Protesting Smog, Hong Kong Dims Sum Lights
by Alex Pasternack, Beijing, China on 08. 8.06
Tuesday night was unusually dark in Hong Kong, thanks to a grassroots campaign that called on citizens to switch their lights off in protest of the city's growing pollution problems. A survey estimated that 60 percent of the city's residents would be participating in what organizers called "the biggest protest ever in Hong Kong," thanks in part to a city-wide campaign that included SMS reminders from local mobile phone providers. Still, while the city's Legislative Council joined in, switching off the lights at its historic downtown chamber house for three minutes at 8 pm, Hong Kong's political leader Donald Tsang decided to snub the protest, claiming it would look bad for the city. Something also looks bad about 1,600 people a year dying of pollution-related illnesses and lost productivity and health care totaling 2.57 billion US dollars a year.
Despite its yen for electricity consumption--most evident in its flashy buildings, nightly light shows, and ubiquitious air conditioning--Hong Kong for a while seemed to have avoided the smoggy plight of big, less-regulated mainland Chinese cities like Chongqing or Beijing. But now "Asia's world city" is now considered more polluted than Shanghai, thanks, leaders say, to the pollution drifting in from factories along China's Pearl River Delta. That blame game doesn't go very far, considering that many of those factories are operated by companies based in business-friendly Hong Kong. Or, rather, formerly business-friendly: in April, the human-resources consulting firm ECA International lowered Hong Kong 12 spots to No. 32 in its annual ranking of the most livable cities for Asian expatriates, chiefly on the basis of air pollution. (Singapore was No. 1; on Friday, the Financial Times' front page read: "Singapore feels the benefit of Hong Kong's pollution")
Also ironic was the explanation by Hong Kong chief executive Tsang (who recently launched his own clean-air campaign) for why the city refused to turn off its nightly Symphony of Lights laser-and-light show: "It could...give adverse publicity to Hong Kong as an international metropolis and a major tourist attraction" and would send "a misleading message to the international community that protecting the environment is inconsistent with modern life."
Just to clarify that: sure, smog may be clogging our lungs, but there's nothing quite like a nice (coal powered) light show to keep tourists happy and protect "modern life."
Considering the city's smoggy haze, Tsang might have also argued, the light show may be one of the surest ways to even see the city at all.
Deutsche Presse-Agentur via : : Monsters and Critics. Hong Kong's The Standard reports on the campaign and the pollution here and here; Time Asia recently delved into Hong Kong's smog problems too.
"Dims Sum", I love it keep up the good work.
but... protecting the environment is "inconsistent with modern life."
Haha, good work on the title.
While the protest is a good thing, I think it would send out a stronger message if they significantly reduced their use of lights not just for one day.
Wait--the light show is coal-powered? I didn't know that.
Haha, good work on the title.
While the protest is a good thing, I think it would send out a stronger message if they significantly reduced their use of lights not just for one day.
Wait--the light show is coal-powered? I didn't know that.
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Alex writes: Sorry if that was confusing or misleading, Lynn. Hong Kong's electricity portfolio is dominated by coal-fired power plants, including Castle Peak Power Station, one of the largest such plants in the world, operated by CLP Power. Such plants are considered a major cause of the city's air pollution, perhaps more so than the factories in Guangdong province. See about Tsang's recent message to CLP and other smaller electricity providers.
I was living in Hong Kong for about a year and there was interest from a number of the people I spoke to in fairly substantial offshore windfarms.
Situated in fairly shallow coastal waters they would be able to provide a great deal of the energy requirements of the SAR ... but projects of these large scales are lacking in both political and financial backing to make them a priority - for the next number of years there will be wind power testing efforts and small scale developments.
You can read about some of ultilies' plans(etc) below.
http://www.bmt.org/printnews.asp?id=169
http://www.clpgroup.com/NR/exeres/E65C3F73-A679-4F2C-9CBD-D0D764BCC004%2C405F5A0B-C5A9-4B27-972D-830DC38A43AB%2Cframeless.htm?ch=%5FMedia%5FCurRel%5F&lang=en
http://www.heh.com/hehWeb/MediaCentre/PressRelease/Year2006/03072006_en.htm
Though I think that the greenpeace "Wind Guangdong" report is better reading about the potential for wind energy in the region.
http://www.greenpeace.org/china/en/press/reports/wind-guangdong
Good, this gives me some hope about Hong Kong!
I have a bunch of friends from there, and despite them being nice people, I always got the feeling that Dior bags and looking sexy mattered to them more than any amount of world problems.
In response to me asking my HK roommate if we should switch to a more expensive but alt. energy plan, my roommate said something like
"As long as you pay the difference. You know I don't give a crap about this environmentalist stuff."
Props on the title!
anything new for 2007?
how is the campaign for more green space going on?