I would say, unlucky Beijing and very unlucky all of us.
During the Olympics, no pollution – guaranteed. But despite the tremendous efforts and restrictions, Beijing has been plagued by lack of wind, sultry weather, bad visibility. And higher than expected API.
I have now on record all data from 21 May 2008 till 2 August. You can’t find that back by the way. Anybody interested, let me know. I would like to put some figures on my blog but I always run out of time.
Some conclusions:
– dust really has drastically been reduced as I can see on my balcony; no need to measure, just wipe the dust from the inox rails; they never have been so clean.
– I thought the official API were unreliable but I think they are closer to reality than expected; the point is they don’t give the API of some critical locations such as Qianmen (disappeared from all listings – was the worst location) nor the Olympic Green (there is an hidden advanced meteorology station in the Park, never mentioned – I have pics of it).
– the API supplied as usual actually only refers to PM10; in a distant past you could read daily figures on SO2 and NO2 but they all disappeared, probably because they are too bad; with the new additional data for the Olympics one immediately sees the API is only the PM10; SO2 and NO2 are listed again; other dangerous pollutants are not listed, such as ozone and many others
– in the same way China Daily stopped publishing national API because it was too horrible anyway
– for the poor of us, it only proves once and for all the battle against pollution is hopeless; just think – if with all the efforts it is hard to go below API 100, how bad it must be under “normal” conditions.
As I said already – living in Beijing is hazardous to your health. Only moron foreigners or dinosaur bureaucrats deny it.

See also a chart and a cartoon from the South China Morning Post. Of course some of the IOC officials belong to the “All is well” category.