
Beijing smog ‘red alert’ issued - kevindeasis
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/beijing-smog-red-alert-issued-schools-and-businesses-to-completely-shut-down-as-chinese-capital-a6763286.html
======
purpled_haze
Beijing Air Pollution Real-time Air Quality Index (AQI) for those interested:

[http://aqicn.org/city/beijing/](http://aqicn.org/city/beijing/)

~~~
trendroid
Thanks. Not surprising but it seems like New Delhi is severely fucked
[http://aqicn.org/city/delhi/anand-vihar/](http://aqicn.org/city/delhi/anand-
vihar/)

~~~
gamekathu
its crazy Anand Vihar Delhi is clocking more score than Beijing! maybe because
of the temperature Beijing's condition is worse

~~~
tellarin
I live in Beijing and the pollution here is pretty bad at many points during
the year (the current streak is not even close to the worse I've seen here).

But I'm always amazed by how much emphasis is placed on China in this regard.
I try to follow AQI indexes for comparison and India has multiple cities
trending over China most of the time. However, news pieces about it are kind
of rare...

------
given
This website seems to omit or twist facts to make their articles as
sensationalist as possible:

> Blanketed in acrid smog, Beijing is waking up to climate change

Ok, so if Beijing is having smog because they pollute the air this is now
climate change?

Or just the next article linked on that page again:

> The smog is so bad in Beijing that someone made a brick out of it

Actually he used clay for most of the brick, he only collected 100 grams of
"smog" during 100 days (4 hours of vacuuming each day) (see
[http://qz.com/562319/a-chinese-artist-vacuumed-up-
beijings-s...](http://qz.com/562319/a-chinese-artist-vacuumed-up-beijings-
smog-for-100-days-and-made-a-brick-from-what-he-collected/))

I'm not saying they don't have a problem with smog but one thing I know is
that this kind of journalism is not helping anyone. It is just like
everywhere: we tend to get emotional about stuff which doesn't help us to find
a solution. It just makes people dislike each other.

~~~
zurn
"Blanketed in acrid smog, Beijing is waking up to climate change" outside the
article body is a link and headline to another article. In headlines this
pattern is used to establish setting.

So the reporting does not suggest or imply that smog is climate change.

------
beefman
Greetings from Beijing. I don't find the air so objectionable, and neither do
my wife and our two boys (we arrived Saturday). Leipzig 1986 was much worse.

~~~
tellarin
First of all, welcome to the Jing!

Not sure what Leipzig was like in 86, but if you don't find it objectionable
here this week, man, you have iron lungs and a high tolerance for smoke-
smelling dusty stuff. :)

On a serious note, the news cycle is over hyping it. But there are some pretty
bad days. And this week isn't even close to the worst it has been in Beijing a
couple years ago.

PS: 4th year here.

~~~
beefman
The cold is much more offputting to us (coming from California here)! But
having a great time so far.

Leipzig back then was unreal. I did a quick search for historical data on SO2
and particulate concentrations but I couldn't find anything. Not only are our
environmental standards higher today, so are our expectations about the
existence of data!

OK, the air here is by no means good, and it _is_ tragic to mess up something
so fundamental to happiness. But things are improving and I bet the air will
too.

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ak217
For an introduction to the problem, and to anyone who hasn't lived in a
severely air polluted city, I highly recommend the documentary _Under the
Dome_ , released earlier this year and later banned in China:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6X2uwlQGQM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6X2uwlQGQM)

------
harryjo
I can't decide if the state of the state of China is a cautionary tale for
USA, or proof that USA is doing somethig right.

~~~
sunwooz
The state of China is what happened to the US and UK when they were going
through their industrial revolution.

~~~
tellarin
Yes, but in a somewhat smaller scale. Air quality here is just one of the
facets of the pollution issue.

------
restalis
First time I read it I interpreted it as a pun! (What color may an alert in a
red country be?!)

On a more serious note, I'm sorry to know that there are people forced to live
day by day in a high pollution environment though. I hope that the period of
health tribute being paid in the name of industrial development won't last too
long!

~~~
andrezsanchez
I'm studying abroad in Beijing right now, and my throat began to hurt even at
lower levels of PM2.5 simply because I wasn't wearing a mask. I'm very
surprised at the number of people who don't wear a mask; they either don't
value their health or don't know how bad the air is because they've been
accustomed to it.

~~~
kruczek
Out of curiosity - what are typical levels of PM2.5 over there?

~~~
andrezsanchez
I didn't even look at the levels when I came in September because everything
looked fine, but lately it's varied a lot, between 100-350 the past few weeks.

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agorabinary
What proportion of Chinese energy production is coal-based? Is there any
realistic scenario in which China soon adopts more 21st century alternatives?

~~~
mikeyouse
They're in the process of doubling the number of nuclear reactors under
operation but they take a long time to come online and China's electricity
demand keeps increasing so it'll probably be a wash.

[http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/current-and-future-
generat...](http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/current-and-future-
generation/plans-for-new-reactors-worldwide/)

~~~
LoSboccacc
Also I remember a report on projected grow they made stating the uranium
production capacity would not be able to sustain their growth and the need to
invest in new reactor design limiting the construction of current gen reactors
to avoid outstripping the production chain.

~~~
grandinj
There is no real bottleneck in uranium production. All we need to do is to
double the price and various extra production will come online. And the price
of uranium means almost nothing in he context of running a power plant.

------
ekianjo
Poisonous particles. Thats a new level of writing. Did Greenpeace commission
this article?

~~~
mikeyouse
PM2.5 smog is literally poisonous.. From Wiki[1]:

    
    
        The smaller PM2.5 were particularly deadly, with a 36%
        increase in lung cancer per 10 μg/m3 as it can penetrate
        deeper into the lungs
    

And...

    
    
        An increase in estimated annual exposure to PM 2.5 of
        just 5 µg/m3 was linked with a 13% increased risk of heart
        attacks.
    

So 36% increase in lung cancer per 10μg/m3 and a 13% increase in heart attacks
from 5μg/m3.

The level in Beijing right now is _250μg /m3_. It maxed at over 360μg/m3 in
the past 48 hours.[2]

People are literally being killed by Beijing's air quality as we speak, should
we temper our language to not appear biased?

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particulates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particulates)

[2] - [http://aqicn.org/city/beijing/us-
embassy/](http://aqicn.org/city/beijing/us-embassy/)

~~~
ekianjo
Come on, the article referred "you could get sick just by standing in the
street" \- if that's not hyperbole, I don't know what that is.

> with a 36% increase in lung cancer per 10 μg/m3 as it can penetrate deeper
> into the lungs

Observational study. That says everything, it does not account for all
variables that have to be taken in account and therefore the effect cannot be
isolated.

> An increase in estimated annual exposure to PM 2.5 of just 5 µg/m3 was
> linked with a 13% increased risk of heart attacks.

Annual exposure. Not standing in the streets for 5 minutes like the article
suggests.

Yes, we should temper our language and use Good Science and not
Sensationalism.

~~~
dengnan
Have you ever been there? If you want to talk about science, then define
"sick" fisrt. For most people, frequently coughing would be considered as
"sick". Note that we are not discussing disease, we are talking about
sickness, which I think is a less rigorous word sometimes referring to "not
feeling good".

I was born in Beijing and have been living there for more than two decades.
And yes, I feel bad when I was exposed under that environment: I can hardly
breathe, I coughed a lot and felt itchy in every inch of my skin. If you think
that is not "getting sick", then well, welcome to Beijing.

~~~
ekianjo
> Have you ever been there?

As a matter of fact, I have, and several times. Don't assume I know nothing of
what I am talking about please.

Please show me the stats of lung cancer in Beijing vs other parts of the
world. I'd like to see how much the reality stands out vs the assumptions
people make.

> If you think that is not "getting sick", then well, welcome to Beijing.

I was not talking about discomfort (that, I have noticed on every trip I did
there) but this particular article makes blatant claims with absolutely no
data to back them up, which was exactly the point of my post: allegations do
not create facts.

~~~
jccalhoun
[https://www.google.com/search?q=stats+of+lung+cancer+in+Beij...](https://www.google.com/search?q=stats+of+lung+cancer+in+Beijing+vs+other+parts+of+the+world)

