Posted on 04/06/2005 8:03:15 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
BEIJING (AFP) - People in Beijing were warned to stay indoors as the Chinese capital was shrouded in yellow smog with pollution reaching dangerous levels.
"Under these polluted conditions, we propose that the majority of citizens reduce their time outdoors and avoid breathing this seriously polluted air," the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau said in a warning posted on its website.
Beijing's air quality has been at the lowest level for the past two days with the air "seriously polluted," the bureau said.
Experts said the capital was experiencing a heat inversion, where warmer air in the atmosphere was keeping the colder ground air in place, making it difficult for the pollution to disperse, the bureau said.
Meanwhile warmer spring temperatures in the city also meant that work at construction sites has increased, further kicking up dust that is mixing with the ever-increasing auto pollution.
"Under this situation, the thickness of every kind of air pollution has clearly increased, especially breathable suspended particles, which have risen rather quickly," the bureau said.
Suspended particle levels were hovering around the dangerous level of 400 and 500 micrograms per cubic meter, it said.
According to satellite photos, the inversion was lingering over northern China's Hebei and Shanxi provinces and extending southward to the Yangtze river, the paper said.
During the past decade of China's economic boom, the nation has also produced some of the worlds most polluted cities, with Beijing's air quality regularly ranking among the worst in the country and world.
They need environmentalists. We don't appreciate them often enough. Without them, we have...Bejing.
bwahahahaha! Low cost provider of goods and services? At what price China? Your payments are coming due. I would like to see China break up like the Soviet Union.
They also need some virulent labor unions.
This is one of the few times when governemtn has the legitimate right to get involved in the business of private business because the private business is hurting other private business, including the bodies of private individuals on their own private property.
I am a Libertarian, yet see the need for government oversight of this.
price to who? the elites in china could care less about worker protection. I've got news for you, the elites in the US could care less about worker protections either - that's why business owners are gung ho to get illegals and guest workers into the US, because they know these workers can be stepped on.
The Olympics should be an interesting event in this venue. Don't look for any record times.
I am looking at the overall picture. You can't have much of a country if you destroy it in the process of trying to become a superpower, which is exactly what China is doing. I do agree that they don't give a bit of thought to their workers. They are so many chess pieces...
The Kyoto protocol is about regulating carbon dioxide not air quality.
That list shows the idiocy of Kyoto. What about good old fashioned coal soot? Darkens the skies (making the air warmer), and contains actual pollutants rather than plant food.
Oh, wait - then nations like China, Mexico, Russia, and India would have to comply and we'd have a surplus. I lost sight of the objective - destroy the US.
Coals from various regions can be identified through mineral ash analysis. Metals and other identifiers vary from coal to coal and, if there are no emission controls, these IDs can be picked out of the dust blowing out of industrial chimneys into the prevailing west to east wind. Because coals in the world are known and traded, we know that Chinese industrial pollution is falling out over the Great Lakes. You can find it in the fish.
We get some of their crud over here, you can see it as different shades of yellow, brown, or blue when looking toward the Alaska Range from Fairbanks. We also get raw smoke from Mongolia and Indonesia.
You think private business is responsible for this pollution? In China?
We've been there.
Donora, PA at noon on Oct. 29, 1948
as deadly smog envelops the town.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.