Bad Air Day
Was watching Ron Howard’s latest movie “Cinderella Man” last night when one line jumped out at me. The always brilliant Paul Giamatti is a depression era boxing coach visiting his once-star but now down and out boxer (played by real life pugilist Russell Crowe). Giamatti is beating around the bush about the purpose of his visit. “Did it ever occur to you that I just came out here for some fresh air?” Giamatti asks Crowe, who replies skeptically, “this is New Jersey.” The message of course is that even in the 1930’s, New Jersey (that part of it anyway) was no place for fresh air fiends. And in 2006, neither is Hong Kong – or anyplace around The Pearl River Delta, for that matter. Though always in the back of my mind, this has become all the clearer to me over the past week as I’ve taken up running.
I live on Lamma Island, which is car-free by design and separated from the main part of the city by a few miles of channel and some fairly steep mountains. Lamma is also home to one of the cleanest burning coal plants in the world, and its here that all the electricity is generated for Hong Kong island. On a clear day you can see the backside of Hong Kong’s famous Peak from the top of any hill in Lamma. On an average day, its appears as an indistinct outline against a background of blue-gray haze. Today it’s completely swallowed by nearly opaque haze, and even the much closer buildings of Repulse Bay on HK’s south side seem like indistinct shapes across the channel.
Its no secret that one of the major prices being paid by China for its rapid economic rise has been a hideous rise in pollution, and in the Pearl River Delta, where the boom first started, the problem is all the more extreme. For Hong Kong, which boasts strong anti-pollution laws, its especially ironic. Sitting as it does on the end of the Delta, the quasi-independent territory is perpetually downriver and often downwind of the massive industrial engine that the entire region has become. Since a good number of the factories of Southern China are owned (at least partially) by Hong Kong business interests, some might see the unstoppable pollution migration as chickens coming home to roost. Not being one of the businessmen getting rich from the boom, this brings me little comfort as I wheeze my way through an otherwise-pristine chunk of Lamma landscape, choking on the gray haze. Most Hong Kongers opt to get their exercise (if you can call it that) inside of an air conditioned mall. Bad air is just one of the reasons why.
I live on Lamma Island, which is car-free by design and separated from the main part of the city by a few miles of channel and some fairly steep mountains. Lamma is also home to one of the cleanest burning coal plants in the world, and its here that all the electricity is generated for Hong Kong island. On a clear day you can see the backside of Hong Kong’s famous Peak from the top of any hill in Lamma. On an average day, its appears as an indistinct outline against a background of blue-gray haze. Today it’s completely swallowed by nearly opaque haze, and even the much closer buildings of Repulse Bay on HK’s south side seem like indistinct shapes across the channel.
Its no secret that one of the major prices being paid by China for its rapid economic rise has been a hideous rise in pollution, and in the Pearl River Delta, where the boom first started, the problem is all the more extreme. For Hong Kong, which boasts strong anti-pollution laws, its especially ironic. Sitting as it does on the end of the Delta, the quasi-independent territory is perpetually downriver and often downwind of the massive industrial engine that the entire region has become. Since a good number of the factories of Southern China are owned (at least partially) by Hong Kong business interests, some might see the unstoppable pollution migration as chickens coming home to roost. Not being one of the businessmen getting rich from the boom, this brings me little comfort as I wheeze my way through an otherwise-pristine chunk of Lamma landscape, choking on the gray haze. Most Hong Kongers opt to get their exercise (if you can call it that) inside of an air conditioned mall. Bad air is just one of the reasons why.
posted by Joshua Samuel Brown at 6:18 PM
1 Comments:
this is a very good article especially in grasping the core of what the infrastructure of modern day living is in HK and better yet, what the extreme opposite existing in Mainland China just a stones throw away....
b
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