Viking_HippieOnce beset by pollution, Beijing's skies are clearer than ever thanks to EVs
It’s always nice to see some good news in the shitshow that is modern day life, makes me hopeful that a better future is still possible. I hope that one day Beijing (and the rest of the world) can go back to clean air 365 days a year.
China is basically what the western world was in the 60-70’s where progress were all over the place.
Still behind in terms of alot of things, especially workers rights, but it’s not going backwards like it is in the US.
Like all countries, there’s some good and bad things to say, but I think that investing in renewables was a very smart move on their part.
They still did it for all other reasons than being eco friendly.
They simply just have the minerals and mines for solar and batteries. And the big one is offering the world an alternative for oil, which takes a big chunk into US profits.
We are just lucky that it also means cleaner air for everyone.
HamartiogonicChina is already the world’s factory, so why not become the world’s battery factory too. People seem to be interested in electric vehicles, so might as well. Once China is the number one EV manufacturer, battery manufacturer and solar panel manufacturer, it’s going to become as wealthy as Saudi Arabia and USA combined.
Those other reasons were important, but China has a history of investing in industrial resources way before they’re expected to be profitable, and often at greater scale than the market actually needs. 1980s China didn’t expect Rare Earth minerals to turn a profit, but they understood that cheap Gallium for example meant LCD manufacturers would be more competitive/productive.
When China started investing in solar panels, the price per PV was 5x more than it is now.
oce 🐆Living conditions have improved for the majority but the current leader (13 years) has increased autocracy, further reduced freedoms, continued oppressing Uyghurs and Hong Kong and increased the threat on Taiwan.
increased autocracy, further reduced freedoms
How so? A Chinese friend I made outside China who straight up said certain previous leaders of China should be hanged generally liked Xi.
continued oppressing Uyghurs
No investigation, no right to speak. Why don’t you come to Xinjiang or Kazakhstan and talk to some Uhigurs? There’s literally no travel restrictions, anyone can come here.
Hong Kong
They were governed by a council elected by business interests and the British crown. Hong Kong is the freest its ever been under China.
But I’ve only spent like 10 hours there, and haven’t run into any Hong Kongers outside of China so I don’t have a strong opinion on what they’re dealing with, all I know is what the US wants for them is not in their interest.
Just so I know if my time will be well used to redact an answer, what’s your affinity with lemmy.ml, he bear and lemmygrad?
What is it with lemmy.ml that I have missed? I personally just chose it by pure randomness on a list when I created an account, but I have seen it come up more times know as something negative?
I have no clue what hexbear and lemmygrad is.
.ml, lemmygrad and hexbear are three Lemmy instances known for hosting mostly users with socialist viewpoints, many of them appreciating Actually Existing Socialist states. Hexbear is mostly defederated because it has a strict policy of protection of its 50%ish trans userbase against transphobia, whereas .ml is mostly federated as a major instance.
There are frictions between non-socialists in other instances and socialists in those three instances, because politics is a complicated topic that reasonably makes people passionate and emotional.
Thanks, that’s a good explanation. Had no clue the difference between instances was big as most is federated.
The explanation you got is fairly positive. The negative side is that they have the reputation to host a lot (majority ?) of tankies, which creates tensions, with people who defend democracy for exemple. See this definition: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
You likely ended up on the lemmy.ml because it’s one of the major instances that happens to be hosted by the core developers of Lemmy, which themselves are openly defending things related to the article above.
Yeah, exactly. I chose it because it wasnt the biggest, and I wanted to pick a large one with a community but not the biggest, because I wanted to spread the users out on more instances, if that makes sense.
I had no clue there was a political agenda in picking an instance, but it makes sense.
Thanks for explaining it in a neutral manner. I dont follow any political communities anyway, so I think I’m good.
I left lemmy.ml when traveling in China because its blocked by the Great Firewall, so is hb, while lemmygrad users are generally correct, I don’t think their attitude towards anarchists is productive, and sometimes I see some really bad takes from them.
If you’re going to respond, do me a favor and base your take somewhat in reality.
If you can’t read chinese, have never been to China, and aren’t getting your takes from anyone who has and doesn’t have a material interest in peddling propaganda, you probably shouldn’t speak on the matter.
bufalo1973Wondering if the air will actually be better for humans though. There’s a lot more particles being ripped from the roads with these heavier EVs, and road particles are quite toxic as far as I understand, so not great. But yeah, great to have clear skies.
I’d imagine the amount of road particles ripped up is less than the amount of CO~2~, NO~x~, ozone and other pollutants and fine particles emitted by combustion engines, but I’m no expert. Only time will tell, but at least short-term the results seem positive.
Less maybe, but probably more toxic than carbon dioxide, which isn’t really dangerous per se.
There’s more than just CO~2~ coming from combustion engines though, like nitrogen and sulfur containing compounds, which can in turn cause secondary pollution. Cumulatively, I think those pollutants have a bigger effect on human health than the road particles. Also, these road particles still get ripped up by regular cars, even if it’s to a lesser extent. So overall I’m still convinced that EVs are a step in the right direction. We can’t know for sure until more studies are performed.
Do we have documentation on how/what their roads are made of?
The majority of wear on roads by far comes from trucks and busses.
Personal vehicles are almost negligible in comparison, regardless of what engine they’re using.
MGS5 EV -> 1650 Kg
MG ZS gasoline -> 1250
Not that different. And you have to add another 50 - 80 L of gasoline¹ to make it even.
¹ the size of the tank is not shown in the specs.
30% difference or so. Pretty big difference IMO.
My compact SUV Volvo EX40 has a 2,100+ kg curb weight.
Imagine this though: all the cars in the world switch from gas to electric, and on average add 30% of weight to every vehicle (which does seem like the normal increase). Wouldn’t that equate to adding, like, "X number of 18-wheelers’ to the roads, wear and tear wise? Or does it not work like that?
queermunist she/herThe road particles are heavier, they aren’t really leaving traveling too far in the air. They’re mostly a problem when it rains and are a threat to water quality.
Yeah cars should be illegal.
Most EVs by number in Chinese cities are electric motorbikes and tricicles, much much lighter than an electric car
Likely, but damage to roads increases with the square power of vehicle weight per wheel, meaning that just by virtue of being half the weight per wheel than cars their impact on road degradation is negligible.
No mention of the Subway expansion during that time?
I had trouble finding numbers, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but the subway went from around 200km to 900km and from a handful of lines to 30 lines since 2008.
Yeah but EVs means we can use the same profit making capitalist system. Trains and subways don’t turn as much profit. And it’s a socialist mode of transportation. /s
observantTrapezium“Thanks to EV” → annoying oversimplification. As even this biased article states “The change has been a result of government policy focusing on smog reductions, including restrictions on heavy industry”. One should also add expansion of public transit services to the mix of factors.
Clearer than ever, but still (currently) >4x WHO recommended pollution levels
https://www.iqair.com/us/china/beijing/beijing
China in general has improved drastically but it still has pretty big issues in the winter due in large part to the increased heating demand.
AatubeThey also moved shitload of industry outside of Beijing around 2008, so the pollution moves to more rural cities.
EV and transport in Beijing is great and impressive, but it is important to set realistic expectations. Switching to EV and transport improves people’s lives a lot and probably can be a golden bullets in many western cities. But for a city as dense and big as Beijing, there needs to be other sacrifices.
It’s great news regardless but I don’t know why they feel the need to over-attribute this to EVs. It’s not like the majority of the population in Beijing ever drove cars. Regulations on heavy industry are briefly glossed over 10 paragraphs down so they can go back to glowing about EVs. But my impression after visiting Beijing was that a lot of the smog came from people relying on coal cakes for everyday cooking and heating.
Unfortunately, depending on the jetstream, we still get a lot of their pollution blowing over here to Korea. I think it is mostly from coal power plants on the coast. Anecdotally, the effect of EVs on the air there does feel like it has lessened the amount of smog that blows over to Korea, in the spring especially. Glad to hear they are making progress. Last time I was in Beijing the air was unbearably smoky (2011).
Unfortunately despite leading on EVs, renewables and nuclear power deployment, China is also expanding coal. So their greenhouse gas emissions are still rising.
I was under the impression that they reached peak CO2 emissions and have been flat or falling for the past year or so
Honestly I thought so too, but I quickly looked it up before commenting, and at least according to Our World in Data it’s actually up both per capita and in absolute terms.
Interesting I’m not familiar with how these measurements are taken.
This was the source I was thinking of: China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were unchanged from a year earlier in the third quarter of 2025, extending a flat or falling trend that started in March 2024
Yeah, seems like these days it’s mostly good, then every once in a while you get some massive smog bank blowing in. Definitely an (anecdotal) improvement over even just a few years ago when it was almost constantly smoggy in Korea. Korea is also not entirely innocent of coal dependency itself.
It pains me to say it, this century is indeed China’s century. Unless World War 3 happens if Thucydides’ trap is indeed the law of nature/ jungle.
I’ll give China props for not being beholden to oil companies