Sky News Pedestrians and cyclists in urban areas are being transformed into mobile pollution sensors as part of a Government-backed scheme to monitor air quality. Led by a team at Imperial College London, researchers will trial three new types of sensors on people, vehicles and traffic islands to measure emissions and noise pollution. The three-year [...]
Posts from ‘June, 2009’
China Coal City’s Tycoons Splurge on Antiques as Dealers Swoop
Le-Min Lim, Bloomberg – June 26 Few people gave Zhao Xin a second look when he strolled into the biggest antique show in China’s coal city of Taiyuan, Shanxi, wearing straw-trimmed canvas shoes, black polyester-mix clothes, and a tobacco-stained grin. That changed when he went to a booth run by Hong Kong dealer Raymond Chak. [...]
A Clear Vision
SCMP – Jun 25, 2009 Hong Kong has better visibility during the summer because prevailing winds blow pollution away. Unfortunately, the thick smog will return later and much of the Pearl River Delta will be enveloped by the ugly yellow-brown haze once more. With Hong Kong investment, the delta became one of the world’s busiest [...]
Long term exposure to air pollution decreases life expectancy, UK report finds
Susan Mayor, 22 June 2009 1 London Long term exposure to air pollutants is associated with increased mortality, warns a major UK report published this week, which has also defined the most useful measure of air pollution in developing strategies to reduce adverse effects on health. The new report follows up a 2001 review that [...]
Study: Beijing’s air worse than at past Olympics
TINI TRAN, AP – Jun 20, 2009 Beijing’s notoriously dirty air was cleaner during last summer’s Olympic games, but pollution levels were still much worse than at recent Olympics, despite a massive Chinese cleanup campaign, a new report said. Athletes in Beijing faced pollution levels that were up to 3.5 times higher than those in [...]
A Green Dawn On The Horizon
Michael Perry, SCMP – Jun 18, 2009 Centuries-old practices are going as Australian farmers embrace new ways to save the land On the rolling hills of Winona, a fine merino sheep stud in New South Wales state, a quiet revolution is taking place that Australian farmers hope will see them selling soil carbon credits in [...]
Cleaner, greener diesel cars back on the road
New private diesel cars will be on sale in Hong Kong next month for the first time in more than a decade. Audi’s distributor Premium Motors confirmed that one of its latest batch of Euro V diesel-engined cars, the Audi Q7 3.0 TDI Quattro, had passed the government’s stringent emissions standards and would be arriving [...]
Road Particles Pose ‘Higher Risk’
By David ShukmanEnvironment correspondent, BBC News – 9 June 2009 Children may be at greater risk from the microscopic particles in traffic pollution than was previously thought. Early findings from a major study in London seen by the BBC show that the lung capacity of 8- and 9-year-olds is 5% lower than the national average. [...]
Carbon Duties: Heat Rising On Developing Economies
Tom Holland, SCMP – Jun 05, 2009 You probably don’t spend much time wondering what Tung Chee-hwa is up to these days, so it’s unlikely you noticed in April when Hong Kong’s former chief executive cropped up in New York, warning that a proposed United States tax on imports could spark a heated trade dispute [...]
World Attention Turns to Asia’s Carbon Emissions
Michael Richardson, SCMP – Updated on Jun 03, 2009 Officials from China and other countries are meeting in Bonn, Germany, until June 12 for more negotiations on a new set of global arrangements to prevent runaway climate change. The deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012, is supposed to be clinched at [...]