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US Embassy Categorizes Beijing Air Quality As 'Crazy Bad'
digitaldc writes "Pollution in Beijing was so bad Friday the US embassy, which has been independently monitoring air quality, ran out of conventional adjectives to describe it, at one point saying it was 'crazy bad.' The embassy later deleted the phrase, saying it was an 'incorrect' description and it would revise the language to use when the air quality index goes above 500, its highest point and a level considered hazardous for all people by US standards. The hazardous haze has forced schools to stop outdoor exercises, and health experts asked residents, especially those with respiratory problems, the elderly and children, to stay indoors."
Crazy bad, when "embarrassingly polluted" just doesn't do justice.
.. this would be an idea state: no EPA at all, and nothing to work against any company in order to make a profit.
No, you have libertarians and conservatives confused with anarchists. That's typical talk from the socialist/communist faction: "When you guys talk about enforcing the Constitution that means you guys don't want any government at all!"
Revive the Constitution.
Much of the savings comes from the ability to operate a factory in China under less stringent rules - less labor protections, less safety, less pollution controls, etc.
Yet some still ignorantly call it "free trade" as if the differences are as small as North vs South Carolina.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Where does the air inside come from? I always thought it came from outside. If all the air outside is terribly polluted, then isn't the air inside just as bad? I mean, I don't think most buildings have any serious air filtering, do they?
When will the youth of China decide they've had enough of conformity and respect for authority? China has raised it standard of living in recent decades but they still suffer from a severe lack of basic freedoms, corruption, and choking pollution. The civil rights movement and Vietnam triggered the events of the 60's in the USA. When will the same happen in China?
Basic freedoms have improved, corruption has been far less than I've seen in the US (their former food and drug regulator was found to be taking bribes from pharmaceutical companies, and subsequently executed), and the choking pollution has only been a recent occurrence because of the rapid growth.
The pollution is bad right now, but I think China is in a position to turn that around really quickly. Unlike in the US, they don't have lobbyists from companies creating the pollution who will oppose any and all environmental laws. Of course they don't want pollution, but currently the government is in a tough position of making choices between pollution and slowing down the growth of the country. However, one might note that their pace of growth in renewable energy is torrid. They have been putting a lot of money into wind and solar tech. Plus, they are already way ahead of the game in creating a practical 100% electric car. To me, it seems like sometime in the next 10 years, they will have the ability to switch over, nearly overnight, to clean energy solutions. Without a bunch of opposing interest groups like we have in the U.S., it'll literally be like flipping a switch.
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
This is what happens when pedantics meet each other.
If only they'd learned from the negative examples provided by Europe and the USA's journeys through the Industrial Revolution.
Money talks and bullshit walks.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
You do realize that the sort of pollutants the article discusses have little or nothing to do with GHG emissions, right?
People are really stupid. CO2 may cause the planet to warm up, but it certainly won't kill millions by way of lung cancer and other respiratory aliments.
The US (and the west in general) has done an admirable job of eliminating or reducing air borne pollutants. The US is currently debating the merits of managing non-pollutant emissions, such as CO2, the byproduct of "clean coal", natural gas, and other complete oxidization products.
Downplaying the improvements in Western air quality is extremely dangerous, and one only has to tour some of the various polluted hell-holes in the East to truly understand how important clean air is.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
"The bad air quality is a prime example of an externalized cost."
This is how capitalism _works_ without any kind of subsidy, corporations always try to dump risk and externalize where they can get away with it. Note the nation debt is a form of corporate control of government allowing them to externalizing cost in the form of national debt.
Another form is offshoring, externalizing costs onto workers in one nation and saddling that nation with all the risk because the jobs aren't coming back and there is no guarantee that new jobs will be created in sufficient enough numbers to offset the losses due to technological advancement and consolidation.
In the 20th and 21rst centuries we look back at the historic environmental events in the U.K. sometimes known as the London Fog. In the 22nd century, people will look back and talk about Beijing Fogs.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
what the fuck are you talking about. intensifier is a semantic category, adjective is a syntactic category. There's no reason a word can't be both.
either take some linguistics classes to know what your talking about or shut the fuck up.
This is how to defeat the Chinese without firing a single shot. We let theair quality get so bad that they fall to the ground, choking in the streets.
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.