The two weeks of August 8-23 this year have been called by the Beijing Govt. as trial weeks for the Olympics next year. The weeks have received the name “Good Luck Beijing sport events” to test the function of the venues, preparation of venue teams and quality of logistics.
Also regarding pollution some measurements have been taken. In the first week a number of factories were shut down and the weather in the week before the start was manipulated to ensure a blue sky at the start.
Unfortunately Beijing will need a lot more than “Good Luck” because they have now proven that weather does not let itself be manipulated for longer than let’s say a week. The first week we indeed had lovely weather with blue skies, but from Wednesday, August 15 on, the exact start of week 2, it has been grey, smog, damp, gross as it always is here.
This weekend (from Friday until Monday) they are testing another measure. On the odd days only cars with number plates that end with an odd number are allowed on the road and on the even days cars with plates that end on an even number. This way it is said that 1.3 million cars, almost half of the total amount of cars clogging Beijing’s streets every day, will be off the road and the air quality was said to improve drastically…
China Daily had the story on the drill and quoted an official:
“Let’s see the correlation between air quality and the number of running vehicles,” he said.
“Data from the tests will be collected and analyzed to improve air quality,” Du said, adding vehicle emissions are a leading cause of urban pollution.
Today is the 3rd day of this test and let’s have a look how the air quality has improved:
Uhuh, yeah right, wouldn’t you love to be an athlete having to perform at the highest level of your career? This morning there are actually beach volleyball events, lovely tropical weather for these festive events indeed!
There is no “correlation between between air quality and the number of running vehicles”! The only advantage is that the traffic actually moves!
Good Luck Beijing indeed!
