Taking the Air We Breathe for Granted

With a comedic twist to the problem of global warming, Hong Kong's Clean Air Network posted a video six days ago about how drastic air pollution might become. The video addresses the necessity for people to take action in the "hot" category of Tom Friedman's Hot, Flat & Crowded.

No wonder. Pollution is a perpetual bane in Hong Kong — because of both roadside pollution and fumes produced by factories across the border, in mainland Chinese cities like Shenzhen. The Clean Air Network estimates that the city’s air is three times more polluted than New York’s and more than twice as bad as London’s.

A majority of Americans are aware of the air pollution because of footage from the last summer Olympics, but many fail to see that China's problem is our problem as well. The amount of particulates and debris from coal processing affects the population health in China, which is known to cause cancer and other diseases. That same air accumulating there, has already traveled here to California. The makers of the video saw a problem at home that needed fixing.

‘‘We’re trying to reach younger people, who are in a way our pivotal audience, but whose apathy can be harder to break through,’’ said Joanne Ooi, the group’s chief executive. ‘‘That’s why it was important to have a celebrity and to use humor — to try a whole new angle.’’

It becomes easy for this generation to stand aside while the grownups handle the problem. Joanne Ooi has a point that they needed a new method to make younger people see the world in which we live. American society cannot wait for a necessity, like air, to become a luxury, before drastic actions take place.