Re: {BootHK} air pollution

[Ben Liong]

You may want to talk to HKCAN (Hong Kong Clean Air Network).  Their mandate is to bring awareness about the air quality in Hong Kong and put pressure on the government to improve things.  I'm working on an iPhone app for them. 

Their website is http://www.hongkongcan.org.

Right now, there's a movement to better quantify the pollution with better measurement of PM2.5 (fine particles), and HK is slow to adapt.  The thinking goes that if you don't understand the problem you won't begin to acknowledge and act on it. 

I think the main pollution in HK comes from older, less maintained vehicles and the relatively relaxed system to mandate proper maintenance to ensure low emission, and that includes buses.  I also think that encouraging cycling in the N.T. area by having bike-sharing system would be a wonderful start.  I'd been starting to think about that, and was thinking that partnering with storage businesses like SCStorage can possibly lower the initial costs of such system.  But of course I'm just thinking out loud. 

Keep up the good work, and definitely talk to the HKCAN folks. 

Regards,

Ben Liong

 

On 13 Sep, 2012, at 6:11 PM, YKY (YAN King Yin 甄 景 贤) <generic.in...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all,

I've recently started to think about social entrepreneurship ideas, and one thing that's always been on my mind is air pollution in HK and China.  It seems rather dumb that we're trying to measure air pollution when we clearly know that pollution is severe and we already have a sense of where the major pollution sources are (factories, and automobiles).  It can be inferred from other scientific studies.  Perhaps what we need to do is to directly tackle the pollution sources.

I guess in China many factories are not filtering their chimneys properly due to lack of incentives and the desire to cut costs.  I suggest we can help rural factories to install filters, by getting funding from local governments or donations.  I guess many rural factories use relatively primitive technologies anyway, so it may be not too difficult to help them improve their technologies.  After we gained experience in there we can upscale to more advanced regions.

In HK, we can find state-of-the-art information from university libraries, but such knowledge seems to be unavailable in many parts of China.  That may be where we can help.  Some air filters require active ingredients and continual operation costs.  Maybe we can Kickstart them.

Any suggestion would be welcome!!  I'm just beginning to learn about these matters... =)

KY

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[Steve Holmes]

My $0.02

We've had a site showing the readings (http://hk-pollution.thought-sauce.com) for a while and after monitoring it I can say that roadside monitors show a much higher reading than other units.

Units in the heavy urban areas such as Central and Causeway Bay have a considerably higher reading than other locations the vast majority of the time. 

I think that kinda backs up the theory that a lot of it's produced locally. (This week has a large influence from China though, indicated by a general increase in all stations. And you can see the backwards trajectory of the where today's air came from here: http://www.weather.gov.hk/wxinfo/trajectory/trajectory_e.shtml)

I'd have thought that getting solutions in place locally is going to be much easier than trying to persuade China to give a crap about individual's health vs. $. I'd love to see that happen though.

Cheers

Steve

On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 12:45 PM, YKY (YAN King Yin 甄 景 贤) <generic.in...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thursday, September 13, 2012 6:40:45 PM UTC+8, Ben Liong wrote:

You may want to talk to HKCAN (Hong Kong Clean Air Network).  Their mandate is to bring awareness about the air quality in Hong Kong and put pressure on the government to improve things.  I'm working on an iPhone app for them. 

Their website is http://www.hongkongcan.org.

Right now, there's a movement to better quantify the pollution with better measurement of PM2.5 (fine particles), and HK is slow to adapt.  The thinking goes that if you don't understand the problem you won't begin to acknowledge and act on it. 

Thanks, I looked at their web site, in particular about the comparison of local vs mainland contribution to pollution:

http://www.hongkongcan.org/doclib/200703_RelativeSignificanceofLocalvsRegionalSources_Hong%20KongsAirPollution.pdf

That paper says that slightly more than half of HK's pollution is contributed locally.  But if you read closer, you'd find out that the conclusion is based on some "pseudo-science" based on wind-blowing "modes" and classifying days of the year into these modes.  It doesn't add much to our knowledge.  In my opinion a more accurate estimation is to tally the amount of exhaust from factories and from automobiles and compare them per unit area in HK vs mainland.

It seems that the paper tries to convey a message that the air pollution problem can be significantly improved in HK by controlling local sources.  I am of course not against such measures, but I just want to call into question the validity of the statistical claim -- only the truth can set us free.

Also, we should try to think outside the "box" of only caring about HK matters...  if the chief source of problem is in China, then we should consider helping China.  We're all living in Asia, right?

I think the main pollution in HK comes from older, less maintained vehicles and the relatively relaxed system to mandate proper maintenance to ensure low emission, and that includes buses.

That seems to be second to the #1 source which are factories / automobiles from mainland.  I've heard friends say that during public holidays in the mainland, HK's air quality significantly improves and even the sky clears up.

I also think that encouraging cycling in the N.T. area by having bike-sharing system would be a wonderful start.  I'd been starting to think about that, and was thinking that partnering with storage businesses like SCStorage can possibly lower the initial costs of such system.  But of course I'm just thinking out loud.

Thinking out loud is not bad -- many people exchange ideas with each other and during such a process they get better and better ideas.  For example bloggers, academics who publish in peer-reviewed journals, and famous partnerships like Crick and Watson (DNA), Hardy and Littlewood (maths), etc...

I have heard a suggestion from a newspaper (SCMP I guess) that HK should create a car-free zone in the city area.  I think that's a very good idea, even better in the city than in the NT because most people may not want to ride bikes for long distances (either lacking time or impractical).  In some European countries this has already been implemented, and their citizens like it.  It may sound radical / drastic / unconventional, but that is the kind of change we need.  Otherwise we would be wandering in the proximity of the status quo in the solution space, and we already know that the status quo is *really bad*.  Necessity calls for more creative thinking.

Also, during brainstorming we should keep an open mind and not reject ideas right away even though we find them flawed at first glance.  That is how we can generate interesting ideas...

Thanks for discussing this, I hope we can keep this up =)

YKY

[Jonas S Karlsson (☯大鱼)]

I think Hong Kong should mandate only electrical cars to be sold and registered and have an ease in period.

.zzz

[Inouk Bourgon]

One important element that many seems to forget is that we spend most of our time indoor, and if SOME indoor air pollution come from outside a lot more is generated INSIDE from our behaviours and the stuff we use inside, especially in HK with dirty AC systems everywhere.

Anyway if you want to talk about that, i'll be in boot HK tomorrow, see my other thread.

Sorry i hope this won't be considering hijacking the thread.

Inouk

, so we think it's where we should monitor and improve air pollution.