New York Times: fiquem longe da agua da Baia da Guanabara

‘Não caia na água do Rio’, alerta capa do New York Times

O Estado de S.Paulo, 19/05/2014

Foto de Ana Carolina Fernandes para o NYT

Um dos mais influentes jornais do mundo, o The New York Times publica nesta segunda-feira, na sua capa, uma dura crítica ao Rio, que será sede da próxima Olimpíada e, em menos de um mês, começa a receber jogos da Copa do Mundo. A matéria tem o título: “Aviso para os velejadores olímpicos: não caiam na água do Rio” e aponta o dedo principalmente para a ineficácia governamental para organizar os Jogos de 2016.

A matéria, que aparece na capa da edição europeia e também na distribuída nos EUA, é assinada por Simon Romero (correspondente no Rio) e Christopher Clarey e ilustrada com a imagem acima, da fotógrafa Ana Carolina Fernandes. Uma imagem que retrata um Rio muito diferente daquele que aparece na propaganda oficial do Rio/2016. Infelizmente, um cenário que os velejadores vão encontrar já em agosto, quando acontecerá o primeiro evento teste dos Jogos, exatamente da vela.

“Nico Delle Karth, um velejador austríaco que está se preparando para 2016, disse que é o lugar mais sujo no qual ele já treinou”. Assim começa a reportagem, uma das mais duras publicadas pela grande imprensa internacional sobre os preparativos para a próxima Olimpíada. “Ele encontrou de tudo, desde pneus de carros até colchões. A água cheirava tão mal que ele sentia medo de colocar o pé nela para encostar seu barco na areia”, prossegue o NYT.

O jornal lembra que, enquanto corre para terminar seus estádios a um mês da Copa, o Brasil já sofre “críticas mordazes” pela preparação para os Jogos de 2016. A matéria cita as críticas recentes de dois dirigentes importantes: Francesco Ricci Bitti, presidente da Associação das Federações Internacionais, John D. Coates, vice-presidente do COI. Ambos lembraram dos atrasos nas obras: nem 10% do prometido está pronto.

“A Baía de Guanabara oferece o tipo de imagem de cartão postal que as autoridades do Rio querem mostrar como anfitriões dos Jogos de 2016, mas tornou-se o ponto central de reclamações, transformando águas poluídas do Rio em um símbolo de frustrações com os preparativos os Jogos”, escreve o jornal.

As críticas do NYT, extensas, passam pelo jogo de empurra-empurra entre governos municipal, estadual e federal sobre quem faz o que no Rio/2016, lembram que o velódromo do Pan foi desmontado para dar lugar a um 10 vezes mais caro, que o Engenhão está fechado e destacam que o problema da poluição não surgiu ontem.

A reportagem pode ser lida na íntegra no site do NYT.

Tags: Baía de Guanabara, New York Times, Rio 2016

Comentários (40)| Comente!

China: sorry people, estamos fechando a capital do Imperio, Beijing, por ser inabitavel

Pois é, um governo que se preocupasse com a sua própria saúde, dos seus mandarins, e do povinho miúdo, deveria decretar o fechamento da cidade...

In Beijing, Complaints About Smog Grow Louder and Retaliation Grows Swifter

By DAN LEVIN

Anger is rising over the government’s inability to protect the nation from pollution that has made places like the capital “unsuitable for human habitation,” as a prominent think tank stated this month in a study that was swiftly censored.

Isso vai ocorrer? Improvável.

Mas não me convidem para trabalhar por lá...

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

NYTimes, FEBRUARY 25, 2014, 7:55 AM 

In Beijing, Complaints About Smog Grow Louder and Retaliation Grows Swifter

By DAN LEVIN

Kim Kyung-Hoon/ReutersVisitors are silhouetted against thick smog at Jingshan Park near the Forbidden City in Beijing.

• E-MAIL
• FACEBOOK
• TWITTER
• SAVE
• MORE

Nearly a week into northern China’s latest airpocalypse, the skies over Beijing are murky and acrid with a heavy smog that shrouds the sun. On social media sites, the yellow, choking air has become something of a meme, as residents post depressing photos of their blackened air purifier filters and hazy urban vistas with comments like #nuclearwinter.

Amid the latest round of smog, anger is rising over the Chinese government’s inability to protect the nation from a pollution crisis that has made places like Beijing “unsuitable for human habitation,” as a prominent state-backed think tank stated in a study released this month that was swiftly censored.

Last week, the official Sina Weibo microblog account of the state-run China Central Television Finance Channel posted two scathing indictments of the Chinese government’s environmental failures. “Does anyone still care about Beijing’s smog?” began one, noting that although the “pollution index is off the charts,” no measures had been taken to mitigate the environmental emergency. A few minutes later came the second post, “Beijing municipal government, don’t hide behind the thick smog,” which warned that “the people have grown numb,” but the channel was “issuing a wake-up call: the government can’t act blind.” It must “protect its territory and not act ignorant.”

Both posts were quickly deleted.

On Friday, after days of a growing outcry, the Beijing government for the first time raised the air pollution alert on its recently established color-coded system to orange, the second-highest level out of four, prompting schools to cancel outdoor activities and some factories to close and sending half the city’s cars off the roads. But those measures and similar ones taken across the region have failed to alleviate the smog. In Beijing by Tuesday evening, the United States Embassy air quality index meter read 500, nearly 20 times the level of particulate air matter deemed safe by the World Health Organization.

Even as the government insisted it was working overtime to address the crisis, officials were busy retaliating against CCTV. According to employees, an editor at the Finance Channel was fired for posting the offending microblog posts and CCTV was banned from all reporting on Beijing’s epic smog, because, they said, the posts infuriated the city’s mayor, Wang Anshun. Oddly, CCTV is still allowed to report on the air pollution hovering just outside the city’s borders in the surrounding province of Hebei.

Reached by phone, the director of the CCTV Finance Channel, Guo Zhenxi, said he was too busy to comment and hung up.

Censorship, however, is not preventing other Chinese in the polluted region from taking matters into their own hands. Last week, Li Guixin, a resident of Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital of Hebei, walked into the district court and filed a lawsuit against the city’s environmental protection bureau for failing to curb the increasingly horrendous smog. The lawsuit seeks 10,000 renminbi, or about $1,600, as compensation for the money he has spent on protecting himself against the foul air.

“Since last December, the smog in Shijiazhuang started to get worse,” Mr. Li told Yanzhao Metropolis Daily, a local newspaper. “I had to spend money on masks, an air purifier and a treadmill” for exercising indoors.

Mr. Li’s lawyer, Wu Yufen, said in a telephone interview that the lawsuit — the first of its kind in China — was rejected by both the provincial and the municipal courts. He is still waiting to hear from the district court, but vowed to pursue all legal recourse. “Air quality is a very important issue in our lives,” Mr. Wu said. “When the air is bad, there is no quality of life to speak of. You can’t even go outside.”

Back in Beijing, the authorities are taking a zero-tolerance approach to public expressions of environmental discontent. According to a Sina Weibo post published Tuesday morning, an artist named Du Xia was taken away by the police in central Beijing after he protested against the smog.

A few hours later, the post had disappeared, but the smog remained.

Mia Li contributed research.

China: agora um pouquinho de poluicao ordinaria (WSJ)

Heavy Smog Lingers in Northern China

Haze Closes Schools, Airports and Roads

Wayne Ma

The Wall Street Journal, October 22, 2013

Buildings and streets are seen under heavy smog in Harbin Tuesday. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

BEIJING—Much of northeastern China remained shrouded in heavy smog on Tuesday, forcing the closure of roads, schools and a major airport for a second day, and adding to public pressure on Chinese officials to address mounting concerns over air pollution.

Much of northeastern China has been shrouded in heavy smog, forcing the closure of roads, schools and a major airport, and adding to public pressure on Chinese officials to address mounting concerns over air pollution.

China's official Xinhua news agency said Tuesday that all expressways in northeastern Heilongjiang province remained closed due to poor visibility. Classes at primary and middle schools in the northeastern city of Harbin also remained suspended as a health precaution, it said. In some downtown areas of Harbin—known for its bitterly cold winters, ice sculptures and strong Russian influence due to its proximity to the Russian border—visibility was less than 20 meters, it added.

Coal burning from the start of the winter heating season, vehicle emissions, crop burning and a lack of stronger winds, were factors contributing to the smog, Xinhua reported Monday, citing environmental authorities in Heilongjiang. The northeastern Chinese provinces of Jilin and Liaoning were also struggling with heavy smog on Tuesday, it said.

As public pressure has mounted in China in recent months, authorities have shown a new urgency in their efforts to control air pollution.

Many Chinese cities, including the capital, Beijing, have imposed limits on car purchases, hoping to ease the traffic congestion while managing air pollution. Beijing's city government is launching a longer-term plan to control industries such as cement and steel, which are considered to be heavy polluters. China's central government is also spending an additional five billion yuan ($820 million) to improve air quality in the northern region covering Beijing, the port city of Tianjin as well as Hebei province.

Enlarge Image

A street in Changchun in Jilin province is shrouded in smog like much of northeastern China Tuesday, two days after the start of heating season. Reuters

Enveloped in Haze

View Graphics

Reuters

Photos

View Slideshow

The start of the winter heating season has created a blanket of heavy smog over parts of northern China, forcing the closure of some schools, airports and highways in the region.Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

On Tuesday, Beijing formally announced a new air-pollution alert system and unveiled standby measures for the highest "red alert" level, including curbs on construction as well as traffic and recommendations that schools halt outdoor activities.

In Harbin on Tuesday, the density of small, health-threatening particulates known as PM2.5 rose above 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter at several monitoring stations, according to the website of the China National Environmental Monitoring Center. The World Health Organization's recommended exposure is less than 25 micrograms per cubic meter over a 24-hour period. It says chronic exposure to particles in the air—especially at extremely high concentrations—increases risks for cardiovascular and repository diseases, as well as lung cancer.

Steven Q. Andrews, an environmental consultant who studies China's air pollution, said the last time he had heard of a concentration that high in China was during a super dust storm in Beijing in 2002.

"Absent a dust storm or forest fire, to see concentrations that high is truly shocking," he said.

Most of Harbin's air-monitoring stations still showed a maximum air-quality index of 500 on Tuesday. The index takes into consideration a number of different measurements including PM2.5. Readings above 300 are extremely rare by U.S. standards and typically occur during events such as forest fires.

Some social-media users expressed outrage over the pollution levels. "The moment we encounter a situation like the Harbin haze that's happening right now, the government remains silent and shirks their responsibilities," Heilongjiang radio reporter Guo Yazhou wrote on Sina Corp.'s SINA -2.98% Twitter-like microblog service Weibo. "Based on current technology, I'm afraid that Heilongjiang province won't be able to change its winter-heating situation.…We need our government to start doing something proactive. Our requirements aren't high, we just want clean food, clean water and clean air."

A new study by the World Health Organization offers stunning statistics that health authorities globally will have to consider. Who is most at risk for getting lung cancer as a result of exposure to air pollution? How many people do authorities believe die each year as a result of pollution-related lung cancer? WSJ's Jason Bellini has #TheShortAnswer. (Image: NASA)

At a news conference on Beijing's new emergency antipollution measures, a spokesman for the city's environmental-protection bureau blamed Harbin's recent buildup of air pollution on poor weather patterns rather than on the start of winter heating season, which began Sunday.

"We have to manage the air pollution [in Beijing], but there is also a need for good weather conditions to diffuse the pollutants," he said.

Separately, China's Ministry of Environmental Protection said Tuesday that the northern region of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei had the worst air-pollution ranking in the third quarter, with air quality below government standards 62.5% of the time. However, air quality improved in the region during the quarter, reaching standards 37.5% of the time versus 33.8% in the second quarter, the statement said. Hebei province surrounds Beijing, while the industrial city of Tianjin is nearby.

Of the 10 cities with the worst air quality, seven were in Hebei province. The others were the city of Jinan in Shandong province and Tianjin and Zhengzhou in Henan province, the ministry said. Harbin received no mention.

—Yajun Zhang and Lillian Lin contributed to this article.

Write to Wayne Ma at wayne.ma@wsj.com