Central Taiwan’s air pollution problems need to be solved scientifically, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) told reporters as he stumped for the Taiwan People’s Party yesterday in Taichung.
Ko, chairman of the party, was responding to reporters’ questions about the city’s air quality, which reached “unhealthy” or “very unhealthy” levels on the air quality index over the weekend.
Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has often attributed the city’s frequent poor air quality to emissions from the Taichung Power Plant, and the city government last year imposed a large fine on the plant.
Photo: Su Meng-chuan, Taipei Times
However, while the plant’s capacity was reduced to less than 30 percent over the weekend, air pollution was still serious.
“Is Taichung Power Plant or the sixth naphtha cracker complex [in Yunlin County] the main cause of air pollution?” Ko said. “The government should use statistical data based on scientific evidence to answer that question.”
“Scientific problems need to be solved scientifically,” he said.
Air pollution is usually caused by more than one factor, and it took scientific methods for Taipei to find the factors to bring its average PM2.5 (fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers) levels down, he said.
While millions of people are exposed to long-term air pollution and an increased risk of lung cancer, the government acts as if it can do nothing about it, Ko said.
“It has become a battle of words for politicians, but the problem is still not solved,” he added.
Lung cancer is the most common cancer-related death in Taiwan, but the nation’s two major parties are being irresponsible by focusing too much energy on debating the “fake issue” of pro-independence or pro-unification, rather than solving air pollution problems, Ko said at a Taichung event on Saturday night.
He criticized the Democratic Progressive Party and the KMT as “very lazy” and unable to tackle important issues such as PM2.5 pollution, wind power or nuclear power, and that Taiwan could one day lose its “Four Asian Tigers” status it continues to use the independence-unification dividing line to rule the nation.
“Both parties clearly know the debate over pro-independence or pro-unification is a fake agenda, but they enjoy it because they do not have to work harder on more important issues,” Ko said.
“The two are only interested in becoming the governing party and dividing the spoils among their factions when they rule. They both use hate and fear to manipulate voters,” he added.
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