PM2.5 in China
Dear fellow toastmasters and guests,
Good evening! It is a lovely night, while my topic may be a little bit serious, on the air pollution in China. Fist of all, I’d like to show you some data or numbers on this topic.
← According to the World Health Organization, in China more than 650,000 people die each year from diseases related to air pollution.
← According to the World Bank ‘s data, 16 of the world’s 20 cities with the worst air are in China.
← According to statistics from the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) of PRC, in most of the major cities of the eastern area there are more than 100 haze days each year, and the annual average PM2.5 concentration is two to four times above that of the World Health Organization's standard.
After reading these startling numbers, what do you think about the air pollution in China. There is no doubt that everyone want to live a healthy life. If we can not live in a clean atmosphere, how can we and our children live healthily?
There are mainly 4 air pollutants for evaluating our air quality, the Sulfur dioxide, Nitrogen dioxide, Particulate matters and Carbon dioxide. Then where are these pollutants come from? How can we control their emission?
First, It may come from the nature, like the releases from volcanoes, biological decay and forest fires. While it is only minor part compared with man-made source.
Another source are man-made pollutants. They comes from fossil fuel combustion, smelting, manufacture of sulfuric acid, conversion of wood pulp to paper. Coal burning is the single largest man-made source of sulfur dioxide.
Myth: It's enough if cities independently conceive and execute their own solutions
Any effort to curb PM2.5 and other pollutants is worth a try, so at the city level, authorities can begin to control traffic, dust and reduce localized coal consumption. But because PM2.5 itself is rooted in a regional pollution issue, we need more ambition from the central...