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Facemasks have the potential to prevent cardiovascular events
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Monday, 24 August 2009,
Written by Julien
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 As the concentration of fine particles is quite high in Beijing, it is a good place to assess the efficiency of facemasks . A team from the Centre for Cardiovascular Sciences of Edinburgh University just published a scientific study on this topic . Their findings are quite interesting as they show some measurable improvements linked with wearing a mask.
Basically, 15 healthy volunteers were asked to walk on a predefined city centre route in Beijing in the presence and absence of a highly efficient facemask. Personal exposure to ambient air pollution and exercise was assessed continuously using portable real-time monitors and global positional system tracking respectively. Cardiovascular effects were assessed by continuous electrocardiographic and ambulatory blood pressure monitoring.
The conclusion of their study is straightforward:
"Wearing a facemask appears to abrogate the adverse effects of air pollution on blood pressure and heart rate variability. This simple intervention has the potential to protect susceptible individuals and prevent cardiovascular events in cities with high concentrations of ambient air pollution."
The mask tested was a dust respirator complying to FFP1 European standard and of course not a traditional Beijing Opera facemask!
Many thanks to Vance, a fellow blogger on pollution in Beijing, who sent me the link to this report. His great blog is available again in China at the following address: http://www.livefrombeijing.com
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Tuesday, 28 April 2009,
Written by Julien
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Last Wednesday was Earth Day. I went to the BBQ organized by Greening the Beige . After Earth Hour at the end of March, it was another occasion to talk about environment. It is really nice to talk but I have the feeling that those awareness rising initiatives do not have big impact in the short term.
 Switching from electricity to candles for an hour is quite debatable from a pure environmental point of view (candles are much less efficient than bulbs!) and it might also give a wrong message: "Switch off the lights for one hour and forget about environment until next year"! I found this great article from The Australian that sums it up well. What stated there is so true: "Unfortunately, this event - as with many public proposals on climate change - is an entirely symbolic gesture that creates the mistaken impression that there are easy, quick fixes to climate change."
Earth Day is a bit better as the message tends to be less simplistic, but still: it is quite easy to change your way of life for a single day. You can wait one day to wash your clothes, you can work one day from home to avoid using cab, you can make the extra effort to close the tap while brushing your teeth on that day... but would you be able to keep it up longer?
We have to change our way of life on the long term to really reduce our impact on the environment. So what about creating an Earth Week? It could be great fun and really have a positive impact.
We could have something like:
- You choose one area where you think you could easily reduce your impact on environment for example transportation or electricity consumption or water consumption.
- For two weeks before the Earth Week, you monitor your usage on this area (eg check the electricity or water meters or collect your taxi/gas bills) to know how much you really use.
- You commit on a change you are willing to make (eg: cutting your cab/car usage by half, lower your water consumption by 20%).
- During Earth Week you stick to this commitment.
- At the end of the week, you can decide to stick to this commitment for the rest of the year!
I would love to do that. What about you?
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Speech tonight at Cheung Kong GSB
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Monday, 27 April 2009,
Written by Julien
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 Just to let you know, I'll be speaking tonight at a panel organized at the Cheung Kong GSB in Beijing. The topic of the panel is:
"Net Capitalists : Making Money Online - A Panel Discussion
Three Beijing-based professionals talk about their entrepreneurial
experiences using the web to make profit and give you tips on starting
out on your own commercial online adventure."
The panel is part of the Cheung Kong Open Lecture Series. It starts at 7pm, in Oriental Plaza E3, 12th floor (subway Dongdan on line 1 and line 5). Free.
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Friday, 03 April 2009,
Written by Julien
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In addition to our online catalogue, the products will be more and more available in regular shops.
For now, you can find some Respro masks in the following stores:
Beijing, Dongcheng - Lama Temple: Natooke is foreign owned and managed with fluent English, Chinese, German, Italian and French staff. Natooke is the only fixed-gear bike and juggling store in China.
 Beijing, CBD and Shunyi: World Health Store is foreign owned and managed with fluent English & Chinese staff. Also available in store is the biggest array of imported health, vitamins, sports supplements in all of China.
Beijing, Haidian district: Merida Bicycle shop. Chinese service only.
Click here to find how to get to these stores .
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Wednesday, 01 April 2009,
Written by Julien
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There has been a long time since I last blogged. The reason is not that I am not interested about environment anymore (I have actually been answering to comments and to requests for Respro masks since September), I have just been busy with other things. In the meantime, I have been interested, annoyed, touched by many topics regarding environment. I'll try to catch up in the coming weeks!
Here are few of the things I was busy with over the last few months:
- Establishing a sustainable business in China: I am commited to bring solutions against pollution to individuals. I did it through this blog since 2006, but to be able to do it on a sustainable way, I wanted to be able to live from it. I registered a proper company in China (it's not so easy, believe me!) and I now have a fully fledged import-export WFOE. I am able to bring more ideas and products to the market!
- Linking French companies. I care for the environment but I also care for my community, French companies in China. I've worked a lot on that in the last 2 years and in January, we hold a great Forum to help French companies working together. Big Challenge, big achievement: Forum Travailler Ensemble (fr) .
- Representing French companies: to continue my involvement with French business community, I am now member of the Board of the French Chamber in China. It's a great place to bring positive change!
With all these commitments, I'll definitely stay a few more years in Beijing, despite the pollution ;) Keep in touch!
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Wednesday, 24 September 2008,
Written by Julien
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Olympics and the Paralympics are over! Most anti-pollution restrictions were lifted last Sunday: traffic jams are covering roads again, tucks are back and factories can produce again... Air quality has remained quite good over the last few days but we can expect pollution to come back to its pre-Olympics levels soon.
However, I believe not everything will be reverted to its initial status. At least one thing changed: residents of Beijing now know that their air is bad and that the current state is not normal. They knew it before, but they had not experienced it. After one month in a city with low air pollution all Beijingers cherish breathing in fresh air.
For example, it is a fairly good sign that a majority of Beijingers were supporting the idea of keeping the car restrictions after Olympics. Even though a majority of Beijingers do not have a car, it shows that they would be ready to accept tough measures for having a better air.
As the Olympics pressure on the government is fading off, people's aspirations for clean air could push environmental reforms forward!
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Ozone and PM2.5 data in Beijing?
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Monday, 11 August 2008,
Written by Julien
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I blogged yesterday about how international pressure helps Beijing improving its air. Today I found this announcement : Beijing might start to monitor ozone and very fine particle matters (PM2.5) starting from next year.
Ozone is harmful for our health but there is no data available now. Having a daily monitoring of ozone would help people avoiding pollution peaks. It would also encourage Beijing municipality to take measures against ozone pollution.
Having PM2.5 data would also be interesting as particle matters are the main pollutants in Beijing. PM2.5 concentration is important as those fine particles are the most harmful for human health. Knowing both PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations would give us a more precise overview of the situation.
Let's hope Beijing officials will not forget this promise after August 24th!
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The green side of Olympics
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Sunday, 10 August 2008,
Written by Julien
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I usually see the dark side of air pollution in Beijing: the data! The reason is that air in Beijing is not good compared with international standards. It is a fact that on most days air in Beijing would be considered as bad in European cities.
However, if I step back and have a look at the general context I am impressed by the efforts Beijing made to curb the emissions and by its successes in controlling the pollution. It is amazing that with more than 10% yearly growth over the last 7 years, SO2 & CO levels have been significantly reduced and NO2 & particle concentrations have been stabilized.
The measures that have been taken are really bold and I am sure no developped country would have been able to implement them. As it might be hard to understand for people not living in China, here below are just few of the measures taken to modernize transportation:
- Replacement of old and polluting taxis (77.5% of Beijing taxis in 2001),
- Opening of 4 new subway lines in the last 10 months,
- Drop of public transportation price in 2007 (33% to 60% drop on subway fare),
- Replacement of many old buses by comfortable and ecological buses...
Thanks to these measures the use of public transportation is now cheap and comfortable. People can let their cars at home and commute with mass transport. It's good for our air and for the people!
For sure, air in Beijing is not good yet. But I think it would be much worse if the Olympics were not here: the international pressure helped Beijing to improve the environmental situation.
However, more efforts need to be made to achieve a good air quality and I hope the current momentum will be sufficient to stay on this positive trend.
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