Green Beagle sniffs out true Beijing air pollution data

CHINA’S government keeps data on the fine particles that shroud Beijing in a health-threatening smog most days secret. But as they grow more prosperous, Chinese are demanding the right to know how polluted their city is.

“If people know what their air is like, they are more likely to take action,” said Wang Qiuxia, a researcher at local environment group Green Beagle, who shows interested residents how to test pollution on a locally-made monitoring machine.

Beijing is frequently cloaked in yellow haze, with buildings a couple of streets away barely visible. But its official air quality index still records the pollution as “light” – at odds with what many people experience.

A reason for the discrepancy is that the official index does not include the fine particles Mr Wang’s group is tracking, PM2.5. Sometimes seen as soot or smoke, PM2.5 is tiny particulate matter – less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter, or about 1/30th the average width of a human hair – that can result from the burning of fuels in vehicles, power plants and agriculture.

China’s ministry of environmental protection has announced plans to factor PM2.5 into new air quality standards, beyond the coarser PM10 already measured, but not until 2016. One environmental official was quoted by state media recently as saying conditions were “not ripe” for the tougher standard, as many places would fail.

Feng Yongfeng, a journalist and founder of Green Beagle, said: “The government always has this worry that if they tell the truth, there will be social unrest. But the reality is the reality. Whether you tell the public or not, the danger is still out there.”

What matters now, Mr Feng said, is for people to conduct their own testing “and see the truth right now”.

Green Beagle is recruiting people around the city to test the air in their homes, districts, offices and public spaces. It lends the sole monitoring device it possesses for up to a week. In return, Green Beagle gets the readings and posts them on its website.

While the pollution choking China is testament to the country’s explosive growth over the last 20 years, so is the current call for greater government transparency – and cleaner air. A new middle class is turning its attention to quality of life and demanding official accountability.

Mr Wang said: “Firstly, people care about food and clothing. Once food and clothing is no longer a problem, they start to care about the environment and health, especially the air.”

While posting pollution data online is not illegal, challenging the government can be considered subversive in China where the government zealously guards data it considers sensitive.

Pan Shiyi, a rich celebrity property developer, has taken to China’s version of Twitter to repost readings, including PM2.5 levels, from the US embassy in Beijing which measures air quality via a monitoring device on its roof and publishes the figures online every hour.

This week, from noon Sunday to noon Monday – during which hundreds of flights were cancelled because of poor visibility at Beijing’s airport – the US embassy readings went from “hazardous” to “beyond index”.

Overall, the government is losing the perception battle. Tan Liang, 32, an engineer and Green Beagle volunteer, takes readings three times a day around his residential compound, a group of new apartment blocks on the outskirts of Beijing’s central business district that are home to many young couples.

Mr Tan said he was motivated to take part because his wife is five months’ pregnant and they live close to an incinerator.

He said: “I believe that only by having the citizens involved can we have a true reflection of the real situation.”