After taking my morning run along the Gold Coast in Hong Kong I felt like I'd smoked a pack of cigarettes because of the smog. It's a lot better than the air pollution I saw on trips to Manila and New Delhi, but still it is pretty bad.

At first as I reflected on this I was surprised. After all Hong Kong now has a per capita income almost as high as the U.S. and higher than most of Europe. Why aren't they investing more in pollution reduction?

I think the answer might be that the demand for a cleaner environment is a function of wealth more so than income. Hong Kong clearly generates a lot of income, but it has only done so at this level for the last several decades. This is still not enough time to have accumulated as much wealth as we have in the U.S. (which had led the world in income for 200 years).

UPDATE: Apparently the air pollution problem is much simpler to understand. It's coming over the border from the electricty factories in China that burn crappy soft coal.

Btw, we woke up to beautiful blue skies this morning--a big improvement over the gray hazy smog of the last few days.