I think I may have mentioned how my time here in China has been dominated by a fearsome fog of composed of sea haze (i.e. actual fog) construction debris and downwind factory pollutants. This seems to have resulted in a nagging, sometimes hacking cough that just does not go away, is most prevalent in the mornings…and well, troublesome to say the least.
Considering 650,000 Chinese die due to pollution related illnesses every year (see Greenpeace China – http://www.greenpeace.org/china/en/campaigns/air-pollution), wondering what my lungs currently look like as opposed to what they looked like four months ago isn’t really being that much of a hypochondriac, is it? Chances are I will be okay with my minimal span-of-life exposure to this current air quality but it does not make me feel better in the moment when this is a good day in TEDA:
view not far from home
This past Monday the 14th of December, our school participated in a candle-light vigil in support of action against climate change in conjunction with the just closed United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. This vigil was spearheaded by my partner in crime – Mr. Roland Brand. 
The what looked like 50+ strong vigil, that included a good number of our faculty, was a small gathering meant to get everyone thinking. Thinking about what we can do as individuals and thinking that we need to press those in power to do more. After lighting a few hundred tea lights on our flag platform…we each held our own light and stood on the steps of the school library in the night as students from Mr. Brand’s grade eleven English class read out speeches they had prepared after the introductory speech from Mr. Brand himself which focused on China’s climate errors and their current efforts to reverse them.
We will upload our pictures to the advocacy group avaaz.org as part of the thousands who marked this date in solidarity, in hope, in change, in action.
lighting the way
together.