PrintBeijing air quality worst ever recorded
Ah - the glory of socialism.
Beijing is under an extreme smog warning Sunday, with pollution at hazardous levels for a third day, and people warned to stay indoors.
The municipal environment warning center issued an alert Saturday in China's capital, advising the elderly, children and those suffering respiratory or cardiovascular illness to avoid going out or doing strenuous exercise.
The center said Sunday that particulates small enough to deeply penetrate lungs were at nearly four times the level considered safe. The readings were called the worst on record.
China's official state-run Xinhua news agency predicted that the pollution could last another three days.
Meanwhile, fog covering vast areas of eastern and central China has closed numerous highways and delayed flights in several provinces.
International organizations say China's air quality is among the worst in the world because of massive coal consumption and car-choked city streets.
Sounds like there's a kink in this workers' paradise. We grumble about the EPA in this country, but the basic Clean Air Act made our big cities a lot more livable. Additions to the act in recent years have been less successful in cleaning the air while being more successful in advancing an ideological agenda. But those old enough to remember how bad it used to be realize that there was broad consensus to clean up the air back then and that government and business have been very successful in doing so.
China, a one party dictatorship, has no pressure put on it to improve air quality, mine safety for workers, or any of the dozens of other regulatory regimes we have in the US that protect the environment and our workers. Until the people of China have a voice and a real choice in selecting their leaders, they will continue to choke on smog that the government doesn't care to address.
