More Sketchy Pollution Numbers

Last year American environmental consultant Steven Q. Andrews caused a big fuss ahead of the Beijing Olympics when he questioned the validity of the Chinese capital’s air pollution statistics. The local government denied his allegations, but did little to prove him wrong. The regional pollution control measures taken ahead of the Games largely succeeded in cleaning up the dirty air, and the issue faded. Andrews has continued to look into clean air stats, and has just published an article that looks at the published pollution data for dozens of Chinese cities. He examines the “blue sky bias,” or tendency for reported pollution numbers to fall just under the cutoff for what authorities consider a relatively clean day. In Chengdu in 2007, for instance, 52 days fell just under the cutoff, but none were just over. “The audacity of the data manipulation in cities beyond Beijing, including Chengdu, Xian, Shenyang and Kunming, is truly astounding,” he says.