Desperate People in China Are Buying Cans of Air Imported From Canada
When it comes to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, climate activists who showed up in Parisfor COP21 hoped negotiators would understand that desperate times call for desperate measures. Well, in the case of people in China who are fed up with inhaling polluted air, it seems desperate times call for buying air imported from the wilds of Canada.
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“Our first shipment of 500 bottles of fresh air were sold in four days,” the Edmonton, Canada–based company’s cofounder Moses Lam told The Telegraph. Lam, who works as a banker, said Vitality Air was born after he and Troy Paquette managed to sell a plastic sandwich bag of air on eBay for $160 as a joke. “That’s when we realized there is a market for this,” Lam said.
In a place where the air pollution is so bad that people have been told to stay home from work and school—and those who do go out have taken to wearing masks—it’s not hard to see why inhaling Vitality Air might be appealing.
China declared red alert for #smog. Need a breath of fresh air? Check out our products! #ChinaSmogpic.twitter.com/9wPWH090Ol
— Vitality Air (@vitalityair) December 8, 2015
“The sun is rising on the horizon. Sunlight peeks through the trees as you move towards the opening in the trailhead,” reads a description on the Vitality Airwebsite of the location in Banff National Park in Alberta, where the company collects its air. Meanwhile, people in China have been dealing with air so smoggy that some days the sun is completely obscured—to the point that last year the government put up an LED billboard of a fake glowing sun in Beijing.
“The pristine wilderness is now behind as you stand on a rocky outcrop, taking in the soaring mountain peaks in front of you. You breathe heavy, filling your lungs with the crisp mountain air, with the slight scent of pine,” the website continues.
Pine—not the scent of vehicle exhaust, burning coal, or noxious factory pollution.
Harrison Wang, the company’s representative in China, told The Telegraph that the canisters—which cost $22 for 7.7 liters of air—are mostly being bought by well-off Chinese women. “In China, fresh air is a luxury, something so precious,” he said.
Replies
Who continamated the air in the first place ...now you are paying a price