Has China's cleanup been effective?

Almost one year after the 2008 Olympic games began in Beijing, researchers are going back to determine how effective China's $16.4 billion cleanup effort truly was. Gary Morris of Valparaiso University in Indiana is traveling to Japan with two of his students to repeat their 2008 experiments, where they released balloons into the atmosphere before, during, and after the Olympic Games to measure ozone and sulfur dioxide pollution levels up to 100,000 feet. Monitoring the weather patterns will allow the researchers to determine where the pollution is coming from, and comparisons with last year's data will reveal if China's efforts to decrease air pollution has been successful.

What do you think? Will China pass the test? Visit Morris's blog for updates on this project.

--Jef Akst, intern, The Scientist

Traditionally, smoke pouring out of factory chimneys was a symbol of prosperity. 40 years ago John Kenneth Galbraith remarked that it was diifficult for China to cope with 1 billion poor people, but not nearly as difficult as it would be to cope with 1 billion rich people. The recession has probably done more to reduce pollution in China than the cleanup effort.

I heard the cities are so nasty there is acidic rain because of all the pollution in the air. That is crazyyyy

It is not easy for our Chinese people to clean up the pollution during the vigorous economy development period. Air, water, soil polution is a serious problem which is aggratated by the fact that many people have not realized the deleterious condition.