Beijingkids has been an essential family resource for Beijing international families since 2006. And just as kids grow up in the blink of an eye, Beijing has grown and changed almost beyond recognition in that time. In Throwback Thursday we jump in the time machine, traveling through our 14 year-strong blog archives to dig out the most entertaining, fascinating, and thought-provoking stories for your reading pleasure. Ready? Let’s go…
This week, we travel back in time to January 2013 when Beijing reportedly finally decided to ‘do something about the smog’. While smog in the capital was by no means a new phenomenon (there is evidence that Beijing’s air has been atrocious since as early as the Yuan Dynasty), the term ‘airpocalypse’ first came into common usage in 2013 when measurement technology and a growing awareness of the negative health impacts of air pollution reached critical mass in the West and resulted in an explosion of interest in the topic. On Jan 12 of that year, AQI readings reportedly jumped as high as 993 in certain neighborhoods.
Can you identify the famous Beijing landmark in this image?
At the time, the New York Times, reported that “Beijing’s government implemented emergency pollution measures … in order to wage battle against the stubborn smog.” The plan included a temporary shutdown of over 100 factories and one-third of all government vehicles being taken off the streets. Yet even this was all only likely to add up to a 2 percent reduction in air pollutant density.
These days, Beijing is enjoying its cleanest air ever, and is now not even among the world’s top 200 most populated cities. According to Yann Boquillod, CEO of AirVisual, a company that monitors Beijing air quality there are even more interesting data to come, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold around the world. “We analyzed several cities in the world to understand their level of pollution during the lockdowns, and most cities showed that the reduced human activities resulted in significantly reduced air pollution”. According to their report, Wuhan experienced a 44 percent decrease in PM2.5 microparticles in January and February of this year, which were their cleanest months on record.
For years, Beijing was a haven for pyromaniacs during Chinese New Year celebrations
While air pollution discussions usually focus on the emissions produced in factories and by vehicles, the 2013 beijingkids article also touched on another very topical debate: whether fireworks should be banned during Chinese New Year, “as they emit toxic elements like aluminum, copper compounds, mercury, lead dioxide, and more.” Fast-forward to 2020 and it’s nigh impossible to even purchase fireworks within the 5th ring road, let alone set them off, and for many Beijingers who moved here in recent years, the idea of dodging street firecracker parties and breathing thick clouds of the acrid smoke while walking between hutong bars seems the stuff of legend. How quickly things change.
You can read the original article in its entirety here.
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Images: Geografiavisual, Hayden Opie via Flickr, the Beijinger
