Failure to force aging buses and trucks off Hong Kong’s streets is a key cause of air pollution that results in more than 3,000 premature deaths a year, according to Civic Exchange, a think tank.
“People normally don’t realize that air pollution can cause cancer, heart and respiratory diseases,” said Carlos Dora, coordinator at the Geneva-based health agency’s Department of Public Health and Environment, who puts the global annual death toll from filthy urban air at 1.3 million. “Those are the diseases that really are the big, big plague.”
As Chief Executive Donald Tsang steps down after seven years in office, he leaves a city that boasts the world’s most valuable stock exchange, hosted three of the five biggest initial share sales in history, and is the best place on the globe for business, a new gauge by Bloomberg Rankings shows. Blotting the record is another superlative: Hong Kong, the most polluted international financial center.
New York, London, Tokyo and Singapore all have cleaner air and more ambitious improvement targets, according to WHO data and the city governments’ websites. As China opens its economy, removing the capital controls that led investors to use Hong Kong as a proxy for Chinese growth, pollution risks undermining Tsang’s economic successes.
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Showing posts with label air pollution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label air pollution. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Chicago Quits Coal!!!!
I am proud to announce that the Beyond Coal movement is winning: as of today, the 100th coal plant since 2010 -- Portland coal plant in Mt. Bethel, PA -- has announced plans for retirement! Not only that, but our efforts have led to the equivalent of 11 million homes powered throughout the nation by clean energy!
Yesterday was a big day for clean air. For nearly 100 years, Edison International’s Fisk and Crawford coal plants have loomed over the City of Chicago, fueling climate change, exposing families to dangerous levels of chemicals and polluting the air.
But the people of Chicago fought back-- and won. That’s right, the city of Chicago has quit coal!
For over ten years, community members in Chicago have been standing up to Edison International and demanding their right to clean air and a safe climate. With your help, they achieved an historic victory today - the Fisk coal plant in Pilsen will shut down in 2012 and the Crawford coal plant in Little Village will shut down by 2014.
And as if we didn’t already have enough to be excited about with the victory in Chicago, we had ANOTHER victory for the people of Pennsylvania and Ohio. GenOn announced that they will close seven coal plants including the Portland, PA plant which was responsible for over 500 asthma attacks and 54 heart attacks.
You have a lot to be proud of.
These victories are not only for the people of Chicago, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, but for local activists all over the country who are working to shut down dirty coal plants in their communities.
Yesterday was a big day for clean air. For nearly 100 years, Edison International’s Fisk and Crawford coal plants have loomed over the City of Chicago, fueling climate change, exposing families to dangerous levels of chemicals and polluting the air.
But the people of Chicago fought back-- and won. That’s right, the city of Chicago has quit coal!
For over ten years, community members in Chicago have been standing up to Edison International and demanding their right to clean air and a safe climate. With your help, they achieved an historic victory today - the Fisk coal plant in Pilsen will shut down in 2012 and the Crawford coal plant in Little Village will shut down by 2014.
And as if we didn’t already have enough to be excited about with the victory in Chicago, we had ANOTHER victory for the people of Pennsylvania and Ohio. GenOn announced that they will close seven coal plants including the Portland, PA plant which was responsible for over 500 asthma attacks and 54 heart attacks.
You have a lot to be proud of.
These victories are not only for the people of Chicago, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, but for local activists all over the country who are working to shut down dirty coal plants in their communities.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Hey Rick Perry how about that air quality in Texas...
“Every place in Texas suffered worse air quality this year, but Dallas was a particularly extreme case,” said David Allen, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Texas who also directs a state air-quality program.
A number of major metropolitan areas, including Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin and even Waco, exceeded federal limits on ozone on more days this year than last. In the greater Houston area, which includes Galveston and Brazoria County, the number of bad-ozone days dropped slightly, to 29, but the pollution was especially severe on certain summer days. On June 6, an air-quality monitor in Galveston measured 112 parts per billion of ozone — the highest reading in Texas since 2008.
Scientists are still trying to understand the reasons for this year’s statewide spike in ozone, which is largely a summer phenomenon. Possibilities include wildfires, drought and the summer’s extreme heat, all of which can contribute to ozone formation.
Amid shale booms across the state, questions are increasing about the effects of oil and gas drilling on air pollution. Trucks carrying drilling materials emit nitrogen oxides, as does equipment like compressors. Natural gas escaping from pipelines or storage tanks emits volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. Nitrogen oxides and VOCs are known as ozone “precursors” because, aided by sunlight, they can react with each other to form ozone.
A number of major metropolitan areas, including Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin and even Waco, exceeded federal limits on ozone on more days this year than last. In the greater Houston area, which includes Galveston and Brazoria County, the number of bad-ozone days dropped slightly, to 29, but the pollution was especially severe on certain summer days. On June 6, an air-quality monitor in Galveston measured 112 parts per billion of ozone — the highest reading in Texas since 2008.
Scientists are still trying to understand the reasons for this year’s statewide spike in ozone, which is largely a summer phenomenon. Possibilities include wildfires, drought and the summer’s extreme heat, all of which can contribute to ozone formation.
Amid shale booms across the state, questions are increasing about the effects of oil and gas drilling on air pollution. Trucks carrying drilling materials emit nitrogen oxides, as does equipment like compressors. Natural gas escaping from pipelines or storage tanks emits volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. Nitrogen oxides and VOCs are known as ozone “precursors” because, aided by sunlight, they can react with each other to form ozone.
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