Pribek

The Beijing Olympics are now only five weeks away and speculation about the air quality continues. Top marathon runner, Haile Gebrselassie, an asthma sufferer, has pulled out of that event but, he hopes to run in the 10,000-metre .

The Times decided to do their own research.

Last week The Sunday Times used an industrial hand-held air monitor to measure the number of particles in the atmosphere, which include car emissions and coal dust from factories. The particles are considered the biggest polluting factor.

The average reading at the stadium was 780,000 particles per litre of air. Even factoring in a 25% margin of error for humidity levels exaggerating the readings, this is more than five times the amount deemed safe by the WHO. The organisation considers 105,000 particles per litre of air a health risk.

The measurements were taken at the National Stadium and Tiananmen Square, the starting point of the marathon. Those figures look pretty bad there. Although, I really have no perception of what the World Health Organization would consider to be good quality air. I mean, it’s all just numbers. I suppose it’s possible that someone could come down here to the campground in the woods, where charcoal use has run rampant over the weekend, with an industrial hand-held air monitor and find that we aren’t up to WHO standards. Who knows?

The thing is this, nobody argues that the air quality in Beijing hasn’t been a cause for concern. The Chinese government has been taking some steps to clean up the air. But, the big question is, will the air quality in Beijing be at a safe level for the Olympics?

Here is a quote from Du Shaozhong, deputy director of Beijing’s Environmental Protection Bureau.

“We made a commitment to ensure air quality for the Olympic Games . . . as for whether we have reached the goal, that will be examined after the event.”

That will be examined after the even? Thanks for that one Du Shaozhong. Seems like the safe thing to do would be to examine whether you reached you goal of ensuring air quality before the event. That’s not how they roll in Beijing. I guess it goes like this; after the Olympics, upon further examination, if we find that athletes were dropping like flies then, the Chinese government’s commitment to ensure air quality sucked. I guess.