Pollution

Tag: exchange

My ‘social issues in China’ class today was about the environment. I got to re-watch clips of Under the Dome, a stellar documentary about pollution in China, also known as China’s version of An Inconvenient Truth, which I highly recommend if you’re interested in China and/or climate change.

It got me thinking, what about Hong Kong?

For reference, PM 2.5 levels:

To my surprise, it was also 97 in Sha Tin, near the Chinese University of Hong Kong today. I think it’s fair to presume that CUHK is better than that, because the campus is full of trees and has relatively little traffic. But, Sha Tin is in the remote New Territories, so, air is likely far worse in central Hong Kong.

This may be unrelated, but despite not being sick, I occasionally have dry coughs, and my eyes have been irritated at times this week (this happens in Australia too during winter to a lesser extent, and I’m not sure if air-conditioning is replicating winter conditions, because this wasn’t a problem in September). (10 days later, at the time of editing, this is still the case.)

Blue skies over campus today.

I’m fortunate that this is only my temporary home, and to be clear, I have no regrets coming to Hong Kong, because for me this is a temporary issue with negligible long-term effects on my health. Even with PM2.5 levels at a fraction of the 300+ Beijing occasionally gets, I’m starting to better understand why this is a serious issue.

It’s again a reminder that Australia isn’t pulling its weight in reducing pollution. This is a global effort, and unfortunately, we’re letting the world down. I’m hopeful change is coming, if not through Malcolm Turnbull, then after next year’s election.

Update 4/11/15: still coughing sporadically, dry eyes almost a non-issue. Now that some time has passed since the time of writing, I’m not so sure pollution is entirely to blame, because the environment on campus is so different to Sha Tin. I don’t know what to think…