People in Beijing are getting used to strange natural phenomena – blue skies and stars at night – reports Clifford Coonan in the Irish Times this morning. And yesterday, the NYTimes’s Jim Yardley reported that Friday and Saturday had the cleanest summertime air in recent memory. While the games opened amid a smoggy murk that considerably dimmed the sight of the ceremony’s mega-fireworks show – and left many athletes wondering whether their lungs were in for a major challenge – Xinhua reports that yesterday was the month’s eighth day of excellent air quality. That is the best such spell in at least ten years. Sunday was clean too. But it was raining so that may not have much to do with the traffic restrictions and closure of factories in and upwind of the capital.

Despite such reports as these, the coverage has been scant in view of the immense anxiety over air quality for the last year or more. One can assume that if pollution indices, and the clarity of the view, remain good it will get substantial media attention. One hopes reporters who remain in Beijing in coming weeks and months will let us know whether and how fast the air reverts to its noxious normal. An object lesson in emissions controls – and their payoff – just might impress the citizenry and lawmakers enough to help put enforcement teeth into China’s pollution standards.

*UPDATE: Nat’l Geographic News’s Rick Lovett ran, on Aug. 15, a solid account of the changing air, the measurements, and what experts make of it.

-CP

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