Last word

People Creating Solutions for the Planet Now and Towards 2100

We have long advocated a creative approach to dealing with climate change and environmental damage. And clearly believe that art and sustainability are compatible bedfellows. We like what we see and read about CLIMARTE, which harnesses the creative power of the Arts to inform, engage and inspire action on climate change. So we pricked up our ears – and eyes – when we read about a Dutch artist who is keen to vacuum up Beijing’s hazardous smog. We also must remind readers to check out – again – the wonderful book called “Visons 2100” – launched in Paris during the climate change conference – in which 80 contributors from around the world – including yours truly – have put their creative and visionary thoughts into print in looking back to the future. Read More

Today newspaper, Singapore (8 December 2015):

Ms Liu Min, an expectant mother in Beijing, is worried about her baby’s future. She gets anxious when she thinks of the youngest lung cancer patient in China, who is only eight years old. Air pollution is definitely on the minds of Beijing citizens, and now it has driven an artist more than 7,000km away to take action.

Dutch designer and architect Daan Roosegaarde has created a seven-metre-tall air-cleaning “Smog-Free Tower” and is ready to ship it to Beijing if he gets the green light from the Mayor’s office, with whom he says he has had five rounds of talks.

His tower works like a huge outdoor air purifier, and Mr Roosegaarde said it can clean 30,000 cubic metres of air an hour. This means that in one-and-a-half days, it could clean the air contained in a typical football stadium.

It works through ionisation technology, similar to how hair sticks to a balloon’s surface. The tower consumes a small amount of power, equal to a home-use water boiler.

Mr Roosegaarde said he has cleaned a park in Rotterdam and is now looking for partners in China to build and install his towers there.

Tiny toxic particles known as PM2.5 can be inhaled into the lungs. Research from Berkeley Earth, a non-profit organisation that conducts scientific investigations on climate change, shows that 1.6 million people die each year of air pollution in China.

Beijing has rolled out various measures, including tax reductions for buying hybrid cars, but the four-day stretch of smog at the beginning of December, the worst of the year, reveals there is still a serious problem. The choking haze is a scourge that residents such as Ms Liu know well.

“I would really like to do it in Beijing first. It is the city that inspired me to do this,” said Mr Roosegaarde, adding that he was convinced after more than two years of trips to the Chinese capital. Now, he faces a new hurdle: The Mayor’s office keeps postponing. “It’s a very sensitive, political topic,” he said.

Mr Roosegaarde said he has been approached by air-conditioner makers too, including household names in China such as Gree Electric Appliances and Broad Group. But he decided to work with public interests first, through the local government and possibly Tsinghua University, which has also shown interest, according to Mr Roosegaarde. “You have to build trust; it’s China,” he said.

The artist first came up with the idea of the Smog-Free Tower while visiting Beijing as a speaker at a design event in 2013.

He runs a studio in the Netherlands that produces design and architecture projects, with contracts and commissions from museums and local governments.

The tower is the first project he started with his own money. In July, he listed the project on Kickstarter with a goal of raising €50,000 (S$76,000) and it ended up raising €113,153 in two months. One of the rewards he offers donors is a ring set with a cube formed from collected smog particles, which are 42 per cent carbon. And if you place “carbon under high pressure, you get a diamond”.

Mr Roosegaarde’s latest goal is to install his towers in 20 to 25 public parks in Beijing. He plans to offer leases to bring down costs. He would like to expand later to other developing nations, such as India, which face similar air-pollution problems.

A BLOOMBERG report.

Source: www.todayonline.com/business/dutch-artist-keen-vacuum-beijings-hazardous-smog