2 Charts That Put the Chinese Pollution Crisis in Perspective

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/04/2-charts-that-put-the-chinese-pollution-problem-in-perspective/360868/

Everyone "knows" that China is badly polluted. I've written over the years, and still believe, that environmental sustainability in all forms is China's biggest emergency, in every sense: for its people, for its government, for its effect on the world. And yes, I understand that the same is true for modern industrialized life in general. But China is an extreme case, and an extremely important one because of its scale.

Here are two simple charts, neither of them brand-new but both easily comprehensible, that help dramatize how different the situation is there. The first, by Steven Andrews for China Dialogue via ChinaFile, compares official Chinese classifications of "good" air conditions with those in Europe or North America.



***SNIP


Here's the other chart, comparing the 10 most-polluted Chinese cities with the 10 in America. It is from The Washington Post a few weeks ago:



The U.S. readings on this chart show something about challenges in the Central Valley of California, which is where six of the seven most-polluted cities are. (And the other is Los Angeles.) More on that shortly, in our American Futures series. But the scale difference of Chinese pollution is sobering. Even the worst American cities would be in the tip-top most excellent bracket in the chart at the top.

[Demeter]

1. I lived in CA Central valley area, and it was bad some days

but I was raised in Detroit in the 60's, which was worse....

it's hard to imagine even trying to breathe in China. I have a client who visited Shanghai this winter, and he remarked on the pollution...