China considers every idea to reduce air pollution

BEIJING, Sept. 15 (UPI) —

It is no secret China has a serious air pollution problem, but less known are proposed solutions, the results of brainstorming in the press.

Residents are encouraged to think of resolutions, and some require less technology than others. Ideas are encouraged, and some are evidence to observers that China is not ready to resolve its smog issues. The city of Los Angeles was similarly swamped with silver-bullet approaches to its smog issues in the 1950s.

"We’re seeing the exact same thing in China that we saw in L.A. â € ” crazy ideas coming out of the woodwork," says Chip Jacobs, co-author of a book about the history of smog in Los Angeles.

The city of Wuhan, China, is pondering skyscrapers painted with a smog-eating substance. A giant vacuuming device has been proposed for Beijing, as well as an "urban wind passage" accomplished by regulating building heights to create an airflow. Beijing could also a 100-mile canal to the Pacific Ocean to be used as a fresh-air corridor.

"It’s easy to just blame the government," says Daan Roosegaarde, a Dutch artist who resides in China. "Sometimes standard science throws away an idea too fast because it’s too radical or won’t be allowed. But here we are in this mess, so what are we going to do? Are we going to wait?"

The vacuum idea is Roosegaarde’s.

The Chinese government, aware that air pollution caused 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010, is devoting $1.6 billion in 2014 for air pollution studies. Beijing’s Meteorological Bureau is spending $3.2 billion on weather-modification efforts, such as cloud-seeding, to minimize pollution.

"I didn’t realize quite how serious they were, but China has large efforts going into weather modification, what we would call storm-cloud seeding. They actually believe in that a lot more than we do here," said Eugene Y. Leong, a Californian, air pollution expert and teacher at Beijing’s Peking University. "One of the things we’ve learned is: Dilution is not the solution to pollution. To me, a lot of the wacko ideas are running away from the fundamental problem. When all is said and done, if you want to solve the problem, you’ve got to reduce the emissions."