Beijing air pollution soars to hazard level

[alp227]

Source: BBC

Air pollution in the Chinese capital Beijing has reached levels judged as hazardous to human health.

Readings from both official and unofficial monitoring stations suggested that Saturday's pollution has soared past danger levels outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The air tastes of coal dust and car fumes, two of the main sources of pollution, says a BBC correspondent.

Economic growth has left air quality in many cities notoriously poor.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-20998147

[TheGov97]

1. Take a deep breath China

thats the smell of success, ha

[alp227]

2. Welcome to DU!

[brandonk]

10. yup

[BlueJazz]

3. Gee...I wonder if they would sell us some of that stuff.? We buy everything else from them.

[liberal N proud]

4. I was in Beijing in 2011 and it was terrible then

When the plane landed, you couldn't see anything past the airport perimeter. The hotel I stayed in was near one of the ring roads, you could almost see the buildings across the street. The air was green/grey.

[alp227]

8. I was there too in Dec. 2011, saw lots of haze as well.

[Pachamama]

5. My husband travels there on business and says its horrible...

He says he literally feels physically ill when he travels to Beijing, Shanghai and other larger cities....the pollution is so bad that when you look out the window from his hotel, he cannot see very far....looks like fog...but its not. He tries to stay in hotel or meeting rooms, but is unable to go running as he does on other trips throughout world because as he says " I would make it one block and would be coughing and gagging and then wanting to throw up the next few hours"...this coming from a person who trains for triathlons....

I still wonder based on reports from Athletes who competed in the Beijing Olympics that say they suffered horrible headaches and rashes while there as well as since and breathing problems. What was going on in air then?

[Locrian]

16. was there last year and traveled

Shanghai, Nanjing etc. It's terrible. Immediatly outside you get a taste in your mouth like you just smoked a few cigarrettes. The pollution is from all the coal power plants and cars. It's biblical bad. Very sad.

[heaven05]

6. surprised?

no. The dirty, nasty truth about the god awful greedy pursuit of money at the expense of human beings. This is sad. Going to destroy the world in pursuit of profit.

[jonthebru]

7. China has 620

coal fueled power plants.
And they and India are building more.

[Warpy]

9. Most households still use blocks of compressed coal dust

for heating and cooking, it's the most economical thing there.

It's also about the filthiest. Air quality has never been good in Beijing in winter. Adding cars to the already toxic coal smog just made it nearly too toxic to live in.

The good news is that China is spending a lot of R&D money on developing non polluting and renewable energy sources.

It's going to come to late for a lot of people in the northern cities, I'm afraid.

[David__77]

11. They should consider sacrificing 5% of GDP in the short run to address this.

Yes, a full 5% if not more. A crash program in renewables, demand side management, and nuclear. The long-term growth of the country depends on it. China is in a critical phase in which it must transition from what could be called intensive growth, to what could be called extensive growth.

[dhol82]

12. wow - must have been there at the right time

Went for a tour to China, Tibet and Mongolia in October.

Had amazing weather with blue skies in both Shanghai and Beijing. Feel really lucky.

However - the amount of construction everywhere, and I mean everywhere, was astonishing. When their housing melt-down happens they will be in really big doo-doo.

[Locrian]

17. blue skys in Shanghai is RARE - nt

[dhol82]

18. consider myself really lucky

have pix with blue skies but don't know how, or if, i can post them.

[lenny9190]

13. Safe to go to Beijing??

I'm planning to go to Beijing on the 23rd of January for a few weeks, will it be safe to go by then?

[kaboom15]

14. I doubt it

place smells like shit

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. Air pollution was bad enough in 1990 when almost no one had cars

due to heavy use of coal. Although visibility was pretty decent, coal dust leaked in through the windows. We found out why there were covered tea cups in our room at the university: We tried leaving boiled water out to cool (so that we could use it to brush our teeth in the evening--even Chinese people don't drink unboiled tap water), but without the covers, it had black particles floating in it. After that first day, we used the covers.

But the sight of bicycle traffic jams and sidewalk bike repair shops was quite impressive. Beijing is flat with little rain, so it was ideal for cycling, unlike Chongqing, for example.

It was REALLY STUPID of the Chinese government to encourage people to buy cars. (They did encourage car use at first.) They should have built a first class rail transit system that covered the entire metro area and banned CARS from the arterials instead of banning bikes. THEN and only then should they have allowed private car ownership.