I am fortunate to have a very attractive view from my flat, looking north across the harbour towards Kowloon, and each fine day - particularly windless ones - I am able to watch as the crisp, clear morning air is replaced by a sooty, yellow smog which all but obliterates the Lion Rock by late afternoon.
The estate where I live (and there are many like it in Hong Kong), has quite a number of residents who have drivers, and many of these drivers sit, windows wound up, with their engines running, waiting for their employers to appear - in many cases, for well over half-an-hour. Some sleep in their cars for even longer periods. When I walk past, on my way to take my little boy to school, I usually ask them to turn their engines off, explaining that we would rather not have to breathe in the noxious gases that are being emitted from their engines.
Some do turn the engines off; some totally ignore me. Most react like I've just dropped out of an X-File; no doubt they feel that the pollution from their little engine is but a drop in the bucket when compared to the huge tourist buses roaring past, on their way to The Peak.
Maybe it is, but a lot of drops can quickly fill a lot of buckets, and it is a well-known fact that an idling engine is often inefficient and can emit a greater proportion of un-burnt hydrocarbons than when it is running faster, under load.
A few days ago I also counted 15 large school and tourist buses, parked near the waterfront at Hunghom, all with their engines running and most with the drivers inside, either sleeping or enjoying their lunch boxes.
It is crazy situation, and I find it incredible that not one Exco or Legislative Councillor, senior police officer or member of the Environmental Protection Department (EPD), has seen fit to do anything positive about it. After all, they and their own families have to inhale the same air as the rest of us. Do they walk around with their eyes, ears and noses blocked up? Or is it that they don't walk around - they only drive around? If the offence of not wearing a rear seat-belt (if fitted) can be subject to a $5,000 fine and three months in prison, then deliberately blowing pollution up other people's noses from a parked car, for no better reason than to keep yourself cool, should, at the very least, carry the same penalty. If nothing more positive is in the pipeline, perhaps the Government Information Service could run a campaign to educate these ignorant people; both the drivers and their employers.
