If you are one of those who has doubts about the dangers of a growing world continuing to be powered by fossil fuels, or wonders if the idea of man-caused climate risks is a load of hooey, please read the following:
“Last year, the U.S. Embassy ..(in Beijing) installed an air monitor on the roof of one of its buildings, and every hour it posts the results to a Twitter feed, with a score ranging from 1, which is the cleanest air, to 500, the dirtiest. American cities consider anything above 100 to be unhealthy. The rare times in which an American city has scored above 300 have been in the midst of forest fires. In these cases, the government puts out public-health notices warning that the air is “hazardous” and that “everyone should avoid all physical activity outdoors.” As I type this in Beijing, the Embassy’s air monitor says that today’s score is 500.”
From Green Giant, by Evan Osnos, The New Yorker Magazine, Dec 21 &28, 2009
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/12/21/091221fa_fact_osnos#ixzz0aTLWrRMu
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I don’t see how anyone can spin this. Rush Limbaugh broadcasting from a coal power plant on Earth Day, and the rest of the entertainers don’t have much to work on with this plane, simple observed data. And if that’s not enough, call up someone in Beijing, or talk to someone who went to the Olympics.
China started years ago to address their appetite for oil and coal, and is probably the leader in non-fossil fuel energy technology now. As long as we here continue to be held hostage by a Senate dominated by the scarcely populated but more than equally represented coal states, we probably will sit by until a good wind will have nowhere to push the ‘smog’ away.
If our leaders, the media, and the business community won’t push back on the fossil fuel economy, who will?
George Martin
December 22, 2009
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