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Beijing Issues 'Red Alert' Over Smog (independent.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: The Chinese capital of Beijing has issued a "red alert" for air quality within the city, the first time the city has reached the level of caution where it's deemed "unhealthy" for all residents. Starting Tuesday morning, schools will be shut down, the production of smoke will be limited, and cars will be under an odd/even alternate day ban while the local government waits for air quality to improve. It's expected to last until mid-day on Thursday when the weather looks likely to blow it away. "Air pollution monitors showed that areas of Beijing had more than 256 micrograms per cubic metre of the poisonous particles. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that anything over 25 micrograms is considered unsafe. The poisonous smog in Beijing is caused by the burning of coal for industry and heating, as well as huge amounts of dust from the city's many construction sites. The problem is being made yet worse by high humidity and low wind." The city has been in bad shape for a while now, and Greenpeace called for this very measure a week ago.
"Red Alert"...commies...heh!
Let this be a reminder to those enamored with politicians who claim "we can compete with China by relaxing our regulations".
I believe we should tariff goods from countries who don't adhere to basic labor, pollution, and safety standards.
For those who claim that prevents such countries from "advancing", the country can instead encourage more local consumption. Asian countries have been slow to do this, largely because governments are afraid it will make their population pop-culture addicts, like those found in the USA. They don't like "work hard, play hard". They only want the first.
But if you want the benefits of pop culture (sales & profits), you have to take the downsides also. We make it too easy for them to have the good sides of globalization without the bad. We should put our foot down. Why do we always trade on THEIR terms?
Table-ized A.I.
smog is not climate. you are a moron
...or London in 1952?
http://history1900s.about.com/...
Um, so . . . where is it going to be blow away to . . . ? Maybe Shanghai . . . ?
California!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Pollution has been around since the dawn of time.. This is just a naturally occurring cycle in our planets history, plus the data doesn't go back far enough to come to a conclusion. This is just a story by the main stream media to further the agenda of "Big Science".
The highest PM2.5 in Los Angeles is estimated (it wasn't measured back then) to have been about 100 ppm (from the LA times last year: http://www.latimes.com/world/a...). In recent times, the max was 79, and the daily average is 18 or so. That puts Beijing at 2.5x the worst LA has ever seen and about 15x worse than LA on any given day.
It is the persistent anti-nuclear campaigning of Greenpeace and other "environmental" organizations which has left the world with a dwindling complement of 1950s era reactors, and prevented the development and adoption of better nuclear technologies. If they hadn't killed the first nuclear renaissance, the world would be off of coal by now. Places like France, Sweden, and Ontario have proven that nuclear can eliminate coal use while providing clean energy on a large scale, even with old technology. Even so, the limited amounts of conventional nuclear remaining are responsible for a large majority of the clean energy produced today.
Meanwhile, those most vigorously pursuing Greenpeace's dear wind and solar have only demonstrated how ineffective those technologies are at displacing coal or other fossil fuels. Excepting the large contribution of biomass to renewable energy production reveals an even more hopeless situation. As if it weren't bad enough, the "green" solution to the intermittency of those technologies is to burn biomass or biofuels, which are worse yet than coal. At the end of the day, the rise of coal consumption continues unabated. Thanks!