The implication of Air quality control model

Dec 14, 2017

In the morning, we had a lecture given by Professor Xing Jia about air pollution in general. His class is very understandable and interesting by using cartoons and game metaphor. He explains the difference between meteorology cause and anthropocentric cause of current air pollution in spatial distribution and temporal variation. The meteorology (external cause) may cause large impact in short period, for example the Donora case happened in PA, USA on Oct. 26, 1948 has caused 700 people dead. However, overall impact of anthropocentric cause like industry emission, transportation exhaust emission is greater and more significant globally.

Professor Xing graduated from South Carolina University and had working experience in US EPA in analyzing greenhouse gas emission from satellite observing data and running model to predict future air pollution.In his research, he found that GHG in US has reduced dramatically from 1950-2015 as SO2 decreases 60%, NOx decreases 48%, VOC decreases 50%, PM2.5 decreases 34% due to advanced technology on reduction and nationwide change from coal to renewable energy. In comparison, China has also achieved milestone on GHG emission reduction, especially in Beijing with the establishment of the strictest environmental regulation. The result of Air Quality Index dropped to 67 on average in Beijing is convincing that the 5 Year Plan of Air Quality Control in China is working. However, central government is pushing to more ambitious goal that PM should drop from 60 to 30 by 2030. The air quality control policy has been successful in mega cities from the "bottom-up" data. It's also my first time learning about the separation of area such as JJJ, YRD and PRD where my home city located. I understand the reason of dividing China into many region of air quality control is definitely in need, because it is unreasonable of sacrificing one region's air quality in compensating of another region. For example, the new "2+26 cities plan" put Hebei Province, Tianjin Special District in the same importance as Beijing City in terms of emission reduction. It not only benefits the air quality in Beijing, but also help improve the surrounding area’s air quality.
I am very interested about Professor Xing’s research application in air pollution regulation process. There are two models that he and his team create for government official to look at the hypothesis of future air pollution.Another model is called, ABACASE which is a cost-efficient tool for Chinese government to make appropriate policy to reduce air pollution. Despite shutting down all the factories that emits GHG, the government can change the industry structure to cope with the national carbon reduction goal and future planning of local economy.    

Saturday Cultural Trip

Date: 12/16, Saturday

Weather: Windy and cold

We visited Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, and the Summer Palace on Saturday. It was our first cultural trip and everyone seemed to be very excited. However, it wasn’t my first time visiting Beijing so I didn’t go to the Summer Palace with pour group in the afternoon, however, my Saturday journey was still amazing. 

In the morning, as the first part of our field trip, we went to the Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, which were close to each other within a walking distance. Our guide introduced the broad history and structure of Tiananmen Square to us. It was also interesting to learn that they change Mao’s huge profile hanging outside of the Tiananmen gate every single year. In the Forbidden City, we walked through the whole City vertically and went over all the symbolic halls. As it was extremely cold and windy, we didn’t stay for a longer time. However, just by skimming at everything, I got a sense of how majestic the architectures were and the enriched cultural value behind it. 

The Forbidden City

In the morning, as the first part of our field trip, we went to the Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, which were close to each other within a walking distance. Our guide introduced the broad history and structure of Tiananmen Square to us. The square contains the Monument to the People's Heroes, the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. It was also my first time to learn that Mao’s huge profile hanging outside of the Tiananmen gate is updated every single year. In the Forbidden City, we walked through the whole City vertically and went over all the symbolic halls. From the south, these are the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Central Harmony, and the Hall of Preserving Harmony. As it was extremely cold and windy, we didn’t stay for a longer time. However, just by skimming at everything, I got a sense of how majestic the architectures were and the enriched cultural and religious value behind it. 

 Getting heat from the hand dryer

After we left the scenic area in central Beijing, we went to to an authentic old Beijing restaurant called “Hai Wan Ju", one of the best traditional restaurant in Beijing recommended by our driver. Over there, we have tried traditional Beijing food such as "Zha jiang mian" (noodles with soybean paste), "Jingjiang Pork" (sauteed meat shreds with soy bean paste), and green bean cake. After the satisfying lunch, we went around the mall for a little while. We not only shopped but also surprisingly found pets selling in the center of the mall. Yushan, Ronnie and I hanged around these cute animals for a little before we went back to the hotel. I really enjoyed how informative and flexible our Saturday cultural trip was. My only pity would be the limited time we had on everything, especially the Forbidden City.  I remember there are extensive collections of artwork and artifacts that were built upon the imperial collections of different dynasties. I would love to spend time indoor and look at those collections if we had more time. 

Little kitties in the mall

Closing Time: Last Call for Karaoke

            “Cheers and tears,” said Jason, just one of the many Tsinghua students and professors who voluntarily offered their time to make our experience abroad wonderful. Final words were said at the banquet followed by many GANBEIs! Ten days in Beijing was best spent with amazing people, justifiably rowdy and rambunctious. How else do you walk the streets of Beijing with 18 people without yelling, laughing, and ordering too much food? It was magical to spend our last night together learning how to perfectly wrap up Peking duck, singing and rapping at the dinner table, and bringing the whole class to karaoke. If only we could have convinced our professors to sing a song with us!

Earlier in the afternoon, we had our final presentations. It was great to explore some topics that may be pertinent to China. Although we have a very concentrated Western perspective, it is fascinating how we all come from very different parts of the world but ultimately seek the same goals. From an academic level to a personal level, I feel that many of us simply seek to live a good life and share that richness with others however we can. From the hospitality of Tsinghua University to the kindness of the professors and students, I definitely felt this type of collaboration while learning new perspectives on sustainability.

            All my life I have felt disconnected to my Chinese identity. It is something I do not admit often, but I have always felt like it has been one of my greatest embarrassments. When I arrived in Beijing with extremely limited communication skills in Chinese, I thought I would be uncomfortable. Strangers and acquaintances would ask me questions with an expectation that I would understand, and all I can do is apologize and explain to them that I did not speak Chinese. These past few days I have really grown to understand just how much knowing my own culture’s language is an expectation for me.rr

All my time growing up I have been trying to avoid it like all things you are never good at. I have honestly just been scared to ever learn. But I meet these wonderful people, abroad and back home, and am constantly motivated to have conversations with them one day. I want to talk to our Chinese friends studying at the university, I want to have a real conversation with my grandparents; I want to tell them about my travels and my studies on the environment. Despite not knowing Chinese, all the native-speakers that came out with us on this study abroad has been monumental in making our experience so fantastic. They were our guides even if it was their first time in Beijing, they were our translators on complex topics on energy infrastructure and sustainability. Many were even willing to teach me a few slang terms along the way! I think everyone quickly became more than peers, but friends. I hope everyone knows how grateful I am to have been part of this trip. Beyond the travel souvenirs and trinkets, these moments will go down as one of my favorite memories. Ten days is not long but I do not believe that time represents the entirety of one’s experience. To me, it meant much, much more.

Lectures Day

I thought that having three lectures today would be too much, but I actually wanted to have more time. I really enjoyed learning about China’s history and wish we had more time so the lecturer could really get to his favorite part of history and what he specializes in. When he mentioned the Temple of Heaven it made me want to stay longer in Beijing and visit it. Ten days in China is most definitely not enough to soak all the culture and history in!

I enjoyed listening to Kristi’s lecture because having taken ENVIR 239 in the summer I haven’t had any recent lectures from her. I think it was a good way for the Tsinghua students to learn about Seattle and environmental policies in the US. I was actually able to connect some things to my LSJ 200 class that I took this last quarter. We discussed the Bolt decision at length but I didn’t learn about the environmental impacts that the dams have on the salmon that were a part of the decision. 

 

Monday: Lecture Day!

Date: December 18th, 2017 
Weather: Sunny and cold
Location: SOE (School of Environment) , Tsinghua University 

Today is the Lecture Day! We had a total of three lectures: Remaking Sustainability Science – New Context, New Challenges, Chinese History, and Salmon Conservation and the Endangered Species Act. 


On our way to SOE Building on Tsinghua campus

Our first lecture was Remaking Sustainability Science – New Context, New Challenges, given by Xiaolin, Zhang. She came to Beijing from Hong Kong to give us this lecture. She is a professor from City University of Hong Kong, and is well know for her longstanding and interdisciplinary interest in sustainable urbanism as well as urban redevelopment featured in China. In her lecture, she introduced three points: the first was the global urban-rural gap, the second was the triple-bottom-line theory, and the third was about global urbanization. She points out that by 2050, 70% of the world will be urbanized from 29% in the 1950s.  Urban land use will continue to increase in the foreseeable future in China, whilst the agricultural land will gradually decrease. Nevertheless, different policy scenarios will have different impacts on these land changes. Thus decision makers can adopt different policies to control the rate of land use change. One key takeaway challenge that Zhang pointed out was the displacement of a large number of rural migrants and exacerbated social inequality. When thinking about rural migrants and exacerbated social inequality, I immediately recall people who live at the edge of Beijing, where we went for solar panel and wind farm visit and saw a huge unorganized landfill. It is hard to imagine that immigrants from other cities who can't afford to live in Beijing are experiencing this sort of extreme environmental injustice and social inequity right outside of Beijing. 

In front of SOE Building

The second lecture we had was Chinese History from Dr. Lu. He skipped part of his Bachelor degree and master degree, and got a PhD degree at Princeton. He used to stay at Princeton and teach, but now he's a professor at Peking University. His history class was one of my favorite Chinese history learning experiences I've ever had. Learning Chinese history through the city of Xi'an with a temporal perspective was a new methodology of history learning for me. It was also my first time going through Chinese history in such a comprehensive but detailed way, and I believe it was the best way to let students who have never learnt Chinese history before to quickly understand the broad picture and external value of it. 

Before Lectures

The last lecture we had was Salmon Conservation and the Endangered Species Act from Kristi Straus, University of Washington. During her lecture, we finally got chance to corporate with our Tsinghua cohort. It was one of the most interactive lectures that we had through our trip and I really enjoyed the way we were participate with each other and our professor. Straus firstly brought out a discussion on how salmon values culturally, economically, and ecologically. Salmon is a big part of some native American's culture, while it is also important for the fishing industry as well as the food web in nature. She also identified the challenges that salmon population was facing as well as the Endangered Species Act. It was interesting to know some details on how it works, and how the Act is enforced at a national level instead of a state level. 

TA Chen's birthday Party

After all three lectures, we had a sweet little birthday party for our Tsinghua's TA, Chen Shi, and we shared cakes. I think although all the lectures were a little bit short, it was an amazing day with a lot of wonderful learnings. 

Sleepless in Seattle, Catnapping in China

Throughout the trip, we have had some long travel periods and decent gaps between programs that are the perfect length for napping. Of course, one could choose to be “productive.” They could pass the time by talking, reading a book, getting work done… or, they could choose perhaps the most beneficial activity of all: sleeping. During the seven total hours on the bus today, there was ample time to catch up on rest.

While travelling, it is key to stay rested. The recommended average amount of sleep generally for adults ages 18 to 64 is between seven and nine hours. It can be tricky to keep to that schedule when you are jetlagged, especially if you need to be waking up early. Putting yourself on a schedule is important to adjusting quickly, but that also means you might not be sleeping as much as you’re used to.

Getting a good night’s sleep also helps to bolster your immune system. This is extremely important when travelling because you will likely be exposed to a vast variety of germs and need the extra support. Also, while we have been in China, it has been very cold, making us even more prone to sickness.

Lastly, sleeping has been shown to have an effect on memory and thinking processes. Many believe that sleep acts as a platform for your brain to organize the things that have happened to you that day. So, if you want to make the most of a travelling experience, I’d recommend staying rested. Also, who doesn’t love a good nap!

Lecture Day

Today was probably the day with the most lectures. I learned so much from the three lectures. Each lecture was different from another. The first lecture we had was with Professor Zhang from the University of Hong Kong. She’s very knowledgeable in her field and came up with an analysis for sustainable development in China. She examined sustainability from the economics perspective by looking at the GDP growth and the inequality gap between urban and rural. She also informed us the difference between industrial development between China and the U.S by giving an example with cement. China used 2 gigatons more cement in three years than the U.S did in a century. In moving forward, Professor Zhang proposed that sustainability scientists should follow three steps. First, embrace “trans-disciplinary” research through deliberative democracy. Second, sustainability challenges should be approached with solutions across multiple spatial scales. Last but not least, both top-down and bottom-up manners have to be approached to make positive changes. 

The second lecture of the day was about the history of China taught by Professor Lu with the focus on Xi’an. Modern day Xi’an was once the capital in many dynasties in China, but with different names. Professor Lu informed us about the writing history , philosophies, political ideology and cultural aspects of China. He mentioned the sophistication of Chinese innovation with an example of a fancy Qin chariot that was made approximately 2500 years ago. The Mandate of Heaven, Confucius ideas were also briefly described. One thing that stood out to me is the three orders: social, moral and political. These three concepts have heavily rooted in the Chinese culture.  

Last lecture of the day was taught by our Professor Straus. She focused on Salmon Conservation. Through her lecture, we were able to collaborate with our Tsinghua peers. Not only we learned about the characteristics of salmon, we also learned about the Endangered Species Act, the removal dams as ways to protect salmon and marine life. One thing that shocked me was that sea lions are shot for eating salmon 

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3 / 3

by government agents.  

Overall, the lectures were all informative and unique in their own ways. Each lecture could be expanded more because there are so much we haven’t learned about. 

1.