Unbelievable photos of how bad Beijing’s air has gotten

reply to post by sonnny1


Good lord! What the hell is wrong with humankind? We see the problems we create yet we continue the problems, even enhancing it!

Seriously, when we become extinct it's because we DESERVED it.

We either make serious changes NOW or it's all over.

Game over, man.

More now then ever, there needs to be a global shift to clean, renewable, cheap/free energy. Cold fusion, focus fusion (DPF), solar, etc. Sources show that there's a market shift in the energy sector, away from fossil fuels & towards LENR. So there's some optimism that this will be the year it become commercially viable. If
not this year, the next.

The pollution in some of areas of China is so bad it's hard to believe.

if nuclear war cause a nuclear winter, they won't even notice.

they didn't write the art of war for nothing.

I am currently a resident of Beijing and yes the air here is terrible. When I leave my room, I can see all the smoke/smog at the other end of the hallway. Every time I go outside, the air always has a small burning like smell. Last Saturday was the worst I've ever experienced! While walking outside I couldn't see anything, everything was covered in fog, I could not see anything in the distance. You could see clouds of smoke/smog travelling everywhere.

Fun fact #1: The Chinese government moved all of the factories out of Beijing to help deal with the pollution. So there aren't many if any, factories in the city of Beijing.

Fun fact #2: 20,000 cars are added to the streets WEEKLY, according to the gov't most of the pollution is now coming from the cars.

Fun fact #3: Beijing is surrounded by mountains similar to L.A., so that it is like a bowl, and when the wind isn't blowing, all of that pollution and smog stays put.

It's snowing right now, the weather forecast didn't say anything about snow, so I'm not sure if it is natural snow or the government is cloud seeding again.

This is just growing pains. It wasn't that long ago that LA had similar smog problems...



China is developing at a rapid pace and no doubt within 15-20 years it'll have effective environmental protection policies in place. For now though, its mindset is no different to that of the US in the 1960s, 70s and 80s - profit at all costs.

reply to post by TheIllusiveMan


So.......

Are there ANY protesting because of this?

Just wondering.

reply to post by sonnny1


What's interesting is that the government tries to not use the word pollution and attempts to avoid the topic altogether. For example, the weather forecast for that day said there will be some dense "fog" or they will say there will be some "mist" in the air.
However, because of the severity of the pollution on that day, people didn't give in to the gov't B.S. So the government later admitted that there was some pollution, and told people to avoid going outside/outside activity if possible. Pollution is a huge issue for the Chinese people because it cannot be hidden. It is not like jailing some dissident or the forced demolition of someone's home, ~which people here don't generally give a crap about~.

As far as protests, there was a lot of chatter about it on China's version of twitter called Weibo. This is what the Chinese people use to be able to protest their gov't albeit sometimes indirectly with some restrictions. Internet users in China that want to protest a sensitive topic typically use creative ways to get around the gov't censors. They often use humor or satire to protest any current issue to get around the sensors.

As far as political protests, there weren't any.

Some humor: the chinese will often refer to the smell I mentioned earlier as "The sweet smell of GDP"
they will call the smog/fog the "patriotic mist"

reply to post by TheIllusiveMan


Thanks for getting back to me.


Crazy though how they know their pollution might be making their Country money, but Jesus.

A hell of a price to pay.

it just looks like the image was captured while some clouds were passing by

Greetings, sonnny1

Unbelievable photos of how bad Beijing’s air has gotten

More amazing than the conditions shown in the photos, is that the Washington Post published it. Did they get permission from Al Gore?

Al Gore would have us believe that only US Citizens are to blame for "man-made global warming."
Why doesn't he go to China and brow-beat and reprimand them?

Why doesn't Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Al Gore go to Brazil and stop the systemic clearing of the Amazon Jungle. There will be man-made "climate change" when the Amazon Jungle is destroyed to a certain percent, but "oooooh noooo," Al Gore is content to lay blame only on US Citizens.

Okay, before I get flamed for disrespecting Al Gore, I'll admit much of the blame goes to WalMart Shoppers, since Wal Mart f-----g requires damn near all products be manufactured in China.

I can remember my mum telling me about the 'peasoupers' in London (as they were affectionately known). Both of my parents lived in London during that time....and both suffered chronic lung conditions, even though they had given up smoking many years before and lived in the country for the last 40 years of their lives.

I cannot help thinking that when this happened before it was the result of ignorance, we didn't realise it would happen! And there are obviously ways we now have to improve air quality. So why is China apparently repeating these mistakes or doing little about it?

As has been pointed out, we are the kettle calling the pot black. The Chinese are between a rock and a hard place. They are trying to join the 21st century and modernize, we have to be patient and realize they will wake up as we did and quit overtly poisoning themselves. Like us they will become more subtle and poison themselves in less obvious ways, and like us find ways to export poisons. They are doing an excellent job already sending us lead, for example.

i have a question or two for those living in china. what do people normally use for cooking? do most use electrical appliances, or do most people especially the poor rely on using things like coal, charcoal and wood fires to do their cooking? the same goes for heating. do many people use electric or gas, or do a lot of people rely on open fire types like coal, charcoal or wood fires to heat their living quarters?

But humans can't influence the climate, stopping people from burning high-carbon log fires is breaching their human rights and global warming is a lie.


...


Right?

My father spent about 2 years there, around the time they hosted the olympics.

He said there was an ebb and flow to the levels you could see/feel, but when it was heavy, it was unreal.

reply to post by sonnny1


My daughter lived in China for awhile. She said that the air was so dirty and thick, sometimes she couldn't even see the building directly across from her. Sad very sad.

reply to post by Adonsa


Seriously? Just stop it. The whole goddamn climate change debate does not focus on Al freaking Gore. His contribution was small it's just at the time he had a lot of political capital. He said some stupid things and yes is a hypocrite that does not frigging negate a goddamn thing science has to say nor does it negate that yes the US is very largely responsible for the conditions in China at the moment so is the Chinese government. So is everyone.

... incredulous children can't stop over reacting to something some idiot said years ago.

reply to post by sonnny1


Yes, they're just called eco-nazi's AGW religious fanatics blah blah blah.

So they get ignored.

reply to post by sonnny1


This is why they seek to take over American cities and develop infrastructure here. They seem to be choosing the most remote ares, but really it is just to disguise the pollution and create a safer haven for their billions of under paid workers.

I think when they come here they need to be sanctioned and controlled the same as Americans. Make them pay American salaries, benefits and guidelines as well as taxed the hell out of the same as we are.

There is a pig slaughter house that went in a few miles away from me, they hired Chinese workers who were housed there and paid Chinese wages, they sent 100% of the slaughtered meats back to China, and were not governed by the same standards and laws, taxes as an American company in the same situation. We however deal with the contaminated ground water and the Bloody/fecal mess left behind.

We need to keep a very very close eye on these sneaky tactics because we owe them so much they could undermine the entire country so easily.

Not to mention their Animal cruelty. They use OUR Swine, they use US.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
I'm not sure how much blame China can be handed on this since they are literally playing catch up to what the world has already done before them. They're literally retracing the Industrial Revolutions, compressing the timeline by at least 50% and doing this all with a population 4x's what we have TODAY, let alone back when our nation went through the dirtiest decades of 'progress'.

Except, today,

a) the population and population density is MUCH larger
b) the health hazards of air pollution is much better understood
c) the countermeasures against such air pollution is off-the-shelf known technology

So, no the Chinese don't have a good excuse. I lived in Los Angeles as a boy. The air today is much cleaner than it was 25 years ago, despite more cars and people. Why? Because of firm action to ensure strict adherence to anti-pollution standards, and ignoring the bleatings of those who complained it would hurt competitiveness, etc.