Air pollution levels in Taiwan - grim reading

This still baffles me. It’s all odorless to me.

Good call. I cropped it.

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Have you always lived in cities? Don’t get into deep nature much? Do you generally have a bad sense of smell?

Yeah, I don’t teach today, so I was looking forward to going out for a long ride, especially after how gorgeous my Monday morning ride was. But I don’t like going out in stuff like this (ha, who does?). Currently 110 in Danshui; 72 up on Yangmingshan and 70 in Shimen, so not quite clear enough in those areas to persuade me to head out.

The air quality forecast is better for tomorrow (and was reasonably accurate for today), and I finish work at 2pm: hopefully I can get out then.

My sense of smell is fine, and I’ve pretty much always lived in cities except for short pockets in my life. The air in all cities smell odorless to me every day, and the air in the countryside smells like trees/grass/dirt to me (but that’s only because it actually IS full of trees and grass) which can sometimes get quite annoying when it blocks out the smells I actually want to smell, like my food.

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Generally speaking I would say the lighter the blue the more particles are in the air. Almost everyday has air pollution here so yes it could make it challenging for some folks to tell the difference.

You know the morning after heavy rain the night before when it clears and you can see the crisp outline of any clouds in the sky and the mountains in the distance. Everything sparkling. That’s clean air. It doesn’t last that long maybe a day at most. Im familiar with this from living on the hillsides in Taichung looking down on the city.

The air in the cities doesn’t smell odorless. There is often a slightly sooty smell. I can tell that is from burning coal because if simply smells like that. If you ever burned coal or peat you would recognise that smell immediately. Some of that is from China and some of that is from Taiwan.

Or you can get some gas or burning smell also in different places occasionally. Paper burning. Trucks. Rice farmers burning the rice stalks. bBQ places. Chou Dofu. Of course the smell from the sewers/drains in places.

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That’s so crazy to me.

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Yep, but that is what it smells like. Carbon. Soot. You can almost taste it. Much more obvious in the Winter when it gets cold in China.

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What Taiwan really needed were two new coal power plants!!!
In Taoyuan and Miaoli.

wtf_cheburashka


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They should build it next to the place with greatest concentration of nuclear power opponents.
Alternative location right in Taipei in neighborhood of Economics Minister house.

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Is the DPP actively trying to lose in 2023?

If so, this would not be a bad way to get to that goal.

Guy

Bad news. Propaganda piece from CNA not mentioning the pollution concerns.

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More Chinese pollution incoming :rofl:

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Chinese Pollution with Miao Tao Characteristics.

If the DPP has any environmental bones left in its body, that wing of the party should be fighting this proposal like hell.

I hope environmentalists go bezerk on this. This is not what we were promised!

Guy

The average trend was down, I guess no for long. Can’t blame the weather, wind, china anymore.

I can smell it too!

Overnight, I leave the kitchen window open on most days. On a day with bad pollution, I will smell that same burned smell when I am go to the kitchen after waking up.

I won’t really notice the smell when being outside, though - I guess one gets used quite fast to it.

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What environmentalists? Do those exist in Taiwan? I thought the whole Anti-nuclear 反核 thing is quite big here because they always look towards the Fukushima incident.

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The anti-nuke movement goes way back. It’s tied to environmentalism, Indigenous rights (why is waste being dumped on Tao territory?), and anger about persistent short-termism as opposed to a long-term view of Taiwan.

The Fukushima diaster in 2011 make it politically impossible, even for the pro-nuke Blue side of the aisle, to continue to advocate for nuclear power. But the Green side has thought that way since the late 1980s / early 1990s.

Guy

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