A Dearth of Posts and Sky

It's been a long, busy, smoggy week, and I've been relatively uninspired. It's possible that my view from the tenth floor makes the gray look bleaker than it really is, but knowing that doesn't dull the effect much. Not seeing the sun or the sky for a while really is depressing. We've also had some crazy torrential downpours over the past few days, complete with crackling thunder and lightning arcs you can see for miles, but nothing seems to take the haze away. I guess I lucked out the first three weeks on the weather front. Yeah puns!

On Saturday it started pouring while I was on the subway, so that when I finally got off I was caught totally unprepared in the wildest deluge I've ever seen. Because Beijing is totally flat, everything floods when it rains. Sure there are sewers, but even they have limitations, and I suspect the roads aren't all angled for maximum effect. Needless to say, there were huge puddles everywhere. To make matters worse, I happened to be crossing under a bridge, where the rainwater is funneled down through a long PVC pipe before blasting out onto unsuspecting passersby.

I've always very much enjoyed summer thunderstorms. I like watching the dark clouds roll in and feeling the wind pick up as they come. There's something about that ominous display of Mother Nature's power that connects you to the Earth. Here there is no wind, and there is no watching. It's gray, then it pours, then it's gray again, and all the while you wonder if the rain is cleansing the city or making it dirtier.

I think about this a lot, because the story of the weather in Beijing is the story of a powerful government's attempts to solve some monumental issues in a controversial way. Cloud seeding is a $100 million dollar a year industry in China, and the government is only planning to increase spending throughout the next decade. Why do they do it? A lot of reasons. Sometimes it's to clean pollution out of the air. Other times, it's to combat months of drought. Occasionally, they overdo it, and damages from excess snow cost $650 million to repair. I'm honestly not sure whether cloud seeding is good or bad for the environment, but there are clearly a lot of differing opinions on the matter. If nothing else, it's certainly proof that the Chinese government has never heard the phrase, "Pick your battles." And so, when it's smoggy for days on end here and then we have more rain than the sewer system can support, I have to wonder...

再见
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