Air pollution here is about Milan levels in the cities it feels to me. Better than China or Santiago de Chile, but still pretty bad.
And I guess about 2/3 is Taiwan made. Industry and of course cars and scooters. Solution is easy, tax petrol to make it twice as expensive and use that money for subsidizing gogoro and other BEV. In mainland China there are nearly no more scooters on gas, but way too many cars, they kinda messed up there about cars while forbidding scooters. I feel once autonomously driving cars are widely available just forbid private car ownership…
And yeah forbid those last 2stroke scooters…
I’m at fault myself driving a 125cc scooter. Gogoro less convenient for going to mountains. But inside city I mainly use youbike… Scooter is too convenient…
If petrol costs twice the money and bev Scooter/Carsharing is available easier, more people will ditch the old stuff. They will complain but after some years most will be happy…
And of course way way more solar power is needed. And panels have become dirt cheap…
Control what you can control. Don’t control what you can’t control. My thinking is pretty binary.
There is no coverup. All the information is out there on the Internet to see. It’s on the Taiwan EPA website, the AQI app…there’s even a smog emoji used on the Taiwan Central Weather Bureau app. Pollution has been spoken about ad nauseum here and the vast majority of Taiwanese are already aware of it.
Every country has its life-cycle and this is where we are. Same with China, by 2060, they will be carbon neutral by 2060. We will also be at some point. The technology just isn’t far enough along at this juncture to be able to do the things people want done tomorrow. Western countries like the US are much further along because they developed much earlier than us, and a lot of industry was pushed out of there and to Asia. They were also polluted at one point in their history. Foreigners that have been here for decades have told me that it used to be MUCH more polluted here than it is now. We are on the upswing.
I’m just not on the ban this, ban that bandwagon because 1) it’s actually not doable in the real world yet, and 2) with regards to people who do bai bai and burn paper money, I hate that shit too, but it’s people’s religion here.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from living in a different country from where I’m from (USA) is that every place has its pros and cons. I used to think the US was the greatest country in the world, and while it is still a great place, it has its fair share of cons. Same with Taiwan. I just choose to focus on its strengths, how they fit within the vision of the life I want for myself, and I mitigate the cons. The truth is I’m not from here. I don’t feel entitled to get this and that from here, and I’m not here to judge the people here, even if I think in my head the things they do are stupid or bad. There’s a reason and a purpose for why things are done, and usually people don’t recognize that, as well as the tradeoffs of doing things a different way. I’m ridiculously grateful to have what I have here. Both my wife and I plan to move to the US in a few years, and we are both apprehensive that things there won’t be as good there as they are here.
Haha, well yes, that’s what I’m doing and going to do. At the same time, I will miss what Taiwan has to offer. The things I will miss the most is safety, social stability, and how nice and down-to-earth people are here.
Besides electric cars which i’ve seen little of in taiwan, another bollocks.
That’s nothing more than an excuse. There’s plenty that could be done to clean things up, its just not happening due to backwards attitudes and corruption, not helped by your kind of thinking either that taiwan is technologically behind( seriously wtf?), no different than china, and all we need to do is wait 40 years and everything will be rosy!
They haven’t even started allowing migrant workers in Japan in large numbers until recently, and they’re doing it so quietly so people don’t get pissed.
I have a family member who taught English at a cram school for 6 years. She moved back to the States, got her teaching certificate in Texas through a program that lets you do on-the-job internship. Now she’s earning much more than she could have here with typical job benefits that are non-existent here for most foreigners. Her boyfriend found work at a large investment firm which again is almost impossible here.
I have my own business here in Taiwan and have already retired from a previous career so I don’t need the benefits that most younger people want.
Are you saying most western countries have worse immigration policies, environments and job opportunities than Taiwan? That does not correspond with what I know. Taiwan’s environmental issues are much worse than North American and European countries and likewise with immigration snce Taiwan hardly has any.
You see, that’s the thing. Many of us have lived in Taiwan for many years and plan to stay here for more, maybe even our whole lives. Not all of us want to move back to our own country and we think of Taiwan as our home. It is absolutely normal to want where you live to get better.
I don’t think the situation is worse than most of the western countries and non western countries. Each issue may be better than most of western countries.
Many or most, I am sure Taiwan lags a lot of western countries in environmental issues and immigration. The job situation is mixed, I’ll give you that.
this is not contradict to Taiwan may be better off than many western countries on each issue
water and soil maybe. But as for air pollution, who cares about Taiwan’s air quality when they have comparable problems, and there are comparable or worse, and much bigger polluted countries like China and India in this region.
I think they are too busy with their own immigration issues to care about Taiwan’s immigration policy or migrant workers.
