

Inside Beijing's airpocalypse – a city made 'almost uninhabitable' by pollution - masta
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/dec/16/beijing-airpocalypse-city-almost-uninhabitable-pollution-china

======
nathanaldensr
I wonder how Beijing compares to 18th and 19th century England or the United
States. Seems almost like they are going through their own capitalist
industrial revolution, judging by these pictures and accounts.

~~~
dalke
chockablock investigated that here on HN, at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6864088](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6864088)
:

> So according to these rough calculations the great smog of 1952 probably had
> a PM2.5 of about 700 ug/m^3, quite similar to the current Shanghai smog, and
> lower than levels regularly reported in other Chinese cities.

The current PM2.5 for Beijing, at
[http://aqicn.org/city/beijing/](http://aqicn.org/city/beijing/) , is 162 -
"unhealthy".

