Hi-Ho - Another Beijing Day With Air Quality Off The Charts Bad - Approaching 600 pm 2.5

[hatrack]

No matter what desperate steps the Chinese government takes—banning coal burning plants within the city limits, shuttering more than 300 factories, wiping out old vehicles and boilers, forcing heavy trucking to go nocturnal—this just keeps happening: Beijing's smog has yet again soared off the charts.

On Thursday local time, Beijing measured "beyond index" levels of the dangerous airborne particulate matter known as PM2.5—considered hazardous to human health because the tiny particles can embed deep in a person's respiratory system. Those sky-high levels have been measured several times since the US began measuring the city's air using a device installed atop its embassy in Beijing in 2008, most notably during a "crazy bad" incident in 2010, and 2013's "airpocalypse".

Thursday's levels indicated the concentration of PM2.5 exceeded 500 on an "Air Quality Index" (AQI) measured from the embassy. The Beijing municipal government maintains its own index, always notably lower than the US readings, which reported an AQI of 430—still hazardous. (Anything above 150 is considered unhealthy for the general population). Today's levels are generally regarded as more than 20 times the limit recommended by the World Health Organization.




Air in Beijing is "beyond index." Off the charts & beyond hazardous. CCTV Tower invisible from NYT office.
12:24 AM - 15 Jan 2015
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EDIT

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/beijing-airpocolypse-beyond-index-hazardous-smog

[daleanime]

1. kick, kick, kick.....

[CanonRay]

2. They are going to have millions of people with respiratory diseases

Cancer, COPD and who knows what else. That looks absolutely foul.

[GliderGuider]

3. "This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but a gasping, strangled wheeze..." nt