From Sandton to Shanghai

I lost a few precious years months off my life last year. Thanks to the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People’s Republic of China and I can even tell you exactly when this happened. Here is the story…

The Ministry of Environmental Protection ranks 84 Chinese cities on a daily Air Pollution Indices basis according to three major air pollutants - sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and inhaleable pollutants.

According to the stats, Shanghai averaged an Air Pollution Index (API) of about 68 for 2007. The higher the number the higher the air pollution levels, but more on that later.

Beijing is blessed with an air pollution triumvir of heavy industry in the north east, huge annual sandstorms from Inner Mongolia whose sand particulates pick up more pollution and inland proximity away from coastal breezes to disperse the pollution.

As a result, Beijing’s API for 2007 was over 90 and hence the reason why some top athletes with asthma problems are considering staying away from the Beijing Olympics later this year. One such example is Haile Gebrselassie - Ethiopia’s long distance legend - who will not take part in the marathon (but probably in the 10 000 meters)

But if the Olympic athletes have it bad, spare a thought for us brave souls living here outside of Olympic time. We do not have the luxury of cloud seeding (to artificially induce rain), cutting half the traffic off roads and closing down the biggest polluting factories that will all kick off around the Olympics and end soon thereafter!

Now, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s API categorization, Shanghai’s 2007 average of 68 is qualified as good and ‘Daily activities are not affected’ (In China ‘good’ is relative). This means for most of last year, I led a healthy, happy life.

The API scale goes from 1 to 300 with anything in excess of 300 being heavily polluted. According to their website, (I quote directly without grammar amendments!) the effects of heavy pollution to health are that ‘The exercise endurance of the healthy people drops down, some appears strong symptoms remarkably. Some diseases appear earlier.’

Recommended counter measures are for: ‘The aged and patients should stay indoors and avoid strength draining; the ordinary should avoid outdoor activities.’

So, keep in mind that these are the effects of an API of 301. Now on 19^th January last year, Shanghai’s Air Pollution went up to a staggering 412 - the first instance of months taken off my life. If that was not bad enough, a couple of months later on 2^nd April, the API soared to 500 taking with it more of my precious heartbeats.

While pollution is an ugly reality of living in China, it of course does not help getting too paranoid about this either. It is a (big) downside to living here, but upsides abound too. However, if you are living back in South Africa (or any other nice place with daily challenges) and wondering about all the worrying negative externalities to living there, here is some advice:

“Take a deep breath of fresh air, peek out of your window at the blue skies, step outside into warm sunshine and then click here to see Shanghai’s (上海) latest air pollution that has just passed through my lungs.”