Visibility in Beijing is pretty bad this morning. It looks more like a foggy winter morning. China’s and the IOC’s insistence that the air is safe sounds like what the tobacco companies used to try and argue. I am sure there will be serious cloud seeding done today to try and get some rain happening this afternoon.

Here is an article from China Daily on Beijing’s air quality:

Haze does not mean poor quality air, a senior Beijing environmental official said a week ago.

Arne Ljungqvist, chairman of the IOC medical commission, said at the ongoing 120th IOC session Tuesday: “We are using World Health Organization (WHO) standards for evaluation … They are fairly tough to meet, but in many aspects, Beijing does.”

“I am sure and confident that the air quality will not pose any major problem to the athletes and visitors.”

Here are some more good quotes. I like how Ljungqvist tries to argue that the WHO standards are only for “long term residents”.

With just three days to go for the Beijing Olympics, a section of the international media has raised the bogey of Beijing’s air quality again, saying it fails to meet the WHO standards.

But Ljungqvist said the WHO representative in Beijing has expressed “extreme dissatisfaction” with such media for exaggerating the city’s pollution problem. Ljungqvist met with the WHO official recently.

“The WHO standards are not intended for temporary visitors,” Ljungqvist said. “They are for permanent residents” to guard them against long-term risks.

Here is how the sky looks today (August 7th):

And on August 1st: