agreement to involvement) as much as the monitoring of pollution by the American Embassy or the siting of monitoring sites by the Chinese. Local is as political as the national or international, but the nature of the act does not necessarily mean the data is political bias only that data collection is for a purpose.

As with most community-based projects, however, there is the issue of belief, trust or confidence in the data collected. These projects do tend to illustrate quite nicely the continuing divide between the ‘specialist’ or ‘expert’ and the ‘public’ (I would say amateur, but much of British science in the nineteenth and early twentieth century only developed because of amateurs!) The expert has been trained and accepts certain methods as being appropriate for data collection. Control and standardization are essential in ensuring what is termed ‘intersubjectivity communication’ between researchers – basically it means  I know what you did because that is how I was trained to do it, so I trust your data as being real. Guler seems to downgrade the status of the data collected even before the project really begins by stating:

‘We’re trying to interact with people on the street and see what they’re tying to do with the information they see. I don’t plan to argue that this is the most accurate data because there are many potential reasons for differences in air quality reports. We want to just keep it up, upload the data, and focus on that more after we come back’.

My impression is this statement is a great get-out clause for ‘official’ monitoring be it by the Chinese or atop the American Embassy. I wouldn’t’ be so pessimistic. The aims of the project in terms of improving public understanding of air pollution, its impact on health and the visualization of pollution through the kites are all excellent and likely to be successful. The data collected is also of value. The ‘official’ pollution monitoring sites probably conform to national or international standards for static sites in terms of equipment and monitoring periods. The kite data does not necessarily provide comparable data to these sites. The kites are mobile and collect data on levels that can be spatially references (I assume in 4 dimensions). They provide a different perspective on atmospheric pollution rather as a spatially altering phenomenon, something the official monitoring sites can not provide.  It could even be argued that the kite data provides information on pollution as experienced by the population (although the population is unlikely to move across the sky at the height of the kites!) The important thing to remember is that there is not one, single correct measure of atmospheric pollution; there are merely different representations of atmospheric pollution. The official static sites have the advantage of having clearly defined protocols that ensure the data or information they collect is immediately comparable with data or information collected at similar monitoring sites globally. The Float project is generating a different and novel set of data or information. This may require a different approach to thinking about the information and its interpretation (Guler seems to suggest this with some hints at triangulation of trends) and in how confidence or belief in the information is assessed either qualitatively or quantitatively. I will be very interested to see what form the results and interpretation takes. Good luck with the project!

Beijing Atmospheric Pollution now online

On 23rd January the Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Centre began to release atmospheric pollution data online (see this site but a knowledge of Chinese helps in navigating and understanding the data http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://zx.bjmemc.com.cn/&ei=EBVjT5LAIKXS0QWE-JT1AQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CH4Q7gEwBA&prev=/search%3Fq%3DBeijing%2BMunicipal%2BEnvironmental%2BMonitoring%2BCenter%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1707%26bih%3D1121%26prmd%3Dimvns ).





The hourly data had previously only been available for laboratory use (http://www.china.org.cn/environment/2012-01/06/content_24337033.htm) but the release of the data seems to be a response to public concern over air quality and the mismatch between government statistics and public perception of air quality. Some of this perception may have resulted from the release of atmospheric pollution data by the US Embassy from a rooftop monitoring station(http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2012/01/22/political-pollution-how-bad-air-equals-social-unrest-in-china/ for report and http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/world/asia/beijing-journal-anger-grows-over-air-pollution-in-china.html?_r=1 for a discussion of the halting of the tweets in July 2009 and http://twitter.com/#!/beijingair for the tweet). The mismatch between official announcements about good quality air and the tweet caused some friction between officials and the embassy.



So what are we to make of the release of this data? Firstly, it is handy to know Chinese to interpret the site but then again the site is not aimed at an English speaking foreigner but at the Chinese inhabitants of Beijing so this is a fairly lame criticism. Secondly, the data release may be a political decision but at least the data is out there and can now be assessed by the public and by other scientists around the world working on air pollution – surely a good thing in its own right. Thirdly, should the data be questioned? The US embassy site seems to have taken on the role of arbitrator in assessing the data quality (at least in Western press releases). The US embassy is just one site with monitoring equipment at a specific height (not necessarily standardized to the height of the Chinese monitoring stations) so any spatial variation in air quality would not be picked up by data from one site. Even asking the question about data reliability is political. It suggests that the Chinese data will somehow be affected by the political powers that be (as if the US act of monitoring pollution isn’t political as well?!) Details of where the monitoring sites are located, the accuracy and standardization of the monitoring equipment, etc are reasonable scientific questions to ask both of Chinese pollution data and the pollution data of any monitoring network wherever it is. Such questioning ensures comparability of datasets. By releasing the data the Chinese scientists and authorities are putting themselves within this scientific debate. Criticising a dataset does not mean the data set is wrong; questioning and clarification and refinement to ensure compatibility is merely part of the scientific process.