Gas Mask: Is this how we will have to live in the future?

[liberal N proud]

Dangerous giant smog cloud chokes Beijing

I know, it's China again, but with the deniers of climate change, is the whole world headed for this type of atmosphere?

Air pollution readings spiked across China's capital Beijing on Thursday, prompting residents to don air masks and offices and homes to put electric air purifiers on overdrive.

Commuters across Beijing found themselves cloaked in a thick, gray haze as air pollution monitors across the city registered readings over 20 times the recommended exposure levels suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau readings Thursday for PM 2.5 – air particulate smaller than 2.5 microns blamed for a range of severe respiratory ailments – registered over 500 micrograms per cubic meter. The WHO recommends no more than 25 micrograms per cubic meter.

http://behindthewall.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/16/22322417-dangerous-giant-smog-cloud-chokes-beijing?lite


I flew into Beijing once, when you couldn't see the terminal until the plane pulled up to the gate. The hotel where I was staying, you couldn't see the buildings across the street. The air was a weird color of green and it burned your eyes to be outside for very long.

[Baclava]

1. Choke in a city of over 20 million people? no thank you

I hate crowds


not related, but here's a nice sunset pic

[liberal N proud]

2. Nice!

[Nitram]

3. No, actually we will be...

...wearing a complete bio-hazard suit from head to toe, and carrying a tank of oxygen when we venture outdoors.

[El_Johns]

4. I was thinking the other day that England had their "fog" (smog, actually) in the 19th century --

which got better in the 20th -- then the US had their bad smog, which seemed to improve after the 70s -- and now China.

Seems like whoever the manufacturing power is, gets the smog. Whereas I used to think it was regulations that improved things, now I guess it was just offshoring.

[Javaman]

5. Pittsburgh...

http://bikepgh.org/2009/10/28/bikepgh-named-one-of-40-environmental-heroes-at-gasps-40th-anniversary/