Bejing now is going through a war with its air which has kept a horrifying AQI (air quality index) since one month ago. Any reading exceeding index of 100 is regard as unhealthy for sensitive groups. However, Beijing even got a record of 785 which always has a steady performance of over 500.
The most obvious effects that polluted air will bring to us is the harm to citizens’ healthy. In fact, any index above AQI 400 is hazardous for all people. The unhealthy of people will bring lower product efficiency and the frequency of sick leave will be higher, etc. Also Bad air will erode facilities and buildings, and also be a obstacle for Beijing to draw investment or excellent people to settle down. Those effect on economy is uncountable.
In environmental economic, this externality is brought by excess vehicles in Beijing, the number of which is half as Tokyo but twice time the intense of use, and coal burning around Beijing area. We pay for gasoline and expensive cars but never paid for the emissions from cars. And also for the coals, they are never priced for their poisonous emissions.
So far, the cost to bring down the air pollute has not been public nor the effect has been shown. but one thing can be sure is that cost is not going to exceed benefit, because no one is taking the price of air, a precious and finite resource, into consideration. For now, air is non-rival and non exclusive, but who can say that in future?
refernces:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2013/01/beijings-air-pollution
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-06/11/content_15494160.htm
Tags: 12 Comments
12 responses so far ↓
It is a hit issue in China now. It is a time to think what we can do to change this bad situation.
Yes it is. And you are going back to that area now. good luck.
Interesting blog, Amber! I like how you interpreted air as if it’s fish in an open access situation..and it’s true that many people, not just the residences in China, but people from all over the world take fresh air for grented when in fact fresh air is getting more scarce by the day.
Then maybe we should start to research on promotion strategy at that time!
You said that the cost will be sure over the benefit. How do you measure that, for us we are concerned more on environment effort.
honey, i said, the cost is not going to exceed benifit which we don’t need to measure. it’s a sure thing, isn’t it ?
Hi Amber, thanks for bringing to our attention the air pollution problem in China. I was curious and went to search for a map of that pollution and I found this – a NASA map of CO – its looking pretty bad for China!
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/GlobalMaps/view.php?d1=MOP_CO_M
They have a ton of other maps as well. Have fun!
thanks!!~
There’s more externality appearing brought by air pollution and under such poor air condition.
This is just getting worse. =(
http://world.time.com/2013/01/29/smog-thick-enough-to-cancel-flights-hits-beijing/
yes, today, the Beijing government has reply that they need 30-40 years to fix this, hope our people can survive that long.
Interesting insights! What are some barriers that may be preventing them from implementing a tax to emissions from car? Have there been discussions about it from the past?
Why viewers still use to read news papers when in this
technological world the whole thing is presented on net?