Cough Cough Hack Hack

I just came back from jogging around Hagley Park with Orli tonight. The park was an eerie scene - the rows of willows poked up through the thick fog and were backlit by the far lights from the netball courts. But wait, it wasn't fog. And so begins my annual whinge on air pollution here. At this point, I probably should pause and point out that I am not really a professional pollution expert - I just play one on TV. So this could all be a bunch of bunk, or I could be on to something here.

Granted, it is cold tonight - when I got back and checked the Council weather site, it was 4.2C/39F out, which probably makes it the coldest weather I have ever run in. But that doesn't excuse the smog - it was worse than I have ever seen in Denver or Seattle or Albuquerque, and sadly standard for a cold Christchurch night. It is a horrendous soup to be running through, especially when you've got your respiratory system trying to gulp in as much oxygen as possible. I have even had Anne ask me if I've taken up smoking in the past after walking home in this.

So I hopped on the trusty laptop and did a brief amount of research. It seems that air pollution from fireplaces (or wood burners as they are known locally) is measured in terms PM10, which is related to the size of the particulate matter, or soot from the wood burners. In 2007, the Ministry for the Environment measured Christchurch's average PM10 at about 18 μg/m3, down from around 21 μg/m3 in 2006. The highest measured 24-hour period was about 120 μg/m3, while the Queenstown area had a stunning 24-hr high of 168 μg/m3. The highest legal level is 50 μg/m3 here. Source: http://www.mfe.govt.nz/environmental-reporting/report-cards/air/2009/air-report-card-2008.pdf

Now, for the sake of comparison, let us look at Los Angeles, which had the worst PM10 counts in the US in 2007. It also had about 17.4 million more people than Christchurch. In 2007, the highest 24-hr period was 143 μg/m3 somewhere out in the suburban sprawl of Riverside County. That is only 19% higher than Christchurch and quite a bit lower than Queenstown. The averages were around 30-60 μg/m3, so worse than Christchurch, but the average doesn't hurt your body so much as those high nights (Christchurch was over the legal limit 14 times that year). Source: http://www.aqmd.gov/smog/AQSCR2007/aq07card.pdf

What is my point? Only that while New Zealand does pretty good for sustainability in some areas, all it takes is a run through Hagley Park (or even the 4-block walk home from work) to see where it desperately needs improvement.