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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 s

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.

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.