10 ms·

On Scale of 0 to 500, Beijing’s Air Quality Tops ‘Crazy Bad’ at 755

190 points by mactitan 14y ago

solox3 14y ago
> what phrase is appropriate to describe Saturday’s jaw-dropping reading of 755 at 8 p.m., when all of Beijing looked like an airport smokers’ lounge? I was there. The truth is, it doesn't just _look_ like an smokers' lounge.
- dmoy 14y ago
  Yea, when you step off the plane and get that first taste (yes, taste) and smell of Beijing air, ick. I dodged this one by a single day, ha. Literally the day after I left it went from a week of sun (unheard of) to <30m visibility. Can't really be too happy, because I'm still sick with a sinus infection right now.
tellarin 14y ago
I live here, and I have to say this, the air even tastes awful! It's weirdly interesting to look outside and to see the streets almost empty and the darkened sky at noon. It was worse from Friday to Saturday, but is still pretty bad. People were warned to stay inside and some schools won't function tomorrow. According to the weather forecast it will only get better around Wednesday; when it will get a bit windy.
- dawson 14y ago
  I will be in Beijing for the 26th, for one week. I'm hoping it's better by then, lots of flights to Beijing were cancelled today too.
- cardamomo 14y ago
  Funny you should bring up taste. I spent some time living in Buenos Aires, Argentina--another city shrouded in a perpetual smog--and had the misfortune of discovering this sooty, dusty flavor for myself. I noticed that the dry beans and grains I bought from one particular shop always had a particular off flavor to them. When rinsed, they left behind a grayish water. I finally realized that what was unique about this store (apart from the taste of their products) was that they stored everything in large open sacks and left the large doors to the store open to the street. Stores that stored their goods in closed bins and left their door to the street closed had better-tasting grains and beans.
- TechNewb 14y ago
  I was there last week, and still can't believe how bad it is. How can China allow this level of pollution? It is not the cars, but the coal that is doing it to the city. I hope China can find a way to create energy and produce goods without such bad pollution. Beijing, and China, would be a much better place to live it only had clean air to breath on a regular basis. Here is to clean energy!
  - tellarin 14y ago
    It's not just Beijing. According to the polution ratings I follow, right now (it varies a lot during the day, it's 2AM here now) Beijing is ranked 16th among the ~50 cities that the government rates. The rating right now is also the same as the one posted by the US embassy here. From what I understand, much of the pollution comes also from other industrial cities and accumulates in this general area of the country (someone that knows more about it please correct me if this is wrong). The government seems to be taking some actions, but it is hard to know how hard they're tackling the problem.
    - trevelyan 14y ago
      Also in Beijing. Just in case readers don't know, the Chinese ratings are produced as a daily average, based on equipment outside the city center (i.e. near the airport), while the US ratings are produced hourly from right downtown. So sometimes the figures are the same, but that usually only happens when coming down from the peak of a particularly bad day, when the average from the previous day's readings are pulling up the official Chinese numbers while the US figures have already fallen to reflect current conditions.
  - wallflower 14y ago
    > How can China allow this level of pollution? The tradeoff between economic growth driven by energy use (for production) and pollution. "The environmental Kuznets curve is a hypothesised relationship between environmental quality and economic development: various indicators of environmental degradation tend to get worse as modern economic growth occurs until average income reaches a certain point over the course of development.[12] Although the subject of continuing debate, some evidence supports the claim that environmental health indicators, such as water and air pollution, show the inverted U-shaped curve.[1] It has been argued that this trend occurs in the level of many of the environmental pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, lead, DDT, chlorofluorocarbons, sewage, and other chemicals previously released directly into the air or water." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuznets_curve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuznets_curve
- deleted 14y ago
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  - guard-of-terra 14y ago
    Why help one specific of billion people escape from hell? Sounds a bit intolerant. The only lasting solution is to fix the hell.
deleted 14y ago
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brador 14y ago
Is it all just from vehicles? Quick fix would be subsidised electric vehicles.
- dmor 14y ago
  I am sure cars contribute, but I believe the majority comes from factories outside of the city and from homes, which primarily burn coal to keep warm. Beijing is downwind from a lot of that.
  - justin66 14y ago
    > I am sure cars contribute I doubt it. At the insane particulate levels they're discussing the air should be a lot cleaner coming out of the car than it was going in. Even if they don't have catalytic converters (anyone??) they've at least got _air filters_.
- nekojima 14y ago
  How are those electric vehicles powered, by coal? Coal is the only cheap and viable short & medium term energy resource solution for China, and a substantial problem (though only not the only source) for causing the pollution currently around Beijing.
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    No, free energy machines, silly! :)
  - ams6110 14y ago
    Coal can be burned fairly cleanly, but requires modern equipment not the likely Soviet designed plants they have.
- mseebach 14y ago
  > Quick fix would be subsidised electric vehicles. No, that would be an 8-lane highway straight into unintended consequences territory.
dmor 14y ago
I was in Beijing for Chinese New Year for a couple weeks in 2009, and when I flew in, I couldn't see the enormous city at all from the sky. It was completely hidden in a cloud of smog. There was some of the worst air quality of the year at that time from all the fireworks plus being the coldest time of year (so everyone is burning coal fires), and a ton of debris in the air from a 44 floor skyscraper that burned to the ground down the street (video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hSPFL2Zlpg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hSPFL2Zlpg) I never really knew what coal burning smelled like before. Even in the city it isn't allowed, but once we left and went to a smaller town outside Beijing that's when I really got it. It is the heat source for 99% of the population, plus it powers most of the factories. There were days where we were told we shouldn't be outside unless absolutely necessary (which was, since my husband had to commute to his job at Microsoft). At night if you blew your nose your tissue would be grey. If you took a shower, the water would run grey from dust wherever your skin had been exposed. Your clothes would be dusted in a thin layer of gray that never really went away. We tried to combat this by changing out of our clothes just inside the front door and putting them straight into the wash, but it never really went away.
- FrojoS 14y ago
  I grew up in a household with harsh winters and coal as the only heating source. As such I can state, that coal is a pretty inconvenient heat source. You have to carrie all the coal you burn from the basement, it requires time to start up, needs permanent oversight and it's almost impossible to adjust the heat to the exact level you want. So my hope is that, as China becomes wealthier, they will abolish coal as a heating source, just for convenience.
  - ChrisClark 14y ago
    It's a little more convenient in at least most of the cities in China. There are coal burning plants every so often in the city, they heat up the water and pipe it through to the nearby apartment buildings. So the average citizen doesn't have to handle the coal. Of course, this means you don't get to control your heat, and it never heats up that much, just keeps you from freezing. And if winter comes early, you still have to wait for November 15 for when the heat gets turned on.
fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
I lived there in '08 and '09. You cannot believe it until you have seen it. The difference during the Olympics was stark. For example, my apartment in Shijingshan had a view of a mountain (~5 mi) and a comm tower (~1 mi). I lived in that apartment for a month before I ever saw either of them. The 'Jing rarely gets full sunlight, rather there is this kind of yellowish lambertian light source in the white-ish gray sky. People who espouse environmental deregulation should go check it out.
- fatbird 14y ago
  I heard that the change during the Olympics was remarkable. How come the actions they took to clean up didn't stick? You would think that when everyone saw the difference, there'd be a lot of support for fixing the underlying problems.
  - fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
    It required them to shut down a lot of industrial production. A temporary pause in production was a reasonable sacrifice for the Olympics. After the games were over, they worked overtime to catch up. Beijingers have lived with it their whole lives, it is normal for them.
  - tellarin 14y ago
    They even shutdown many factories temporarily before the games. Guess many are back on. Also, the city (an many others) grew a lot since 2008. Lots more traffic, heating, etc. Not defending the government, but the problem has also grown bigger.
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    They had the Olympics in August, which normally isn't that bad. If you ever want to visit Beijing, come in fall, and avoid winter.
- cryptoz 14y ago
  > People who espouse environmental deregulation should go check it out. This is a very interesting comment. Right now in Canada, we have a Conservative majority government that is absolutely hell-bent on environmental deregulation. Their supporters almost exclusively bring up China as the primary reason why environmental deregulation is so important to them ("if we kept our existing regulations, our economy would tank since China would make so much more money"). I very much doubt seeing the skies in Beijing would change anything, but I wonder. Perhaps a campaign in Canada to show images of what China is like would make a difference; on the other hand, the supporters of the environmental deregulation are not the type of people to care about air quality. They value a "strong economy" and money above absolutely everything else, and think that Canada needs to pollute more and more, as much as it can in fact, in order to be a reasonable country in the future.
jacquesm 14y ago
This has two parts, one part is the externalization of pollution by the rich countries to developing countries, the second is the speed with which China is increasing its energy consumption due to an increase in local consumption. Their fuel of choice (coal) doesn't help and in many ways what is happening there is comparable to what the industrial revolution did to England not all that long ago. In 1952 (long after the start of the industrial revolution but before the end of major emissions in the UK) this culminated in the 'great smog': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog Which in turn led to the clean air act.
- MichaelSalib 14y ago
  I don't think the industrial revolution comparison is correct. Pretty much all coal pollutants can be easily dealt with using air pollution control technology (except CO2, but that won't make anyone sick in the short term). The problem is that Chinese energy producers aren't interested in using that technology. Chinese officials know exactly how much of a difference electrostatic precipitators or fabric filters could make for their air quality and they know exactly how much it would cost; they just don't want to spend the money. My father designs those systems and travelled to China in the late 80s to early 90s; China bought a little but had no interest in outfitting all of its coal-fired plants.
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    > I don't think the industrial revolution comparison is correct. And then you go on to prove the point... The industrial revolution was all about generating profits, the Chinese are doing just that, without much regard for the consequences. They won't be able to do that much longer by the looks of it. Extrapolating from the effects of the 1952 incident to Chinese scales is scary.
    - MichaelSalib 14y ago
      During the industrial revolution, people did not fully understand the health effects of air pollution. Nor did they have the technology needed to eliminate it without also eliminating the industrial revolution. Neither of those facts are true today.
est 14y ago
visual proof of how bad Beijing air is http://ww1.sinaimg.cn/mw690/4aa0c35bjw1e0quzqeexrj.jpg http://ww1.sinaimg.cn/mw690/4aa0c35bjw1e0quzqeexrj.jpg credit to the author on the watermark.
protomyth 14y ago
Every country that needs more energy will turn to the same proven sources of energy the 1st world used, until a cheaper energy generation solution is available that has the same reliability as coal and oil. This is going to happen in Africa as their energy needs pick up. Solar and wind are not currently the replacements (otherwise China would use them instead).
sakopov 14y ago
A good friend of mine was there last year. He said he was constantly bleeding out of his nose during the entire stay because of the foreign particles in the air. Insane.
newbie12 14y ago
This is good news, in a way. China's pollution is being carried around the world every day-- now that local weather conditions are forcing Beijing to bear the full brunt of their poison, hopefully the Chinese government will take action.
- solox3 14y ago
  They had taken action. They knew how to. They're just not doing it. In just a year before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, they reduced Beijing's pollution levels to "enough to see the blue sky", in time for international visitors to arrive. They have a billion citizens. Their livelihoods cost nothing. Nothing except their face ("public image") will make them improve living standards for the masses.
  - melling 14y ago
    They had 1 billion people 30 years ago. Now they're at 1.3 billion. That is, the United States plus 1 billion. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next 20-30 years. Even with their problems, it's starting to look like the century of China.
    - yaix 14y ago
      It is the USA, Canada, the European Union and all of Latin America combined.
    - Tichy 14y ago
      Haven't they always had more people than most other countries?
    - newbie12 14y ago
      Actually China is facing a demographic decline-- from growing wealth and the echo of the "one child" policy. If demographics are all that matter, the next century will belong to India, the Middle East, and Africa.
- bbuffone 14y ago
btipling 14y ago
> Wang Shu’ai, told American diplomats to halt the Twitter feed, saying that the data “is not only confusing but also insulting,” Insulted by just reporting the data. Maybe shamed is the better word.
batgaijin 14y ago
Why isn't china switching to natural gas faster? They have 886 trillion cubic feet and the USA only has 750 trillion of it. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138597/aviezer-tucker/the-new-power-map http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138597/aviezer-tucker...
- MichaelSalib 14y ago
  NG would require a substantial capital investment; running pipelines everywhere is not cheap. It might still be cost effective if the environmental costs of coal burning could be internalized so that coal-burners paid a price, but China seems very far from a Clean Air Act, let alone a cap and trade regime.
- justincormack 14y ago
  No one yet knows if the geology is suitable for extracting the gas. Testing is just beginning. Just because there is gas does not mean it is economic right now. Fracking technology is very new.
psykotic 14y ago
Apropos: http://www.theonion.com/video/china-celebrates-its-status-as-worlds-number-one-a,14220/ http://www.theonion.com/video/china-celebrates-its-status-as...
weissguy 14y ago
Keep in mind that a couple weeks from now, the Western outcry about this news will die down, but their air will still suck! When I was in Beijing, I felt so terrible for the infants I saw on the streets. My lungs felt worse than ever for the 3 days I was there, but they will likely breathe that air for their entire lives! When are Chinese people going to realize that they can't live in a giant cloud of smog?
mactitan 14y ago
The problem is daunting but I would say fracking might be the lesser of evils. (I'm curious about these huge emmisions & the these past 2 U.S.winters warm spell) China planning 'huge fracking industry' Chinese plans to expand fracking for shale gas prompt fears over local water and international climate impacts http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/27/china-planning-huge-fracking-industry http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/27/china-plan...
bbuffone 14y ago
As i arrived in beijing today, i looked out the window and saw the sky completely gray. Having spend two years in Beijing, this site is not uncommon. I remember in the summer of 2010 some days the air was so thick you could not see a half mile. But today, the air is really bad and even in my apartment now, i can smell it. The best i can describe the smell is that of a campfire. EDIT -> A campfire that someone threw a plastic bottle into.
firemanx 14y ago
I found Beijing to have poor air, but not nearly as bad as other places in China. Travel out west to Xi'an, and for much of the year it seems as though you can't even see the sky. I heard it told that living there is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes per day. I don't know if that's true, but anecdotally, spending a few weeks there and I was coughing up some of the nastiest stuff I've ever seen from breathing bad air.
nekojima 14y ago
Same road in Beijing, Jan 9 vs 12, showing difference in visible air quality. http://twitpic.com/buocrx http://twitpic.com/buocrx
mistagrrr 14y ago
From an email three days ago from a friend who's a teacher in Beijing: Pollution levels were at super high, stay inside or die today. I can now predict the pollution levels by "how bad the air tastes". Copper is one. If zombies were to come walking down the street here, I would not bat an eye. I live in an apocalyptic /hyper capitalistic waste land.
- deleted 14y ago
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whalesalad 14y ago
Why is there no chmod joke in here? I wish I had the understanding of unix permissions to come up with one myself =(
- stbtrax 14y ago
  because this is not reddit or slashdot?
nickyoung 14y ago
After moving from California to Beijing, I would have never imagined a country that could allow this much pollution. In my apartment in the city, I can see the pollution particles collect over the past few days on the balcony. Simply amazing.
gbog 14y ago
To all those commenting on Beijing pollution: have you ever been in other Chinese cities? I have been in Shijiazhuang, Chengdu, it can be much much worse. I would like to see air quality index from these places... But anyway Saturday was nasty in Beijing, it I have no idea if it is psychosoma or real, but I still have the smell in my nose, and headaches.
- OGinparadise 14y ago
  From what I have read, USA was kinda similar, especially int he pre-EPA days. I have to wonder if today's cancer rates are in large part from that, seems like everyone has /has had a relative with cancer.
novaleaf 14y ago
what's the difference between PM10 and PM2.5? I mean, I know one is 10micron vs 2.5 micron, but i can't find info contrasting them. for example, i'd expect a PM10 number to always be higher than PM2.5.... is that true? I can't find both numbers reported together to verify. :(
- corporalagumbo 14y ago
  Smaller particles are much more damaging to your health.
davemaya 14y ago
"Crazy Bad" is not exaggerated... http://brainchronicle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/air-quality-analysis-from-beijing.html http://brainchronicle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/air-quality-ana...

190 points by mactitan 14y ago

> what phrase is appropriate to describe Saturday’s jaw-dropping reading of 755 at 8 p.m., when all of Beijing looked like an airport smokers’ lounge? I was there. The truth is, it doesn't just _look_ like an smokers' lounge.

dmoy 14y ago
Yea, when you step off the plane and get that first taste (yes, taste) and smell of Beijing air, ick. I dodged this one by a single day, ha. Literally the day after I left it went from a week of sun (unheard of) to <30m visibility. Can't really be too happy, because I'm still sick with a sinus infection right now.

tellarin 14y ago

I live here, and I have to say this, the air even tastes awful! It's weirdly interesting to look outside and to see the streets almost empty and the darkened sky at noon. It was worse from Friday to Saturday, but is still pretty bad. People were warned to stay inside and some schools won't function tomorrow. According to the weather forecast it will only get better around Wednesday; when it will get a bit windy.

dawson 14y ago
I will be in Beijing for the 26th, for one week. I'm hoping it's better by then, lots of flights to Beijing were cancelled today too.
cardamomo 14y ago
Funny you should bring up taste. I spent some time living in Buenos Aires, Argentina--another city shrouded in a perpetual smog--and had the misfortune of discovering this sooty, dusty flavor for myself. I noticed that the dry beans and grains I bought from one particular shop always had a particular off flavor to them. When rinsed, they left behind a grayish water. I finally realized that what was unique about this store (apart from the taste of their products) was that they stored everything in large open sacks and left the large doors to the store open to the street. Stores that stored their goods in closed bins and left their door to the street closed had better-tasting grains and beans.
TechNewb 14y ago
I was there last week, and still can't believe how bad it is. How can China allow this level of pollution? It is not the cars, but the coal that is doing it to the city. I hope China can find a way to create energy and produce goods without such bad pollution. Beijing, and China, would be a much better place to live it only had clean air to breath on a regular basis. Here is to clean energy!
- tellarin 14y ago
  It's not just Beijing. According to the polution ratings I follow, right now (it varies a lot during the day, it's 2AM here now) Beijing is ranked 16th among the ~50 cities that the government rates. The rating right now is also the same as the one posted by the US embassy here. From what I understand, much of the pollution comes also from other industrial cities and accumulates in this general area of the country (someone that knows more about it please correct me if this is wrong). The government seems to be taking some actions, but it is hard to know how hard they're tackling the problem.
  - trevelyan 14y ago
    Also in Beijing. Just in case readers don't know, the Chinese ratings are produced as a daily average, based on equipment outside the city center (i.e. near the airport), while the US ratings are produced hourly from right downtown. So sometimes the figures are the same, but that usually only happens when coming down from the peak of a particularly bad day, when the average from the previous day's readings are pulling up the official Chinese numbers while the US figures have already fallen to reflect current conditions.
- wallflower 14y ago
  > How can China allow this level of pollution? The tradeoff between economic growth driven by energy use (for production) and pollution. "The environmental Kuznets curve is a hypothesised relationship between environmental quality and economic development: various indicators of environmental degradation tend to get worse as modern economic growth occurs until average income reaches a certain point over the course of development.[12] Although the subject of continuing debate, some evidence supports the claim that environmental health indicators, such as water and air pollution, show the inverted U-shaped curve.[1] It has been argued that this trend occurs in the level of many of the environmental pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, lead, DDT, chlorofluorocarbons, sewage, and other chemicals previously released directly into the air or water." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuznets_curve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuznets_curve
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- guard-of-terra 14y ago
  Why help one specific of billion people escape from hell? Sounds a bit intolerant. The only lasting solution is to fix the hell.

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brador 14y ago

Is it all just from vehicles? Quick fix would be subsidised electric vehicles.

dmor 14y ago
I am sure cars contribute, but I believe the majority comes from factories outside of the city and from homes, which primarily burn coal to keep warm. Beijing is downwind from a lot of that.
- justin66 14y ago
  > I am sure cars contribute I doubt it. At the insane particulate levels they're discussing the air should be a lot cleaner coming out of the car than it was going in. Even if they don't have catalytic converters (anyone??) they've at least got _air filters_.
nekojima 14y ago
How are those electric vehicles powered, by coal? Coal is the only cheap and viable short & medium term energy resource solution for China, and a substantial problem (though only not the only source) for causing the pollution currently around Beijing.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  No, free energy machines, silly! :)
- ams6110 14y ago
  Coal can be burned fairly cleanly, but requires modern equipment not the likely Soviet designed plants they have.
mseebach 14y ago
> Quick fix would be subsidised electric vehicles. No, that would be an 8-lane highway straight into unintended consequences territory.

dmor 14y ago

I was in Beijing for Chinese New Year for a couple weeks in 2009, and when I flew in, I couldn't see the enormous city at all from the sky. It was completely hidden in a cloud of smog. There was some of the worst air quality of the year at that time from all the fireworks plus being the coldest time of year (so everyone is burning coal fires), and a ton of debris in the air from a 44 floor skyscraper that burned to the ground down the street (video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hSPFL2Zlpg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hSPFL2Zlpg) I never really knew what coal burning smelled like before. Even in the city it isn't allowed, but once we left and went to a smaller town outside Beijing that's when I really got it. It is the heat source for 99% of the population, plus it powers most of the factories. There were days where we were told we shouldn't be outside unless absolutely necessary (which was, since my husband had to commute to his job at Microsoft). At night if you blew your nose your tissue would be grey. If you took a shower, the water would run grey from dust wherever your skin had been exposed. Your clothes would be dusted in a thin layer of gray that never really went away. We tried to combat this by changing out of our clothes just inside the front door and putting them straight into the wash, but it never really went away.

FrojoS 14y ago
I grew up in a household with harsh winters and coal as the only heating source. As such I can state, that coal is a pretty inconvenient heat source. You have to carrie all the coal you burn from the basement, it requires time to start up, needs permanent oversight and it's almost impossible to adjust the heat to the exact level you want. So my hope is that, as China becomes wealthier, they will abolish coal as a heating source, just for convenience.
- ChrisClark 14y ago
  It's a little more convenient in at least most of the cities in China. There are coal burning plants every so often in the city, they heat up the water and pipe it through to the nearby apartment buildings. So the average citizen doesn't have to handle the coal. Of course, this means you don't get to control your heat, and it never heats up that much, just keeps you from freezing. And if winter comes early, you still have to wait for November 15 for when the heat gets turned on.

fnordfnordfnord 14y ago

I lived there in '08 and '09. You cannot believe it until you have seen it. The difference during the Olympics was stark. For example, my apartment in Shijingshan had a view of a mountain (~5 mi) and a comm tower (~1 mi). I lived in that apartment for a month before I ever saw either of them. The 'Jing rarely gets full sunlight, rather there is this kind of yellowish lambertian light source in the white-ish gray sky. People who espouse environmental deregulation should go check it out.

fatbird 14y ago
I heard that the change during the Olympics was remarkable. How come the actions they took to clean up didn't stick? You would think that when everyone saw the difference, there'd be a lot of support for fixing the underlying problems.
- fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
  It required them to shut down a lot of industrial production. A temporary pause in production was a reasonable sacrifice for the Olympics. After the games were over, they worked overtime to catch up. Beijingers have lived with it their whole lives, it is normal for them.
- tellarin 14y ago
  They even shutdown many factories temporarily before the games. Guess many are back on. Also, the city (an many others) grew a lot since 2008. Lots more traffic, heating, etc. Not defending the government, but the problem has also grown bigger.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  They had the Olympics in August, which normally isn't that bad. If you ever want to visit Beijing, come in fall, and avoid winter.
cryptoz 14y ago
> People who espouse environmental deregulation should go check it out. This is a very interesting comment. Right now in Canada, we have a Conservative majority government that is absolutely hell-bent on environmental deregulation. Their supporters almost exclusively bring up China as the primary reason why environmental deregulation is so important to them ("if we kept our existing regulations, our economy would tank since China would make so much more money"). I very much doubt seeing the skies in Beijing would change anything, but I wonder. Perhaps a campaign in Canada to show images of what China is like would make a difference; on the other hand, the supporters of the environmental deregulation are not the type of people to care about air quality. They value a "strong economy" and money above absolutely everything else, and think that Canada needs to pollute more and more, as much as it can in fact, in order to be a reasonable country in the future.

jacquesm 14y ago

This has two parts, one part is the externalization of pollution by the rich countries to developing countries, the second is the speed with which China is increasing its energy consumption due to an increase in local consumption. Their fuel of choice (coal) doesn't help and in many ways what is happening there is comparable to what the industrial revolution did to England not all that long ago. In 1952 (long after the start of the industrial revolution but before the end of major emissions in the UK) this culminated in the 'great smog': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog Which in turn led to the clean air act.

MichaelSalib 14y ago
I don't think the industrial revolution comparison is correct. Pretty much all coal pollutants can be easily dealt with using air pollution control technology (except CO2, but that won't make anyone sick in the short term). The problem is that Chinese energy producers aren't interested in using that technology. Chinese officials know exactly how much of a difference electrostatic precipitators or fabric filters could make for their air quality and they know exactly how much it would cost; they just don't want to spend the money. My father designs those systems and travelled to China in the late 80s to early 90s; China bought a little but had no interest in outfitting all of its coal-fired plants.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  > I don't think the industrial revolution comparison is correct. And then you go on to prove the point... The industrial revolution was all about generating profits, the Chinese are doing just that, without much regard for the consequences. They won't be able to do that much longer by the looks of it. Extrapolating from the effects of the 1952 incident to Chinese scales is scary.
  - MichaelSalib 14y ago
    During the industrial revolution, people did not fully understand the health effects of air pollution. Nor did they have the technology needed to eliminate it without also eliminating the industrial revolution. Neither of those facts are true today.

est 14y ago

visual proof of how bad Beijing air is http://ww1.sinaimg.cn/mw690/4aa0c35bjw1e0quzqeexrj.jpg http://ww1.sinaimg.cn/mw690/4aa0c35bjw1e0quzqeexrj.jpg credit to the author on the watermark.

protomyth 14y ago

Every country that needs more energy will turn to the same proven sources of energy the 1st world used, until a cheaper energy generation solution is available that has the same reliability as coal and oil. This is going to happen in Africa as their energy needs pick up. Solar and wind are not currently the replacements (otherwise China would use them instead).

sakopov 14y ago

A good friend of mine was there last year. He said he was constantly bleeding out of his nose during the entire stay because of the foreign particles in the air. Insane.

newbie12 14y ago

This is good news, in a way. China's pollution is being carried around the world every day-- now that local weather conditions are forcing Beijing to bear the full brunt of their poison, hopefully the Chinese government will take action.

solox3 14y ago
They had taken action. They knew how to. They're just not doing it. In just a year before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, they reduced Beijing's pollution levels to "enough to see the blue sky", in time for international visitors to arrive. They have a billion citizens. Their livelihoods cost nothing. Nothing except their face ("public image") will make them improve living standards for the masses.
- melling 14y ago
  They had 1 billion people 30 years ago. Now they're at 1.3 billion. That is, the United States plus 1 billion. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next 20-30 years. Even with their problems, it's starting to look like the century of China.
  - yaix 14y ago
    It is the USA, Canada, the European Union and all of Latin America combined.
  - Tichy 14y ago
    Haven't they always had more people than most other countries?
  - newbie12 14y ago
    Actually China is facing a demographic decline-- from growing wealth and the echo of the "one child" policy. If demographics are all that matter, the next century will belong to India, the Middle East, and Africa.
bbuffone 14y ago

btipling 14y ago

> Wang Shu’ai, told American diplomats to halt the Twitter feed, saying that the data “is not only confusing but also insulting,” Insulted by just reporting the data. Maybe shamed is the better word.

batgaijin 14y ago

Why isn't china switching to natural gas faster? They have 886 trillion cubic feet and the USA only has 750 trillion of it. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138597/aviezer-tucker/the-new-power-map http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138597/aviezer-tucker...

MichaelSalib 14y ago
NG would require a substantial capital investment; running pipelines everywhere is not cheap. It might still be cost effective if the environmental costs of coal burning could be internalized so that coal-burners paid a price, but China seems very far from a Clean Air Act, let alone a cap and trade regime.
justincormack 14y ago
No one yet knows if the geology is suitable for extracting the gas. Testing is just beginning. Just because there is gas does not mean it is economic right now. Fracking technology is very new.

psykotic 14y ago

Apropos: http://www.theonion.com/video/china-celebrates-its-status-as-worlds-number-one-a,14220/ http://www.theonion.com/video/china-celebrates-its-status-as...

weissguy 14y ago

Keep in mind that a couple weeks from now, the Western outcry about this news will die down, but their air will still suck! When I was in Beijing, I felt so terrible for the infants I saw on the streets. My lungs felt worse than ever for the 3 days I was there, but they will likely breathe that air for their entire lives! When are Chinese people going to realize that they can't live in a giant cloud of smog?

mactitan 14y ago

The problem is daunting but I would say fracking might be the lesser of evils. (I'm curious about these huge emmisions & the these past 2 U.S.winters warm spell) China planning 'huge fracking industry' Chinese plans to expand fracking for shale gas prompt fears over local water and international climate impacts http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/27/china-planning-huge-fracking-industry http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/27/china-plan...

bbuffone 14y ago

As i arrived in beijing today, i looked out the window and saw the sky completely gray. Having spend two years in Beijing, this site is not uncommon. I remember in the summer of 2010 some days the air was so thick you could not see a half mile. But today, the air is really bad and even in my apartment now, i can smell it. The best i can describe the smell is that of a campfire. EDIT -> A campfire that someone threw a plastic bottle into.

firemanx 14y ago

I found Beijing to have poor air, but not nearly as bad as other places in China. Travel out west to Xi'an, and for much of the year it seems as though you can't even see the sky. I heard it told that living there is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes per day. I don't know if that's true, but anecdotally, spending a few weeks there and I was coughing up some of the nastiest stuff I've ever seen from breathing bad air.

nekojima 14y ago

Same road in Beijing, Jan 9 vs 12, showing difference in visible air quality. http://twitpic.com/buocrx http://twitpic.com/buocrx

mistagrrr 14y ago

From an email three days ago from a friend who's a teacher in Beijing: Pollution levels were at super high, stay inside or die today. I can now predict the pollution levels by "how bad the air tastes". Copper is one. If zombies were to come walking down the street here, I would not bat an eye. I live in an apocalyptic /hyper capitalistic waste land.

deleted 14y ago
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whalesalad 14y ago

Why is there no chmod joke in here? I wish I had the understanding of unix permissions to come up with one myself =(

stbtrax 14y ago
because this is not reddit or slashdot?

nickyoung 14y ago

After moving from California to Beijing, I would have never imagined a country that could allow this much pollution. In my apartment in the city, I can see the pollution particles collect over the past few days on the balcony. Simply amazing.

gbog 14y ago

To all those commenting on Beijing pollution: have you ever been in other Chinese cities? I have been in Shijiazhuang, Chengdu, it can be much much worse. I would like to see air quality index from these places... But anyway Saturday was nasty in Beijing, it I have no idea if it is psychosoma or real, but I still have the smell in my nose, and headaches.

OGinparadise 14y ago
From what I have read, USA was kinda similar, especially int he pre-EPA days. I have to wonder if today's cancer rates are in large part from that, seems like everyone has /has had a relative with cancer.

novaleaf 14y ago

what's the difference between PM10 and PM2.5? I mean, I know one is 10micron vs 2.5 micron, but i can't find info contrasting them. for example, i'd expect a PM10 number to always be higher than PM2.5.... is that true? I can't find both numbers reported together to verify. :(

corporalagumbo 14y ago
Smaller particles are much more damaging to your health.

davemaya 14y ago

"Crazy Bad" is not exaggerated... http://brainchronicle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/air-quality-analysis-from-beijing.html http://brainchronicle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/air-quality-ana...