China pollution red alert spreads to other cities

Beijing and much of the country has has been blighted by chronic air pollution for years, and the capital’s red alert coincided with global climate change talks in Paris, where China is in the spotlight as the world’s biggest polluter.

Beijing’s authorities ordered limits on cars, factories and construction sites for three days during a red alert for smog starting Tuesday. The red alert is enacted when air pollution scales rest between 300 to 500 micrograms per cubic meter for 72 hours.

The idea was to make quality British goods needed in the country and yesterday, Beijing’s pollution seemed to be favouring the company’s plan.

It was the first time the highest level of a four-color warning system introduced by Beijing in 2013 was implemented.

The air pollution will come back to blanket the capital since Friday night, and remain on the weekend, but the coming spell of smog is expected to be light, not as severe as the one on Thursday. The air quality in China is routinely so bad, that one artist even decided to make a statement by vacuuming the air for 100 days and forming a brick out of the particles he captured.

“I’ve already sold seven machines worth 30,000 renminbi”, or about $4,700, said shopkeeper Yuan Yuxia as she tried to keep up with the steady stream of customers pushing through the door just 90 minutes after the shop opened. Cars with odd-numbered licence plates were barred from Beijing’s roads on Tuesday as part of measures to reduce pollution.

The main gauge to measure pollution by the US Embassy Monitor in Beijing dropped to around 100 on Thursday after touching almost 400 in the last two days.

The mayor had signed a document outlining problems with the city’s preparedness for smog emergencies, it said. Most of the smog is blamed on coal-fired power plants, along with vehicle emissions, construction and factory work. But as a parent, I cannot help wondering what if my kid could grow up in a much cleaner environment?

“Right now, there’s an enormous health hazard”, says Dr. Norman Edelman, a senior scientific advisor to the American Lung Association.

“We don’t have air filters at home”.

It has persisted despite the Chinese government’s stated priority of cleaning up the legacy of pollution left from years of full-tilt economic growth.