The first ever “red alert” for poor air quality was issued for Beijing, China, by the city government due to heavy smog this week.
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Some residents questioned why the red alert was being put in place now, as opposed to last week, which measured pollution levels at over 500.
The red alert was welcomed by worldwide bodies, including the environmental group Greenpeace, which called it “a welcome sign of a different attitude from the Beijing government”.
These measures cannot totally eliminate pollution, but they can effectively reduce the spike in pollution, according to environmental protection organs in Beijing.
An odd-even number plate system also means that half the city’s private cars are not allowed on the streets on alternate days. “We wanted to develop, and now we pay the price”, Beijing office worker Cao Yong said during a break from work.
“The smog in Beijing is not an issue that appeared today, it’s even severe several days ago, and not just in Beijing but in some [other] cities in China”, Xie said through a translator. The World Health Organisation deems anything over 25 micrograms as unsafe.
Beijing is in the midst of a smog “red alert”, with forecasters warning the polluted air is going to linger throughout the city until at least Thursday.
On Tuesday evening, the USA embassy’s unofficial monitoring station recorded an air quality index of 326, marked “hazardous” at 24-hour exposure at this level.
Zhang also said it was “kind of weird” that a red alert had not been issued last week when the pollution was even worse.
On Tuesday, the average density of PM2.5 exceeded 234 micrograms per cubic metre in the downtown areas.
I checked online and the air quality monitor at the USA embassy here in Delhi – not far from my home – read the same.
He says someone offered $1600 to buy one brick, but it’s not for sale. A man who was identified only as Du said that he enjoyed the haziness from the smog. Most of the smog is blamed on coal-fired power plants, along with vehicle emissions, construction and factory work.
Emergency measures have been adopted as China’s pollution alert reaches the highest level possible.
China has a four-color warning system for pollution conditions, created in 2013 according to Xinhuanet news.
“I think it’s wrong to simply think we have to get used to living with bad air quality and not demand that more is done to solve the problem”.
The fuss, of course, is about the amount of unsafe tiny particles of pollution in the air known as PM2.5 that go straight into the bloodstream, and outdoor readings have been hovering at around 300 most of the day – 12 times the World Health Organization’s safety limit.
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A study led by atmospheric chemist Jos Lelieveld of Germany’s Max Planck Institute and published this year in Nature magazine estimated that 1.4 million people die prematurely because of pollution in China each year.
