Given that Beijing recently updated its air pollution warning alert to orange, Nut Brother’s project is on time.
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Yin Lina, who took her five-year-old daughter to a children’s hospital with a stuffed nose, said: “The government is supposed to be tackling the pollution, so we need to see the effects”.
The smog is affecting 23 cities in northern China and stretches 204,634 square miles across the country – an area bigger, Quartz points out, than Spain or California.
A joke circulating among Chinese journalists told of a reporter approaching an old woman on the street to ask about the impact of the smog.
City authorities issued an orange alert, the second highest of four danger levels, and polluting factories were required reduce production, as visibility fell and buildings receded into the thick smog.
Readings of the tiny poisonous PM2.5 particles reached into the high 600s micrograms per cubic meter through the capital, as compared with the World Health Organization safe level of 25.
Beijing was again engulfed in heavy smog on Monday, sending air pollution readings soaring ahead of President Xi Jinping’s address to the global climate change summit in Paris. Construction work throughout the city was also halted.
Authorities in Beijing have released an advisory suspending schools and other outdoor activities due to the possible health risks.
Airlines cancelled over 30 flights from Beijing and Shanghai, many to highly polluted Shaanxi province, a key coal producer.
Beijing’s severe pollution follows a bout of record-breaking smog in the country’s northeast last month, when PM2.5 levels reached 1,400 micrograms per cubic meter in the city of Shenyang – the highest registered so far – and 860 micrograms per cubic meter in neighboring Changchun.
An unfortunate combination of weather conditions has also helped trap pollutants, according to meteorologists – cold air closer to the ground resulting from thawing snow reduced the mobility of airborne pollutants, officials said. Locals have reportedly complained about the foul smell of the air.
Winds predicted for Wednesday are expected to clear away some of the pollution, but until then, residents are being warned to stay inside.
“A few days of breathing in the refreshing Delhi smog and suddenly I don’t miss my daily cigarettes”, resident Rahul Dutta Gupta said on Twitter.
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“Volatile organic pollutant emissions” will continue to climb in the coming year and will peak in 2020, together with levels of ammonia and lead in the air, the newspaper said, citing a study by the Research Institute of Resources and Environment Policies at the State Council’s Development Research Center.
