[Speculator]

from todays Standard..

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_d...448&con_type=3

Poor air quality in Hong Kong, Macau and the rest of the Pearl River Delta is costing 10,000 lives, 440,000 hospital stays and 11 million outpatient visits every year, according to top scientists and experts.

[nicolejoy]

You know what I don't get? Hong Kong does have these health care issues - but regardless, it has one of the longest life expectancies in the world. I believe the life expectancy rate here is higher than that of the USA, Canada or Great Britain!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ife_expectancy

So it can't be TOOOOO bad - people still live on average 3-4 years longer than people in the USA...

[aussiegal]

I'm going to guess that that is because there is less of an obesity/weight issue here than in the countries you mentioned.

[jjmum]

Originally Posted by aussiegal

I'm going to guess that that is because there is less of an obesity/weight issue here than in the countries you mentioned.

Hey, very logical guess! I think you're quite right.

[Sleuth]

Originally Posted by nicolejoy

You know what I don't get? Hong Kong does have these health care issues - but regardless, it has one of the longest life expectancies in the world. I believe the life expectancy rate here is higher than that of the USA, Canada or Great Britain!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ife_expectancy

So it can't be TOOOOO bad - people still live on average 3-4 years longer than people in the USA...

The bad pollution here, according to those who have been here for a long time, is relatively recent. It would be shockingly bad if a build up of pollution over the course of say 10 years was adversely impacting life expectancy already.
It isn't so bad that it is going to kill you tomorrow or even next year, it's going to be 30 or 40 years from now. Life expectancies would need to be compared around 2050.

[soon2bmom]

This is an issue that's close and dear to my heart. I'm seriously considering moving back to Aus or Can(where husband comes from) to have my kids grow up in a healthier environment. I have lived in four cities: Sydney, LA, Shanghai and HK, and I can tell you for sure that Shanghai is definitely the worst but HK is not too far behind. To us, no job offer or business opportunity is worth the risk.

As for the life span, I would guess that the effect of air pollution is a long term one and you will need to measure the direct cause-and-effect over several decades, i.e. it has a time lag. People who live long lives now enjoyed better air when they were growing up in the 1930s and 1940s, at that time, I believe China didn't have factories in the Pearl Delta region. Then of course as it's been mentioned, the obesity and diet problem.

[MLBW]

I hate the air pollution in Hong Kong and it is really bad. I don't really even care what the scales say, the fact that I feel like my skin is crawling with dust and debris every time I go outside anywhere in Hong Kong and that the air gives me headaches and makes my throat sore says to me that things are really bad in HK. For this reason (and many others) my husband and I plan to move out of HK as soon as possible--especially for our health and the health of our 11-month-old son. I read this article about a year ago:

http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/E...article/276665

Hong Kong has the number 3, worst-polluting, coal burning electrical plant in the world located at Castle Peak.

Top 10 polluting power plants

The world's most polluting power plants, with annual emissions in millions of tons of CO{-2}. Ontario Power Generation's Nanticoke generating station on Lake Erie is 65th, with 17.6 million tons.

1. Taichung, Taiwan (41.3)

2. Poryong, South Korea (37)

3. Castle Peak, Hong Kong (35)

4. Reftinskaya SDPP, Russia (33)

5. Mailiao FP, Taiwan (32.4)

6. Tuoketuo-1, China (32.4)

7. Vindhyachail, India (29)

8. Hekinan, Japan (28.9)

9. Kendal, South Africa (28.6)

10. Janschwalde, Germany (27.4)

[hannah.e.law]

I'm going to have to be a voice for the other side here, as I feel that, while there is pollution here, it completely depends on the person as to how affected you are. I'll admit that the first month or two after coming to HK, from Seattle USA (a relatively clean-air large city), I occasionally felt the pollution, especially if I was doing some lung-busting exercise.

But I have been here for well over a year now and very rarely notice it anymore. Some days in the summertime I'd notice it as a haze in the air one days when it was sweltering hot and not a breeze to be seen. However, even when doing lung-busting exercises, I can't tell. That being said, I don't exercise in Central. However I live on HK Island, and not on the South side either.

There may be some people who are really affected, but I'm not one of them, and I'm sure there are many more like me, although it seems not on this forum. I don't mean to imply that there isn't pollution, and that you won't notice it, but unless your spending hours everyday standing in Central at a busy corner, I don't feel it's necessarily going to negatively impact your life.