A meteorological worker takes air quality samples on a Beijing street. Photo: IC
If it weren't for the spiking numbers on his handheld monitor, Zhang Xiang wouldn't have known that the air he was breathing was hazardous to his health. Nor would he have understood what the debate over fine particles is all about.
A volunteer with the Beijing-based environmental NGO Green Beagle, Zhang is helping test the air quality in people's homes and restaurants using a portable device.
Zhang said he didn't pay much attention to the air pollution index released by Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau. "Even if you read it, you don't know what it means, or what the danger might be to people," said Zhang, 62.
Zhang is typical of those who are concerned about the quality of the air they breathe and complain that official air quality readings aren't telling the whole truth.
Frustrated by seemingly increasing smoggy weather and discrepancies between their observations and official readings, Green Beagle is hoping that increasing public awareness will push the government to disclose more information pertinent to people's health and set higher standards for air quality.
They say the government has a duty to provide a broader picture so residents can make better, more informed decisions on their own. They say they need to be better forewarned so they can be better forearmed.
At the center of the argument over air quality are fine particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, or PM2.5. Fine particles that size, which come from car exhaust and cigarette smoking, are more dangerous as they remain in the lungs and can cause respiratory and vascular disease, experts say.
The government's official, publicly available air quality readings don't include PM2.5. Its readings of the nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide in the air don't include particles that are smaller than 10 micrometers in diameter, or PM10.
The official daily air pollution index (API) published by the Beijing environmental protection bureau, has five grades with grade I indicating good air quality and grade V indicating the worst.
In recent years residents and NGOs have been challenging the government to revise the current air quality monitoring to include PM2.5.
Even the government's misnamed "Blue Sky Days" program, which is supposed to indicate a day when the air is less harmful to human health, has come under fire.
The program doesn't indicate clear, cloudless weather as many cloudy days are also counted as blue sky days.
Beijing resident Lu Weiwei and her friend Fan Tao proved this point by taking photographs of Beijing's skyline for 365 days between June 1, 2009 and May 31, 2010. Their photographic diary showed that throughout the year 180 days, or 49 percent of them, had actual blue skies. The government's environmental agency on the other hand had announced that 78 percent of the days were blue sky days in 2009.
Blue sky days not always blue
The bureau responded by saying that a "blue sky day" isn't about the weather. It refers to air quality at level II or better, which would indicate an API under 100. The target for this year's Blue Sky Days is for 75 percent of the days to have grade II or better air quality.
The US embassy in Beijing has also irked Chinese environment officials by taking its own pollution readings which includes PM2.5 and publishing the results hourly on its website and through an iPhone app.
The measurements are taken at the embassy, located near the East Third Ring Road, and often seem to contradict official readings.
This fall Beijing has experienced some obviously smoggy days when there was little wind, yet the official API indicated medium to mild pollution. The US embassy's readings, which vary greatly throughout the day, have produced warnings indicating the air is "hazardous."
Yesterday's early morning reading from the embassy indicated the air was hazardous, but by noon the reading had dropped dramatically to 138. The embassy's automated explanation warned people with respiratory ailments to take care. The reading rose again in the afternoon and spiked in the evening to reach 481, when it was rated "dangerous." Typically, the embassy's readings are highest in the early morning.
Beijing's environmental protection bureau believes its readings provide a more accurate indication of Beijing's overall air quality.
"The two sets of figures are not comparable," said Yu Jianhua, director of air pollution control division with the Beijing environmental protection bureau. "You shouldn't evaluate air quality on hourly readings."
The bureau releases the official API every afternoon, which is based on averages over a 24-hour period of the data provided by 11 of its 27 monitoring stations around the city.
Yu said air quality has not been getting worse since the 2008 Olympics, as many citizens have suggested. "If you compare the air quality on an annual basis, it is actually improving," Yu insisted. "We have been continuing to reduce the emission of pollutants."
Yu said the amount of pollutants discharged doesn't vary greatly from day to day, but the city's air quality is mainly determined by to two natural factors. The city is virtually surrounded by mountains creating a bowl in which polluting particles can linger especially when the weather is calm. The smoggy days at the end of last month were caused by weather conditions that produced heavy fog and still air, typical of autumn in Beijing, said Yu.
To quiet the debate and to provide legitimacy of their data, the Beijing environmental protection bureau early last month opened its monitoring center to visitors.
During a tour, a staff member explains how the air pollution index is measured and published. The 27 monitoring stations across the city and their locations are in accordance with national requirements, they say, adding that the bureau is the only organization authorized to publish an air quality index.
Many people are demanding that the authorities release the PM2.5 figure, which the officials say they are capable of monitoring but are not at liberty to disclose.
Not authorized to publish
Yu emphasized that his office is only following instructions. "The national evaluation standards do not include PM2.5, so we cannot publish anything beyond what's required of us," said Yu.
On November 16, the ministry of environmental protection published a revised set of air quality evaluation standards for public discussion. The proposed new standard includes measuring PM2.5 but won't come into effect until 2016, according to the ministry.
The Beijing Morning Post reported yesterday that an air quality monitoring station will be established in Tianjin's Wuqing district not far from Beijing that will measure PM2.5. The paper didn't say if the data collected will be made public.
Some experts have suggested that if PM2.5 is included in the API, more than 70 percent of China's cities would fall below the good-air-quality bar, which would translate into poor performance readings for officials.
Other cities in China are now monitoring PM2.5 but they say the data is used for research only and not yet available to the public.
The meteorological station in Nanjing attempted to publish its PM2.5 readings last month but the information was taken down from the Internet soon after it appeared. Officials later explained they had erred in publicly releasing the figures.
Many people concerned about the air they breathe say the debate shouldn't be about whether the sky looks blue or whether the official API is better than other readings, or whether broader criteria might embarrass city officials. The public say they have a right to know if the air is safe for them to breathe.
"Instead of using technical terms that make no sense to us ordinary citizens, they should explain what we can do to protect ourselves," said Zhang Xiang, who has become increasing concerned since he started volunteering to test for PM2.5 pollutants.
Green Beagle started offering air quality tests in May in restaurants and homes to help raise awareness.
The program has received only a lukewarm appraisal from environmental officials. "It's a good thing that people are becoming more aware, but they should also understand that only the government has the authority to monitor and publish such data," said Yu from Beijing's environmental protection bureau.
Zheng Yuanjie, a writer of children's literature who is also an active commentator on social issues started last week to ask people online to rate what they felt the air quality to be.
Close to 7,000 people have participated in Zheng's survey on Beijing's air quality and 89 percent felt it was getting worse. Only 4 percent believe the air was getting better.
On Friday about 87 percent of the 805 respondents rated the air "bad" or "extremely bad." The official air pollution index released by the environmental protection bureau on that day rated the air as level III or mildly polluted.
Public not informed
The actions of Beijing residents who have produced their own blue sky diary or downloaded readings from the US embassy or asked that the air in their homes to be tested all indicate a desire to be better informed and for greater transparency from their local government.
"The monitoring system in China has always been closed to the public, and the data we are being given is false," said Feng Yongfeng, founder of Green Beagle, adding that the purpose of a government testing center is to provide an unbiased understanding of the facts.
"Only when we know the truth [about the air pollution], will we see better measures to improve the environment," said Feng.