With Anger Over Dirty Air Rising.docx

With Anger Over Dirty Air Rising, Beijing Tries Tours of Monitoring Center
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: November 9, 2011
New York Times
BEIJING — Environmental officials who have resisted prehensive data about air pollution here in the capital announced that they would take action to address plaints that the government’s monitoring system fails to report on the most dangerous airborne particles emitted by the growing ranks of cars and trucks.
The action: allowing 40 people to tour the source of the frustration, Beijing’s monitoring center, once a week.
“With their rising quality of life, Beijing residents are increasingly concerned about the environment,” Hua Lei, vice director of the city’s monitoring center, told Xinhua, the state news agency, in a report published Tuesday. “We hope the new move can allay the public’s fears.”
The move is significant as an instance of Chinese officials responding to popular discontent. However, the tours, which must be arranged in advance through an online application, do not appear to raise the likelihood that the center’s pollution reports will be any prehensive.
The city’s environmental bureau currently releases data on pollutants, but many environmentalists and scientists say the more dangerous particles, those smaller than micrometers, or PM , are left out of the daily assessments.
The discrepancy has been driven home by th