【有文稿】国际专家科普-雾霾到底伤哪里？

ZJN: Well Catherine, about the impact of smog on human health, do you have anything to add? CW: The PM2.5 kills you, and what happens is, it sets up an inflammation response in your lungs and then precipitates a heart attack. 7 million people per year die of PM2.5 exposure around the world, 70% of those are in Asia, and a large portion of those are in China. ZJN: But do we have direct proof? CW: Yes, we have direct proof. We have proof from epidemiological studies and short-term studies all over the world. We also have intervention studies: there was a steel plant in one of our Mormon states, where they don’t smoke, they don’t drink, they don’t have any indulgent lifestyles. When the steel plant closed, the death rate went down, and the hospital admissions went down, and when the steel plant opened again, the health effects all showed up again. It was the clearest evidence we’ve ever seen of the power of reducing emissions. Filters with HEPA? Those don’t work either, the paper filters with HEPA, because the force of your inhalation is stronger, and it pulls the particles around the filter and into your mouth. The only ones that work are the ones that look like a gas mask. They cost about $300 apiece, but you don’t need to wear any filters. The filters should be on the industrial facilities, not on human beings, and that’s what we need to do: get filters on the vehicles and get the strongest possible emission controls on industrial sources. ZJN: Coal burning is considered a large contributor to air pollution in China. Coal consumption accounts for around 70% of China’s total energy consumption, with natural gas only accounting for 5%. So Dr. Qi, how long do you think it would take for China to shift from coal to oil and gas? QY: In most of the developed countries, also, there is a shift from coal, to oil and gas, and then to clean energy. I think what is happening now is, we will probably have that short period of shifting to oil and gas, but I think the real solution is really shifting to clean energy; to wind, to solar, to biomass and other clean energies. And actually, that is what is happening right now in China. Since 2009, China has been the largest investor in clean energy in the world, and now just about 30% of the world investment of clean energy is from China. China is going very, very fast on that already; the problem is that China is so big, and the coal use is such a big share, that I think any change, even as fast as China’s clean energy development, does not keep up with how we really want the clean energy to develop. I think overall, now, we have seen the peak of coal consumption in China, and it may last for a while and plateau. Eventually it will decrease. This is a very critical moment and it is in a very good direction. ZJN: Catherine, you’re from Los Angeles, and you said Los Angeles is quite comparable to Beijing, so when it comes to clean technology development, what experience do you think Beijing could learn from Los Angeles? CW: You have to withdraw the subsidies for fossil fuels, so that cleaner technologies can compete. It does take time to install them, and there’s no question that that is a very ambitious target, but the economic signals are wrong if you’re propping up fossil fuels.