It goes away and you forget The sky has been relatively clear for the last month or so in Hong Kong. But today the dull grey haze is as thick as anything I've ever seen. As I sit here typing this out my eyes are stinging and I can't see the harbour at all. I'd sort of forgotten how bad the air can get. Coincidentally last night was the occasion of an attempt to raise the awareness of the public will in Hong Kong to get something done to clean up the skies. At 8pm last night, we were all asked to turn off our lights by a group called "Lights Out Hong Kong", so as to demonstrate the need to save power and thus prevent excess greenhouse emissions.

I forgot to turn off my lights - actually I completely forgot about the whole thing otherwise I would have least had a look out the window. But it was all a bit of a damp squib apparently. Most of the big buildings on Hong Kong island didn't bother, restaurants and other public places couldn't because of public safety reasons, and the power company reported a negligible change in power output for the duration of the protest.

I think really they should have asked everyone to turn off their airconditioners - every airconditioner is left on all day. Cars owners don't turn off their engines while they are waiting because they don't want to turn off the aircon. And each aircon is set to about 15-17 degrees. That's cold. We walk past shop doorways here and get blasted by freezing cold air.

But no-one in Hong Kong wants to stop the aircon. So we're stuck with pollution for a while I think, until the government starts forcing people and organisations to make changes.

tags: hongkong | pollution | lightsout  ¶ 7:43 PM