Another day of choking vehicle smog, another day of inept government hand-wringing on the question of particulate pollution.
Last Sunday, the air was so clogged it was difficult to see the Central skyline as I left for the Outlying Islands. I couldn't help but think of the letter from Mike Stokoe of the Environmental Protection Department, headlined, 'No practicable alternatives to diesel engine' (South China Morning Post, September 13).
I wondered if Mr Stokoe has ever visited San Francisco. Although obviously nowhere as dense as Hong Kong, it is nevertheless a compact city by American standards. It has a lot of hills like Hong Kong does. It also has petrol-driven taxis and clean air, even with the fog.
The reason for this might be that San Francisco has a city council that answers to the people that elected it and that pay for it. Hong Kong, by comparison, has a Government which panders to the economic self-interests of 18,000 or so taxi drivers and their 7,000 minibus maniac colleagues at the expense of the well-being of the remaining 6.3 million inhabitants. It is hardly a great advert for Hong Kong - the 'Asian Powerhouse' in the Government's event literature - if the thousands of delegates from all over the world at the IMF/World Bank meeting can't even see the other side of the harbour from the state-of-the-art Convention Centre.
JONATHAN ELEY New Territories
