Posted On: Tuesday - November 28th 2023 6:29AM MST
In Topics:   China  Environmental Stupidity
I left out a couple of points I was going to make in the most recent Dispatches from The Middle Kingdom: post called WoKeiProp.
Firstly, yeah, note the smog in the picture above. This is one of a dozen or so I "snapped", as we went touring around Peking. This is not just low visibility in mist. It wasn't particularly humid and/or chilly (this was in August), so this was pollutants rather than water, and it was THICK*. Visibility was 1/2 a mile to two miles generally.
So, there they have their CCTV ads about the windmills and "The wind and the sunshine playing the city melody.", but that looks pretty unhealthy there in Peking still for those susceptible. Additionally, the number of coal burning power plants being built yearly is something else! Industry comes before quality of life there. That's understandable, but cut the TV Ad BS. Are the Chinese people susceptible to that?
Secondly, I had unfortunately left my phone/camera in the hotel room at breakfast the previous day in this same place, so I missed a picture of something interesting. That would be the TV showing massive violence in the Capital City. No, not Peking, this was Washington, FS, of the USA. The violent people were the J6 protesters, running around, throwing shit, and doing all kind of mayhem.
It's the same Narrative they've been playing here for almost 3 years, on Chinese CCTV. Now I see the propaganda value for China in this. "Don't make waves, Chinese people. See these hoodlums in the US that almost overthrew their duly elected Gov't (just like ours is)?! It's anti-Establishment, it's non-conformist, it's egregious, and the nails that stuck up are getting hammered down. Take heed!"
PS: The sound was down. It'd have been nice to get the tone of it and maybe hear some of the English in the footage. Otherwise, I'd sure like to have recorded it for a translation. Dang, opportunity lost! (What kind of slack-ass "journalists" are employed by this outfit anyway?)
* I questioned myself on this due to my not personally being sensitive to smog. In Los Angeles, I was with a lady who could really feel the stuff in her throat and lungs - this was long ago, when it was worse. For me, I was aware of it only when I first saw the wall of rock of the San Gabriel Mountains to the north and thought, "Hey, why haven't I seen them before?!"
Back to Peking, as we went uphill toward the Great Wall on the one day, it did get misty, and I that's why I wondered about it.
Comments:
The Alarmist
Tuesday - November 28th 2023 1:43PM MST
PS
We used to pull alert duty at March AFB during the Reagan years, and on most days you couldn’t see the hills behind San Bernandino. I’d go running on the base, and then make it a point to go back to the aircraft and “test” my oxygen system afterwards to clear my lungs. Anyway, it would rain at night, and you could smell the acid rain eating away at the ramp, and in the morning you’d see the hills that were almost totally obscured in a brown cloud the day before.
We used to pull alert duty at March AFB during the Reagan years, and on most days you couldn’t see the hills behind San Bernandino. I’d go running on the base, and then make it a point to go back to the aircraft and “test” my oxygen system afterwards to clear my lungs. Anyway, it would rain at night, and you could smell the acid rain eating away at the ramp, and in the morning you’d see the hills that were almost totally obscured in a brown cloud the day before.
Jimmy Buffett wrote "I spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze..." I couldn't figure out that lyric for many years. Then came the internet - good for something, I guess.