Yes, really, a unique take on the Beijing pollution story

August 1, 2008 | Category: China, Environment

If there is one thing this world doesn’t need right now, it’s more stories about Beijing’s air pollution. The Google news search says it all: Over 4,000 articles under the first three headings alone, more by a few hundred than a news search for Britney Spears (and this in the wake of John McCain’s infamous anti-Obama “celebrity” ad featuring the world’s most Googled girl).

Having said that, anyone with a genuine interest in the problem will sooner or later want to click over to Clearing the Air, launched by the Asia Society this week.

Full disclosure here: I am the recipient of Asia Society funds and consider some of the people who worked on this project my friends. And I am proud of those friends, because they have done what my brother the delightfully pithy ski coach/art teacher would describe as a “kick-ass job.”

Why such high praise? The site opens with a highly produced mini-documentary from the multi-media rock stars over at MediaStorm featuring photos from Natalie Behring (definitely one of the most kick-ass photographers working in China at the moment) and an interview with Orville Schell (whose kick-ass fund-raising skills have helped financed this and many other a valuable projects). Beyond that, it provides a nice little summary of the issue with definitions of mysterious terms like “blue sky day” and “API,” some links to resources, and——the feature that truly puts the boot to the government’s hindquarters——a monthly calendar of air pollution levels made with photographs taken from the window of a single Beijing apartment building [see screen shot above].

Minus a few days here and there, the calendar (called “Room With A View”) visually documents the air in Beijing every day from April of last year to the present. Click on a day in the calendar and a full-size image of that day’s pollution pops up in the main screen, making it convenient for anyone outside Beijing to check on government claims of blue skies. The calendar also has pop-down menus with links to the best and worst days, plus a list of the days on which pollution climbed or fell the most. (Interestingly, the greatest changes all appear to happen in May and December…)

For those people smart enough to live elsewhere, this is as close as you’ll get to experiencing the pollution that blankets Beijing without actually having to breathe it. For the rest of us, the combination of the photos with statistics on average pollution levels and official blue sky day counts confirms all too vividly the sacrifice our lungs make so that we make partake in the madness.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported