Beijing ‘airpocalypse’ red alert now in force

[snoop1130]

Beijing airpocalypse red alert now in force

CHINA -- Tough restrictions come into force today in Beijing which has issued its first ever red alert for pollution.

Thats the most serious warning signaling three consecutive days of severe smog.

The red alert brings factory closures, road restrictions, vehicle bans and a Beijing city government recommendation for schools to cancel classes.

For the first time ever, theyve closed down, all or most all of the schools in the city here, said English teacher Jonathan Fredrickson. And what Ive been told is that some students can come if they want to, or they can stay home if they want to. Its between them and their parents. But what Ive seen inside is that there are no students in there and only a handful of teachers.

I have been in Beijing for 20 years now, and before, it did not use to be like this, explained He Xiubao. Before, there were only a few cars on the road but now, look, there are more and more.

The move comes as climate change is being discussed at a summit in Paris.

The World Health Organizations China representative said the red alert means that Beijing authorities are talking air quality, and related health issues, very seriously.

-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2015-12-08

[JHolmesJr]

I wouldn't hold my breath for things to change.

[MaxYakov]

Holding one's breath or leaving the city entirely would be better than using those masks shown in the OP.

[trogers]

Did the Olympics not improved the city?

[Publicus]

Some of my Chinese friends emailed me they hope the whole focking Politburo chokes to death.

Many CCP Chinese drive Japanese imports such as Toyota which do not pollute.

The CCP made cars such as the Geeley have poor pollution control technology. Few people see a Geeley this time of year but they know it's there cause of the small black cloud chugging along. Made in China cars are much cheaper for the new lower middle classes.

The chief culprit is however that each winter the cities turn on the coal fired heating systems which belch black smoke that darkens the air.and gags the populations of whole cities. It's more of a problem in the North than in the South.

The new high tech northeast city of Dalian is clean and efficient. It is however close in surrounded by old cities with the old coal fired heating systems that belch enouugh to go around. The new hot shots in Dailan gag just as badly as everyone else.

In Taiwan they're laughing their <deleted> off. China, the country of progress, development, civilisation. This stuff also blows over to Korea so maybe Kim Jong Fat will choke to focking death too.

[craigt3365]

Did the Olympics not improved the city?

All they did was limit traffic and shutdown factories before and during the Olympics. Back to normal now....unfortunately. China has so many wonderful attractions. Sadly, they are at times partially block from view!

[Lupatria]

Did the Olympics not improved the city?

No, because they forgot to blow out the Olympic torch.

[Mot Dang]

Ten years ago I spent 3 weeks working in Beijing. My wife (Thai) decided she wanted to come with me, boy was she sorry. She is asthmatic. For those 3 weeks the mid-day sky was bright orange, no blue shy was ever seen. It was just like a sy-fi movie about Mars. For 3 weeks my wife's eyes itched, and she developed a bad cough. She could not wait to get out of the place. Oh, and the place stunk, a metallic sulfurous smell.

[Publicus]

CCP are pursuing green energy to include solar energy and are active globally in addressing climate change. Yet, the air, waters, lands of the CCP China remains irreversibly foul and polluted due to old factories, old urban heating systems, no toxic waste treatment facilities etc that would cost trillions of dollars to construct, upgrade or to replace with clean energy sources.

CCP meanwhile has constructed 64 million unoccupied housing units in a dozen or so of large unoccupied ghost cities. There isn't even a trickle of people relocating to the ghost cities. A major reason is that while ghost cities are pretty much free of smog, the ghost cities are greatly distant from commerce and industry. Anyone who moves in to a ghost city has to commute for hours each way to a center of commerce and employment.

The ghost cities are also surrounded by polluted water and land.

Air Pollution Causes 4,400 Deaths In China Every Single Day

In this May 29, 2015 photo, a man walks past a coal-powered steel plant in Tianjin, China. According to a new study, about 4,400 people in China die every day because of air pollution. (Associated Press)

Air pollution is killing about 4,400 people in China every single day, according to a new study.

Researchers from Berkeley Earth, a California-based climate research organization, calculated that about 1.6 million people in China die every year from health issues caused by the country’s notoriously polluted air.

According to the study, more than one-third of the Chinese population regularly breathe air that would be considered “unhealthy” by U.S. standards.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/air-pollution-china-deaths_55cd9a62e4b0ab468d9cefa9

Toxic smog threatens millions of Chinese lives

One of China's leading lung specialists says Beijing must act fast to save lives by closing polluting factories and improving fuel quality

View of a high-rise buildings in heavy smog in Jilin city, northeast Chinas Jilin province Photo: Corbis

Millions of lives will be unnecessarily lost to soaring rates of respiratory disease and lung cancer unless the Chinese government takes determined action against rampant air pollution, according to one of the country's foremost lung experts.

Bai Chunxue, the head of respiratory medicine at Shanghai's Zhongshan Hospital, said that while smoking was still the main culprit for skyrocketing rates of lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the dangerously high level of air pollution was taking an increasingly devastating toll on Chinese lungs.

"If air pollution is not reduced we will have more and more respiratory disease, including lung cancer, COPD, asthma and even pneumonia and also heart disease, coronary heart disease," warned Dr Bai, who is also chairman of the Chinese Alliance against Lung Cancer and the director and founder of the Shanghai Respiratory Research Institute.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10646593/Toxic-smog-threatens-millions-of-Chinese-lives.html

The Chinese Government Is Getting Rich Selling Cigarettes

The China National Tobacco Corp., which serves China’s 300 million smokers, is by far the largest cigarette maker in the world. In 2013 it manufactured about 2.5 trillion cigarettes. Its next largest competitor, Philip Morris International (PM), produced 880 billion.

A conglomerate on the order of the old Gulf + Western, China National runs more than 160 cigarette brands, manufactured in about 100 factories across the country, and uses its earnings to invest in banks, luxury hotels, a hydroelectric plant, a golf course, and even drugmakers. Most of its money goes to its owner, the Chinese government; the tobacco industry accounts for about 7 percent of the state’s revenue each year, and China National controls as much as 98 percent of the market.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-12-11/the-chinese-government-is-getting-rich-selling-cigarettes

[Ulic]

Improvement will only come when the people en mass put there foot down and there is

unrest in the community, the same for India. Hopefully it gets worse, stays worse for longer

so the governments get really serious about making changes. Not PC but you got to crack

a few eggs to make an omelet.

[JHolmesJr]

Improvement will only come when the people en mass put there foot down ….

yea…and stop breathing.

[Publicus]

Improvement will only come when the people en mass put there foot down and there is

unrest in the community, the same for India. Hopefully it gets worse, stays worse for longer

so the governments get really serious about making changes. Not PC but you got to crack

a few eggs to make an omelet.

CCP Dictators in Beijing have had to give a lot of leeway to the mass of the population on the pollution complaints and the public's unauthorised demonstrations to make their point.

Until around 2011 CCP used to immediately send in the security police to disperse citizen gatherings that specifically complained about the environment and pollution. CCP had to quit sending in the cops however, and to stop breaking up public anti-pollution demonstrations and protests by the CCP Chinese. Too many protests at too many places by too many ordinary Chinese people on an ongoing basis throughout the country.

CCP Dictators had to make a rare exception to their strict laws and policies against unauthorised public demonstrations. Pollution protests by CCP Chinese occur in mass in the big cities and the burbs throughout the land. So many ordinary people gathering all the time to repeatedly demand clean air, clean water, unpolluted land. The general population are adamant.

For several years now CCP has taken to send party Cadre to speak to the large demonstrations to tell 'em how hard CCP is working to restore the environment. That blah blah became a lost cause a long time ago. Nobody believes 'em or listens to them. One of these times somewhere in the CCP China one of these CCP party Cadre mouthpiece flacks is gonna get strung up by a crowd that's just plain had it and isn't going to stand still for it any more.

Believe me, the pollution of the air, land, water in the CCP China is massive, extensive, continuing; irreparable. It went past the point of no return several years ago.