Exporting airpocalypse: how China's dirty air becomes Hong Kong's problem

Last month there were 300,000 doctor’s visits in Hong Kong linked to smog wafting over from mainland China. But in a busy town obsessed with money, will it take a direct economic hit to wake people to the danger?

By Benjamin Haas in Hong Kong

Much of Hong Kong’s pollution comes across from mainland China.

At the age of three, Margaux Giraudon developed something akin to a smoker’s cough. 

Thereafter, she became all too familiar with the inside of her doctor’s office in Hong Kong.
For years, her father Nicolas Giraudon was told the same thing by doctors: “Your daughter is sensitive to changes in the weather.” 

Eventually she grew so ill that she was hooked up to breathing machines in the hospital for three days, inhaling medicine delivered in a mist. 

At that point, Giraudon decided it was time for the family to return to his native France.
“She was scared – she didn’t know what was going on, and she saw the look on our faces,” Giraudon recalls. 

“Her mother and I were completely shocked. When you have children, you want the best for them; you want to protect them as much as possible.”
For Giraudon, those three days transformed Hong Kong from an international city bustling with excitement and opportunity into a death trap that was slowly poisoning his family. 

Born on the island, Margaux had developed asthmatic bronchitis, which caused her lung capacity to fall by nearly a third compared to other children her age.
While Hong Kong’s air pollution rarely commands the attention of the toxic cloud that frequently covers northern China, dubbed the “airpocalypse”, the air is anything but clean here. 

Levels of cancer-causing pollutants have exceeded World Health Organization standards for over 15 years, rising to more than five times acceptable levels at its peak.
As far back as 2013, the government called air pollution the “greatest daily health risk to the people of Hong Kong”. 

Despite awareness of the dangers, this notoriously pro-business city has moved at a glacial pace in tackling the problem, commissioning study after study but taking little concrete action.
The fast-paced business world is what originally brought Giraudon to Hong Kong in 2009. 

In the six years before his daughter became sick, he didn’t experience any noticeable effects from air pollution. 

The 42-year-old media executive went hiking in the mountains around the city and jogged all over his new home, realising a lifelong dream of working in Asia. 

He didn’t buy air purifiers, dismissing the costly machines as a marketing trick.

Margaux Giraudon developed asthmatic bronchitis while living in Hong Kong. Photograph: Nicolas Giraudon

After his daughter’s hospital stay, however, Giraudon transformed completely. 

He bought a device to measure air pollution and became obsessed. 

Every room in his house was fitted with an expensive air purifier, and he checked the air quality constantly.
“My flat in Hong Kong felt like living in a spaceship,” he says. 

“I was measuring the level of pollution 24 hours a day, measuring humidity to combat mould, to make sure everything was within acceptable levels.”
Giraudon would hear his neighbour’s children coughing at night, and knew they didn’t have air filters.
“I became the guy nobody invited for dinner,” he recalls with a sigh. 

“Especially the newcomers, who were all really excited to arrive in Hong Kong – and then I would come with my readings and warnings. People didn’t want to hear about it.”
Giraudon began taking his testing equipment to his daughter’s school and was shocked to discover the air was terrible. 

But he also found another group of people who did not want to hear about the problem: school officials. 

He launched a campaign to clean the air there, and was met with resistance at every turn.
The city is notorious for capitalism run amok, and the authorities have long preferred the status quo or very slow change – a perpetual complaint among activists.
In a sign that ignorance about the health effects of pollution extends to the very top, one former chief executive famously said: “Life expectancy [in Hong Kong] is the highest on earth, higher than that in Japan these days. It must be our air.” 

The year he made that statement, pollution levels were more than four times WHO recommendations.

Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world.

The source of the smog
While equipping every room of a school or home with filters can clean the air, it’s only a plaster over the larger problem: tackling pollution at the source.
Emissions from cars and container ships are some of the largest contributors to Hong Kong’s smog. Old diesel vehicles still number in the tens of thousands, and ships sailing into the city’s port, one of the busiest in the world, are allowed to burn high sulphur fuel right up until they dock. 

Power plants, meanwhile, rely almost entirely on fossil fuel, with coal supplying 52% of the city’s energy.
Much of Hong Kong’s pollution, however, wafts across the border from China. 

About 70% of particulate matter comes from the mainland, according to a study commissioned by the city’s Environmental Protection Department. 

In winter, when the wind direction tends to blow more pollutants towards Hong Kong, as much as 77% of dust in the air comes from China.
Hong Kong has signed a series of agreements with Guangdong province directly to the north – but they are unenforceable, stymying efforts by the local government and activists to have a meaningful impact. 

In the meantime, the health impact on Hong Kong’s population is severe.
There were more than 1,600 premature deaths last year because of air pollution, according to Hong Kong University’s school of public health. 

In the first month of 2017 researchers estimate there were more than 300,000 doctor’s visits linked to smog.
A landmark study last year found that air pollution increased the risk of dying from any type of cancer by 22% in Hong Kong. 

An increase of just 10 micrograms of PM2.5 – a tiny airborne particulate linked to cancer and heart disease – heightened the risk of dying of breast cancer by 80%.

A clean, blue-skied billboard against the city’s polluted skyline. 

With a government that is scarcely accountable to Hong Kong residents, environmental campaigners are fighting an uphill battle to contain even local sources of pollution. 

The city’s leader, known as the chief executive, is elected by a 1,200-strong committee made up of elites, where China has considerable sway over the votes. 

Only half the seats in the legislature are directly elected, with the remaining lawmakers returned by professional organisations that overwhelmingly support Beijing.
Tanya Chan, chairman of the environmental affairs panel in the city’s legislature, recalls constituents clamouring for the government to clean up the air, fearing for the health of their children. 

“The government can try harder and they should push harder,” she says. 

“We need to be improving fuel standards and expanding the use of electric vehicles.”
Chan is in favour of introducing congestion pricing to some of the city’s most clogged districts, but lawmakers are hamstrung by a political system where all power related to government spending or levies requires approval from the chief executive.
“He is only accountable to a small election committee, where most come from business sectors,” Chan says. “We have no choice but to breathe this air.”
The city’s air quality standards (government targets for clean air) remained unchanged for 27 years before eventually being updated in 2014. 

But they still fall short of WHO guidelines.
“We need to improve our air quality standard to catch up with international standards,” Chan adds. “That process has been a bit slow and I hope the government will do more, especially for the PM2.5s.”
The Environmental Bureau only began publicising Hong Kong’s PM2.5 figures in 2012, nearly seven years after it began monitoring the harmful pollutant, and only after Beijing began publishing the same information.
But locals are increasingly concerned, and hungry for information.

Hong Kong’s air pollution caused more than 1,600 premature deaths last year.

The activists
On a recent evening, tucked away on the second floor of a sleepy cafe, about two dozen people gather to receive a crash course in Hong Kong’s pollution situation. 

The mostly young crowd are a mix of office workers, salesmen and artists, all united by their previous ignorance of the dangers in the air and their anger at the officials they say kept them in the dark.
Leading the meeting is Patrick Fung, chief executive of the Hong Kong Clean Air Network. 

The 31-year-old has become the face of the fight for better air quality in the city, and while he’s often dressed in tailored shirts and trousers to ensure his message is taken seriously, his shoulder-length hair, goatee and glasses evoke an image of environmental activists from years past.
In many ways the former advertising executive lives by the phrase: “There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” taking any opportunity to counter the narrative that dirty air is a fact of life.
“I’m just advertising something else now: cleaner air,” Fung says. 

“It’s the most challenging product to sell: everyone wants it but it’s not just something you buy, some sacrifices need to be made.”
On the most basic level, Fung and his fellow campaigners want the government to update its air quality targets. 

The Hong Kong government’s targets for annual air pollution are three and a half times higher than those recommended by the World Health Organization.
But beyond that are a host of problems unique to Hong Kong: the city is one of the most densely populated places in the world, with its most crowded district nearly four times more packed than Islington, London’s densest borough. 

Narrow streets surrounded by high-rises have created “street canyons”, which can trap pollutants between buildings.
Fung’s group advocates for large swaths of the city’s main thoroughfares to be turned over to pedestrians, similar to New York’s Times Square or plans for Oxford Street in London. 

Cindy Wong listens to Fung’s speech with rapt attention, bombarded with information she had never heard before.
“People in Hong Kong spend all their time worrying: prices are expensive, rent is high, salaries are low, so no one has time to care about pollution,” she says after the meeting. 

“The government should have a strict policy to control pollution; the government should lead and people will follow.”

Patrick Fung: ‘[Clean air] should be a basic right.’ 

“The air seems much better in foreign countries, in Europe,” Wong adds. 

Although she’s never been, she often watched with envy as travel programs highlighted tree-lined streets and plentiful gardens in cities abroad.
“A lot of Hong Kongers know about the poor air quality, but they feel powerless,” Fung says. 

“It’s an issue of justice – this should be a basic right.”
After five years heading the environmental NGO, he says he can tell the air quality by his nose alone. “Everyone in this office can tell just by the smell of the air.”

Ignoring the problem
The vast majority of Hong Kong people don’t have air purifiers, and those that do tend to be wealthier and better educated, according to Peter Brar, manager at air quality testing company Renaud Air, which also sells filters. 

He estimates about half of all expats have at least one air filter in their homes.
“A lot of the local people who’ve never had an opportunity to live abroad don’t know any better,” Brar says. 

“They think going to the doctor and getting sick three times a year is normal; it’s not normal.”
Although many in Hong Kong may not be aware of the hazards of dirty air, the government has over a decade of data illustrating the problem – but it has been slow to act.
“A lot of the bureaucrats don’t want to be blamed for something,” Brar says. 

“They just try to keep ignoring it and ignoring it as long as possible – and saving money, saving money until they have to do something.
“Hong Kong is a very pro-business environment,” he adds. 

“The government does know the air quality is really bad – but they try to hide the problem.”
In a town obsessed with money, the fact that air pollution is estimated to have caused HK$20.bn (£2.2bn) worth of economic losses in 2016 may change more minds.
Brar points to a system where buildings in Hong Kong can apply for a clean air certificate from the government – but the process only tests for PM10, particulate matter akin to dust or pollen, entirely ignoring the smaller, more harmful PM2.5.
He says companies that sell air purifiers frequently meet resistance from schools and business, with executives either in denial or unwilling to spend the money required to provide clean air.
When Giraudon wanted to present a professional report at his daughter’s school, Brar offered to test the air quality for free, but was also rebuffed by school officials. 

Other schools have been more receptive – particularly international schools that have more money compared to government-run institutions.
Giraudon, however, has left behind his battle for classroom purifiers in favour of a suburb of Annecy, a small French city that has the reputation of having the cleanest lake in Europe.
Having arrived last December, Giraudon reports that his daughter Margaux already seems to be doing better. 

Frequently sick in Hong Kong, she has yet to fall ill, is coughing less and no longer needs to carry an inhaler.
After eight years of living in Hong Kong, Giraudon admits he misses the excitement, opportunities and low taxes, which max out at 15% rather than France’s 45%.
“But I prefer to pay tax than to kill my children,” he says.

Plagues of China

Chinese People Are Buying All Kinds of Desperate Remedies to Protect Themselves From Smog
By Charlie Campbell / Beijing

Pedestrians wearing masks walk on a road that is blanketed by heavy smog on Jan. 5, 2017, in Jinan, Shandong province, China.

Following a welcome burst of blue skies over Lunar New Year, chronic smog returned to northern China this week, prompting the wearing of face masks and the switching on of air purifiers as airborne particle levels soared to 10 times WHO safe levels.
The government said it was making efforts to deal with the choking haze, from slashing coal consumption in the capital Beijing by 30%, and the threat of legal action against the worst offending local authorities, to proposed cutbacks to the coal and steel industries. (Though Greenpeace claims the latter actually grew in capacity last year.)
But the enduring smog is good news for one section of society: peddlers of "antipollution" products. 

The range of prophylactics has grown enormously over the last few years, and ranges from the sensible — such as ever more sophisticated face masks and air purifiers — to the highly dubious, such as "antismog" herbal teas.
Boasting ingredients such as “polygonatum, kumquat, lily, red dates, chrysanthemum and rock candy,” the latter are claimed by manufacturers to "alleviate the harm to the human body of long-term inhalation of air pollution.” 

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioners are unimpressed, though; Liu Quanqing, president of the Beijing Hospital of TCM, told China’s state media last month that such concoctions were "unreliable" and "may cause health problems if taken for a long time."

Passengers walk in the smog at Zhengzhou East Railway Station on Jan. 9, 2017, in Zhengzhou, Henan province, China.

But it’s not just teas that have dubious efficacy. 

China’s online trading platform Taobao — the nation’s gargantuan equivalent of eBay and Amazon — is chock-full with bizarre antismog products. 

There are antismog windows and antismog trees. 

For $5,000 you can buy a truck-mounted antismog water cannon that drenches particles from the air. 

Conversely, there is also antismog incense, for those who literally want to fight fumes with fumes.
For skeptics, face masks and air purifiers remain the preferred choices, and China has made major strides with both.
There are masks with built-in fans, masks just for the nose, and even couples’ masks especially for Valentine's Day. 

For fashionistas, Beijing designer Wang Zhijun turns high-end sneakers into face masks; one was crafted from a pair of Kanye West–designed, limited edition Adidas Yeezy Boosts that were recently sold online for $10,000.
Air purifiers, meanwhile, are becoming cheaper and more efficient. 

Chinese tech firm Xiaomi leads the way with its Mi Air Purifier Pro, boasting a dual-fan, dual-motor system with "high-precision laser sensor."
“Air purifiers are made not just for smog,” company spokesman Li Zhuoqi tells TIME. 

“In fact, air purifiers also sell well in countries with generally good air quality as they can filter pollen, dust, airborne germs and eliminate odors.”
Xiaomi should know what it’s talking about. 

Late last month, global vice president Hugo Barra quit the Beijing-based firm to move back to California, saying that “the last few years of living in such a singular environment have taken a huge toll on my life and started affecting my health.”

Like a China dream

China Dream: Information Manipulation

China is desperately trying to control what information the public can get about pollution
By Echo Huang

Keep your mouth shut.

After a toxic start to the year, China is taking measures that will make it harder for people to get information about pollution.

Notice on halting smog forecast, issued by China Meteorological Administration on Jan. 17, 2017.

On Jan. 17, China’s Meteorological Administration issued a notice (link in Chinese) requiring all local weather bureaus to stop issuing smog warnings. 

Instead, it will implement a unified system for future smog warnings.
Under this new system, the agency said it will issue warnings after discussions with the environmental bureau, weather forecast bureau, and other related departments, a staff member told Shanghai-based news agency the Paper (link in Chinese).
Local weather bureaus, however, will still be able to issue “fog” warnings. 

Fog has become a bit of a scapegoat for China when it comes to pollution. 

Earlier this month, Beijing blamed its poor visibility on fog, issuing its first-ever red “fog” alert while maintaining an orange smog alert—its second-highest pollution warning—even though independent pollution readings qualified it for a red smog alert.
Chinese citizens are livid about the changes. 

“As professional weather forecast departments, they should be well aware of the risks it bring if the smog isn’t alerted when it comes,” one user wrote on Weibo (link in Chinese).
The notice comes weeks after a Chinese app called Air Matters, which collects air quality information, was told by the government to stop releasing data exceeding official records. 

One of the app’s developers Wang Jun said a provincial environmental protection department ordered the app to cap its air quality index readings at 500, the current maximum (link in Chinese) recorded by officials.

China dream: Beijing, the city where you can't escape smog

China's capital is notorious for its chronic pollution. Even indoors it's a struggle to find clean air.
By John Sudworth.

A normal day in Beijing
Having already taped most of my windows shut, I have now started on the air conditioning vents. 

The aim is simple -- to close off every access point through which the toxic outside air leaks into our Beijing home.
Even our double-glazing doesn't keep out the smog. 

The most dangerous constituent, particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter -- or PM2.5 as it's known -- finds a way through the tiniest of gaps where the windows close.
So the only solution there is duct tape.
It's like a re-enactment of a 1970s government information film on surviving a nuclear holocaust. 

Only it's not radiation we're trying to keep at bay, but the fallout from fossil fuels.
The most useful device in our armoury is our PM2.5 monitor. 

We have two, one upstairs and one downstairs, which we glance at frequently, and it was their arrival that prompted the frenzy of taping and draught-excluding that continues to this day.
When I first arrived in China, five years ago, there was no way of monitoring the quality of air in our home. 

Like everyone else, we left it to blind faith that our air purifiers were doing the trick. It now transpires they weren't. 

Even now on highly polluted days, we struggle to get our PM2.5 count much below 25 micrograms per cubic meter, the World Health Organization's maximum standard for safe air.
And that's with multiple purifiers running at full tilt, large box-like machines that sit in the corner of every room -- two in some -- the combined noise output of which is akin to living in the engine room of an aircraft carrier.

Shoppers look at air purifiers in Beijing
China's air pollution problem is now so bad that its effects are measured in more than a million premature deaths a year and markedly reduced life expectancy -- an average of more than five years or so -- in the worst-affected regions.
Over the past few weeks, a period of particularly acute and prolonged air pollution, the average air quality in Beijing has been well above 200 micrograms of PM2.5 particles per cubic metre -- many times the maximum safe limit.
During the worst of it, it's been like living under house arrest, our children confined to the small, deafening but breathable indoor space of our home for days on end.
And across China, the smog becomes a dominant topic on social media, with the population tracking the foulness of the air via mobile phone apps.
One group of Beijing mothers, armed with their own PM2.5 counters, have even been roaming the city in search of shopping malls or cafes with filtered air -- and then sharing their discoveries online.
Of course, humanity's dependence on oil and coal long predate China's economic rise. 

But China offers a vision of environmental degradation far in excess of the pea-souper fogs of 1950s London or Manchester.
For much of the past month the cloud of toxic air hanging over this country has extended for thousands of miles, a giant, continent-sized cocktail of soot from coal fired power stations and car exhausts, smothering the lives and filling the lungs of hundreds of millions of people.
While growing awareness means that more of them are now taking action to protect their health, many others are either not fully informed about the danger or don't have the means to do much about it.
A set of new filters for a single air purifier can cost £100 ($120) or more and needs changing every six months or so.
It is, of course, not a problem only of China's making. 

The smartphones, computers, TV screens, jeans and shoes that have been pouring out of its factories over the past few decades are cheap, in part at least, precisely because they're made without environmental safeguards.
The interests of the rich world and an unaccountable Chinese Communist elite have neatly dovetailed. 

The West gets its cheap consumer desirables and China gets rich without the inconvenience of the independent scrutiny, regulation or democratic oversight of other markets.
The true cost is measured by the numbers on my pollution monitors, and it is one being borne disproportionately by ordinary Chinese people.
Following a crackdown on a rare protest against pollution in the central city of Chengdu recently, one blogger dared to speak out in favour of the protesters. 

The police, he suggested, should bear in mind that the elites, whose interests they protect, have sent their families to breathe clean air overseas.
He was promptly detained.

Poetoxic Beijing

China Dream: Death By Smog

Read The Smog-Inspired Poem That China Can't Stop Talking About
By EMILY FENG

A smog alert day in Dalian, China. The photo was taken on December 19.

A poem written by a Chinese surgeon lamenting the medical effects of smog, called "I Long to Be King," is going viral on Chinese social media.
Told from the perspective of lung cancer, the poem takes an apocalyptic note:

Happiness after sorrow, rainbow after rain.

I faced surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy,

But continued to chase my dream,

Some would have given up, but I will be the king.

An English version of the poem (for full text, see below) ran in the October issue of CHEST Journal, a publication of the American College of Chest Physicians.
Published in Chinese this month, the poem is now striking a chord on Chinese social media.
"I hope the government can look at this problem more and then immediately resolve it, otherwise everyone will move. Or we will die of cancer. Is this the final outcome we face?" asked one commenter on Weibo, China's Twitter-like social media platform.
"I'm infuriated... For the sake of GDP, can we simply ignore the health of our country's people?" wrote another.
Not all commenters appreciated the poem though.
"Europe and the U.S. always most enjoy when Chinese people write about their own underside. The more coarse, the more backward, the higher the chance it wins attention," complained one.
The author of "I Long to Be King" is Dr. Zhao Xiaogang, deputy chief of thoracic surgery at Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital of Tongji University.
Since the poem has taken off, he has been outspoken in the detrimental health effects of air pollution.
"The intense rise in lung cancer ... is intimately related to smog," Dr. Zhao told state media.
In and around Beijing and Hebei province in China's northeast last week, the concentration of air pollutant particles was more than 20 times higher than the level deemed safe by the World Health Organization.
According to the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, the city saw 168 days of "polluted" air in 2016.
Cancer is the leading cause of death in China, claiming 2.8 million lives in 2015.
Lung cancer is the country's leading form of cancer.

The Chinese government, well aware of the simmering discontent, has resolved to clean up the country's smog problem.
Ambitious goals have been set to substantially reign in air pollution by 2020.
And over the past year authorities have fined corporate polluters millions, going as far as detaining several hundred of them.
Yet on Chinese message boards, some commenters don't think the pollution will end any time soon.
"The Hebei countryside is all smog. It is terrible," wrote one commenter.
"It is another way of showing how useless the government is."
Here's the full text of I Long To Be King:

I am ground glass opacity (GGO) in the lung,

A vague figure shrouded in mystery and strangeness,

Like looking at the moon through clouds,

Like seeing beautiful flowers in the fog.

I long to be king,

With my fellows swimming in every vessel.

My people crawl in your organs and body,

Holding the rights for life or death, I tremble with excitement.

When young you called me "atypical adenomatous hyperplasia",

Then when I had matured, you declared me "adenocarcinoma in situ",

When fully developed, your fearful denomination: "invasive adenocarcinoma".

You forgot my strenuous journey to become the king.

From tiny to strong,

From humble to arrogant.

None cared when I was young,

But all fear me we when full grown.

I've been nourished on the delicious mist and haze,

That sweetly warmed my heart,

Always loving when you were heavy drunk and smoking,

Creating me a cozy home.

When I was less than eight millimeters, I was so fragile,

Waiting for a chance to grow up.

Now, more than eight millimeters, I am more mature,

And considered worthy of notice.

My continuous growth gives me a chance to be king,

As I break through layers of obstacles,

Spanning the mountains and waters.

My fellows march to every corner and occupy every region.

My quest to become king was full of obstacles,

I was cut until almost dead in childhood,

Burned once I'd matured,

And poisoned when older.

Happiness after sorrow, rainbow after rain.

I faced surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy,

But continued to chase my dream,

Some would have given up, but I will be the king.

I long to be king, with fellows and subordinates,

I long to be king, to have people's fear and respect

I long to be king, to dominate my domain,

I long to be king, to direct your fate.

China Dream

The filth they breathe in China
By Michael Auslin

Winter has returned to northern China.
And so has the country's trademark, deadly smog.
The central government recently declared its first-ever national red alert for air quality, with pollution levels hovering over 12 times the level recommended by the World Health Organization.
Indeed, China's unprecedented growth has come at a horrific social cost that is just beginning to get serious attention.
The political leadership of China put economic growth far above environmental protection or health concerns, and the country now faces a catastrophically polluted countryside.
Nearly all aspects of China's environment are affected, and the true economic and health effects are only now becoming apparent.
Pollution in China is at an unsustainable level.
The cost in lives and the cost of cleaning up China's ruined rivers, lakes, skies, and soil are staggering.
Just as significant will be the economic cost of changing the way business is done in China to prevent further environmental destruction.
The lack of industrial regulation, the burning of dirty coal, and the rapid growth in private ownership of cars have combined to create one of the world's worst air pollution problems.
On one of my first trips to Beijing, as our plane touched down in the early afternoon, the sky looked as though it was dusk, a phenomenon universally noted by visitors.
The rarity of sunny and blue sky is avidly remarked on by everyone from shopkeepers to government officials — the latter, of course, off the record.
By some estimates, only 1 percent of China's urban dwellers breathe safe air. 
During the winter of 2012–13, levels of the most dangerous type of particulate matter in Beijing's air were over 20 times the amount recommended by the World Health Organization.
Midday in Beijing looked like late evening, and residents were urged to stay inside.
The massive scale of China's air pollution problem was dramatically exposed when Beijing was cleared of over one million automobiles for nearly a month before the start of the 2008 Olympic Games, creating a stretch of clear weather not seen in over a decade.
In October 2013, the city of Harbin in northeastern China, home to 11 million people, was essentially shut down for over a day because of smog that measured 50 times worse than the daily limit set by the World Health Organization.
China's dark skies impose staggering demographic costs.
As early as the 1990s, respiratory disease was identified as one of the country's leading causes of death.
Chinese environmental activists claim that in the most polluted cities, such as Guangzhou, residents' lungs turn black by the time they are in their forties.
A 2007 World Bank study claimed that outdoor air pollution causes up to 400,000 premature deaths each year, and polluted air inside homes and factories causes another 300,000. 
A more recent study put the total number of deaths caused by air pollution at 1.2 million annually. 
A 2013 study estimated that people in northern China have a nearly six-year drop in life expectancy due to pollution.
Nor do China's citizens find much help in the ground.
The water may be even worse than the air.
Most of the country's water sources, from lakes to rivers, streams, and catch basins, are hazardous to human health. 
Industrial runoff, poor sewage treatment, and lack of adequate waste disposal locations, particularly throughout China's interior, have poisoned the country's water sources.
Environmental groups such as Greenpeace accuse industrial concerns of dumping poisonous chemicals and other waste into rivers and lakes in and near cities. 
In March 2013, over 3,000 dead pigs floated down a major river through Shanghai, leading to widespread fears of waterborne contamination from the carcasses.
Some rivers are so polluted that the fish in them have died, yet local populations still use them for washing clothes.
The World Bank concluded in 2007 that 60,000 deaths occur each year from diarrhea, cancer, and other diseases caused by waterborne pollution.
One nonprofit environmental group claimed in a 2011 study that 39 percent of China's seven main river basins were too polluted for general use, including 14 percent that were unfit even for industrial use.
In 26 key lakes and reservoirs, only 42 percent of the total water was deemed fit for swimming and fishing, while 8 percent was unfit even for industrial use.
The World Bank estimates that the groundwater in half of China's cities is dangerously polluted. 
That means that at least half of China's population lacks access to safe drinking water.
In all, a quarter of China's water sources are too polluted for human use.
The problem is growing despite government attempts to improve water quality.
All this pollution is taking an enormous toll on China's citizens and its economy.
The World Bank estimated that the health effects of pollution cost China's economy upward of $100 billion per year, or 3 percent of GDP.
Overall, as millions of Chinese continue to move to the cities, air quality worsens and local sanitation systems get overwhelmed, while back in the hinterlands, factories go on destroying lakes and rivers. Modernization clearly does not mean wealth for everyone in China, nor, despite the trappings of middle-income lifestyles, does it necessarily mean a healthier standard of living.

Plagues of China

Don’t Blame the Weather For China’s Smog
By Junfeng "Jim" Zhang

Like a Chinese dream

China’s air quality has been particularly bad so far this winter. 

Severe smog or haze episodes have occurred one after another with short breaks in between, affecting many parts of the world’s second largest economy, including some remote cities in the far west East Turkestan

Northern China has been hit hardest, with much of the national and international attention focusing in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Last week, Beijing issued its first-ever red alert for “fog” due to extremely low visibility caused by haze. 

The warning is the most severe pollution warning in the country’s four-tier system, resulting in school closures and flight cancellations and delays.
Haze and PM2.5 are perhaps the most commonly used words in China nowadays. PM2.5 is a term for tiny particles that can cause respiratory, cardiovascular, reproductive, and other health problems. High concentrations of agglomerated fine particles in the atmosphere are directly translated to decreased visibility or grey-ish sky. 

Hence, China counts the number of blue-sky days per year to assess progress made toward improved air quality.
Since Li Keqiang declared a war on air pollution in 2014, the Chinese Government released a set of aggressive air quality control regulations that aimed to reduce PM2.5 by 20% in five years. 

Annual average concentrations of PM2.5 have declined in the last three years. 

And this past summer, Beijing and other cities in China had more “blue sky” days than previous years. 

China’s government was pleased to see the effectiveness of its stricter emission standards on power plants and industrial facilities, but that sentiment quickly changed when a series of negative reports of haze emerged in the Fall of 2016.
It is, of course, convenient to blame the weather. 

No one knows better than Beijing residents about the importance of having northerly wind or a good rain to clean a sky filled with PM2.5 and gaseous pollutants. 

It is true that the atmospheric condition, with less precipitation and wind, is less favorable for pollutant dispersion in the winter than in the summer in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hubei region. 

This is an important contributor to worsened air quality in winter months in this region. 

However, this factor alone does not explain the frequent reoccurrence and very wide spread of haze episodes across China. 

Blaming weather for the problem may exasperate an already angry audience who might consider this an irresponsible excuse to the real cause of the problem.
The reality is that new regulations to curb pollution aren’t enough, and the latest alert signals that China’s government needs to do more. 

The January 4th 2017 issue of Economist presented data showing a hike in production output of crude steel, cement, and coke in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in the second half of 2016 compared to the same time period in 2015. 

The question remains whether the more stringent emission controls of these large industrial facilities are enough to offset the emissions resulting from increased industrial production.
As China’s economy grows in tandem with growing demands for energy, coal is still unfortunately the principal fuel for keeping homes and buildings warm in many parts of China beyond Beijing. Small-scale coal boilers and residential coal stoves in general have very poor combustion efficiency, emitting PM2.5, carbon monoxide, and other pollutants into the atmosphere, which can be visually seen as soot-laden smoke. 

These numerous and individually-owned combustion devices are hard to regulate for their emissions. In addition, as China continues to experience growth in both the number of privately-owned automobiles, there is every reason to believe that vehicular emissions have contributed to the air pollution problem as resident drive more.
Qualifying contributions of various sources to each haze episode has never been easy. 

While scientists are busy figuring out how water vapours from combustion sources, including natural gas and petroleum combustions, enhance the formation of PM2.5 and how emission-altered climate and weather conditions can in turn affect air quality, the message for policy actions is clear. 

It is a burning issue! 

Burning coal and other fossil fuels is the origin of the problem. 

There is a limit on how far today’s technology can go in terms of reducing emissions from coal. Without a significant reduction in coal consumption, especially when atmospheric conditions are unfavourable for pollutant dispersion, it would not be possible to see blue skies.
Although China has been increasingly investing in the production of renewable energy and cleaner energy, this winter’s severe haze problem sends a strong signal that the pace for replacing dirty energy is not fast enough. 

If all the efforts were targeted to large industrial facilities while leaving numerous small sources unchecked, one could only just sit and wait for mother nature’s power to blow away or wash out the dirty stuff pumped into the atmosphere by burning dirty fuels. 

China’s haze is truly a burning “burning issue.” 

Every effort should be made to reduce the burning of dirty fuels.

The Chinese Curse

China’s neighbors are getting a whiff of its terrible pollution

Echo Huang

Just another hazy night in Tianjin.

Turns out China isn’t the only country choking on its smog.
In the first week of 2017, more than half of Chinese cities suffered from air pollution, and 31 of them went on red alert (link in Chinese), which requires measures like limiting car usage and closing factories. 

Now China’s neighbors are sounding their own alarms about the air.
On Jan, 3, South Korea issued a warning about “severe fine dust levels,” and Seoul warned of “ultrafine” particles for the first time since November 2015. 

The country’s environmental research institute advised people to stay indoors, and local newspaper Chosun reported that “a thick blanket of toxic haze from China” descended on most of Korea around New Year’s Day.
Taiwan— just dozens of nautical miles from China’s southeastern Fujian Province—also issued warnings against outdoor activities, as air quality index (AQI) in southern Taiwan reached code-red levels, according to the region’s Central News Agency.
The pollution seems to have taken advantages of wind and atmospheric circulation, according to real-time data from NASA and earth nullschool. 

A screenshot of wind, weather, ocean, and pollution conditions from Jan. 2 places South Korea and Taiwan in the spreading circles of Beijing’s air pollutants.
The pink and white hovering above China reflects high levels of aerosol thickness. 

An aerosol particle contained in the air is usually made of dust, smoke, soot, and clouds, so higher thickness means more smog.More white and pink means more hazardous particles.
Pollution in northern China is usually at its worst in winter, as coal is burned for heat. 

Cities further south are often caught in polluted winds—this week, many in China’s southern Pearl River Delta recorded an Air Quality Index of 300, deemed hazardous. 

But there was one lucky locale: Hong Kong, which escaped the smog thanks to its easterly wind.

Plagues of China

Chinese Pollution, a Stubborn Visitor
By CHRIS BUCKLEY and ADAM WU
Dancing at a park blanketed by severe smog in Fuyang, China, on Tuesday

BEIJING — Like ghosts floating in a dim netherworld, the dancers twirled, spun and curtsied in smog so dense that couples a few steps away seemed to be murky apparitions suspended in a gray haze. 

Filthy air has swamped much of northern China for weeks, but some amateur dancers have stuck to their outdoor ballroom routines.
The specterlike dancers in Fuyang, a city in Anhui Province, this week have become one of the images that capture China’s latest winter of smog. 

A wintertime surge in pollution here is often called an “airpocalypse” in foreign news reports. 

But as these images suggest, living in this miasma has become for many residents a routine to be endured, with an outdoor fox trot.
People on scooters and bicycles navigated the thick haze in Fuyang, on Tuesday.

“The scariest thing isn’t the smog, it’s how we’ve become numbed and used to it,” said one comment about the pictures on a Chinese news website, 163.com. 

Others shrugged off the bleakness with sardonic humor, as people here often do.
“There’s nothing scary,” said another comment on the same website. 

“Breathing fresh smog every day, I feel fortunate to be living in this magical country.”
Air pollution is chronic across much of industrialized China, but it worsens in winter, when coal-burning heaters fire up and add to the airborne grunge from factories and power plants. 

An uptick in heavy industry in 2016 has added to the haze this winter, some experts say. 

In the cold months, polluted air can accumulate across the region, sloshing from one part to another until strong gusts blow it away — until another pool accumulates. 

Smog extended from the port city of Tianjin deep into central China on Thursday.
Tianjin on Tuesday. 

On Tuesday in Fuyang, the air quality there was poor, but not terrible by the hard-bitten standards of many Chinese cities. 

The level of PM2.5 pollution, the fine particulates that pose the greatest danger to health, reached an average 283 micrograms per cubic meter, and the air was classified “severely polluted.”
But since December, levels across many cities in northern China have gone much higher, even reaching 1,000 micrograms of PM2.5 per cubic meter last month in Shijiazhuang, a city in Hebei Province. 

The World Health Organization recommends daily exposure of no more than 25 micrograms of PM2.5 per cubic meter.
Many residents have become increasingly sensitive to the health threats from air pollution. 

Patience with the smog is wearing thin, especially among middle-class residents, who can afford to travel and experience life and breathing outside the dome of haze.
The government has promised to clean up the air, and indeed there have been improvements, especially throughout the summer last year. 

Yet that progress has made the return of the smog this winter even more jarring. 

Travelers returning by air to Beijing lately have descended from blue skies onto a Stygian underworld. 

For those trying to leave, many flights have been delayed or cancelled on the worst days because of the poor visibility.
Planes parked at the Beijing Capital International Airport on Wednesday.

What worries many people most is the risk to children and the elderly. 

This week, a letter in the name of Beijing parents urged the city government to allow schools and parents to buy fresh air equipment for classrooms. 

Officials said air filters would be installed in some schools as a tryout, though not the bigger equipment the letter called for.
“We really don’t want to wait any longer!” said the letter, which circulated widely on the internet. “The smog won’t wait for us.”
Many people in Beijing and other affected Chinese cities now routinely wear masks — a novelty even a few years ago — although often they use cheap, flimsy cotton covers that do little to ward off PM2.5 particles.
Beijing on Wednesday. 

“This winter was the first time I’ve thought about moving away,” said Lu Xin, a manager with an internet firm, breathing through a high-tech mask attached to its own electric air filter. 

“My 3-year-old boy and my parents cooped up at home every day, never going out. Is that a way to live?”

China Dream

A Poem Praises Smog, and Why Not? It’s From Cancer’s Perspective
By KAROLINE KAN

A farmer walking through heavy smog on the outskirts of Beijing on Saturday. 

BEIJING — For millions of Chinese, the new year opened under an oppressive shroud of smog that has closed highways, delayed or canceled hundreds of flights and shut down schools, forcing some students to follow their lessons from home through online streaming.
The toxic air has also drawn attention to a poem written by a Chinese surgeon from the viewpoint of an ambitious lung cancer that revels in the “delicious mist and haze.”

The poem was first published in English in the October issue of Chest, the journal of the American College of Chest Physicians, under the title “I Long to Be King.” 

Excerpts from the poem were posted in Chinese this week in The Paper, a news website, and widely reported on by other Chinese media.
The author, Dr. Zhao Xiaogang, 40, who is deputy chief of thoracic surgery at Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital of Tongji University, opens with a “ground-glass opacity,” an image of a CT scan of fluid in the lungs that can indicate a range of disorders, but in this case is the first indication of what will develop into a triumphantly lethal cancer. 

It is abetted by its host’s unhealthy habits, but also the host’s smoggy environment:

I long to be king, 

With my fellows swimming in every vessel. 

My people crawl in your organs and body,

Holding the rights for life or death, I tremble with excitement.

It continues:

None cared when I was young,

But all fear me when full grown.

I’ve been nourished on the delicious mist and haze, 

That sweetly warmed my heart

The Chinese version of the poem has attracted hundreds of comments on Weibo.
One Weibo user sarcastically wrote, “The government should be proud. We have information about China’s air pollution published in the U.S.! More literary works should be shared in international publications!”
Another said of Dr. Zhao’s poem, “When China has a surge in cancer in a few years, we’ll appreciate how right the author was.”
A Weibo commenter wrote, “I wonder why the smog keeps getting worse if the government is working on solutions.”
And there was a hint of caution in another user’s post: “Doctor, I think you’re going to be invited by the authorities soon to have a chat.”
Lung cancer is the leading form of cancer in China, and while smoking, especially among men, is a prime culprit, Dr. Zhao stressed in the Paper article the contribution of PM2.5, the dangerous fine particles suspended in smog.

Dr. Zhao Xiaogang.

“PM2.5 was declared a carcinogen by the World Health Organization as early as 2013,” he said. 

“No matter how developed the medical technology is, if people are exposed to smog, especially severe smog, they are at risk.”
Global Times quoted him as making a direct link. 

“The intense rise in lung cancer,” he said, “is intimately related to smog.”
Dr. Zhao has long written poetry as a pastime. 

But in 2015, while a visiting scholar at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha and at Washington University in St. Louis, he heard that some academic journals published poetry. 

Last year, he submitted his poem to Chest, which ran it in its October issue.
“As a thoracic surgeon, I have diagnosed many patients with ground-glass opacity adenocarcinoma in my regular clinical practice,” he said in an telephone interview, referring to tumors. 

“I hope this poem will help more people understand it and take it seriously.”
As for why the poem was told from a cancer’s perspective, Dr. Zhao said he was inspired by reading science fiction.
“I think everything in this world has consciousness and determination,” he said.
“Sometimes when I look at the scan images and see the shadows of G.G.O., I can feel it growing stronger with a will and a tribe of its own,” he added, referring to ground-glass opacity. 

“So I thought, why not write down what the G.G.O. and cancer would be thinking?”
Dr. Zhao said that in his surgical practice he has noticed more and more nonsmokers who have developed lung cancer.
“Most of the female lung cancer patients are nonsmokers,” he said. 

“Some are little girls. I even had a 9-year-old patient, a little girl, and we had to cut out part of her lung. I’ll never forget her.”

China Dream

SMOG IN CHINA PROMPTS TIDE OF TOURISM FLEEING ‘AIRPOCALYPSE’ 
BY DAMIEN SHARKOV 

The heavy smog enveloping northern China is creating a tide of “smog refugees,” traveling elsewhere in a bid for temporary respite from the pollution in their home region, travel agents warn.
Smog has become a periodic problem for China, prompting a red alert most recently in Hebei province and the municipality of Beijing this month.
China’s online travel agency Ctrip estimated that 150,000 would travel overseas in December, to escape the smog, news website China Daily reported Monday.
Ctrip claims that on its cellphone app, the phrases “avoiding smog” and “lung cleansing” have become top searches with more than 5,000 results.
China’s state-run Global Times labelled the smog phenomenon an “airpocalypse,” while the decision to stay away while it literally blows over—a “lung vacation”.
The smog has already prompted a drop in steel and iron ore futures for a sixth consecutive session Wednesday as construction and industrial activities were halted.

China Dream

China’s ‘airpocalypse’ hits half a billion people
By Yuan Yang in Beijing

Return of 'airpocalypse'

China Dream
The government has shut schools, restricted road traffic and urged people to stay indoors as 24 cities across northeast China were put on “red alert” for extreme smog on Tuesday.
China's most severe bout of air pollution this year has hit 460m people, who are exposed to smog levels six times higher than the World Health Organisation’s daily guidelines, according to calculations by Greenpeace. 

The smog has lasted over three days in many areas.
As of 11am local time, 217 flights at Beijing Capital Airport had been cancelled — almost a third of the total scheduled for the whole day.
Pollution has become a rallying topic for Chinese citizens. 

“The smog problem is a man-made disaster, local environment bureaux are not fulfilling their responsibilities,” wrote the top-rated online poster under a news article about the smog.
Two weeks ago, Beijing’s city legislature considered classifying smog as a “weather disaster”. 

The move was questioned by environmental researchers who said it would help polluters escape responsibility for man-made pollution.
“The government is under too little pressure. It’s not enough to make them reform and make people’s lives their top priority,” wrote another online poster going by the initials HJ. 

“The people are under too much pressure — if we try to protest, we’re said to be 'creating public disorder’."
Earlier this month, a planned protest against smog in the southwestern city of Chengdu was pre-empted by riot police who shut down the city’s central square. 

Sit-in protesters wearing smog masks were detained by police for questioning.
“The link between smog and industry is clear. Since the second quarter of this year, when steel prices and output started growing, we saw air quality decline in the northeast,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, an air pollution specialist at Greenpeace in Beijing. 

“It’s a result of the government’s old-fashioned stimulus that boosted the industrial sectors.”
China’s smog is worst in the winter, when households consume more electricity from coal-fired power plants, and municipal heating is turned on.
In response to the emergency, the Ministry of Environmental Protection sent out three inspection teams, and publicly singled out chemical manufacturing companies that had failed to shut down their operations under the red-alert regulations, as well as power plants and coal-burning plants that had not met environmental standards.
The northeastern port city of Tianjin closed all but one of the highways in and out of the city because of poor visibility on the weekend. 

Over 30 flights were grounded at its international airport over the weekend.
Beijing, which has been on red alert since Friday, halved the number of motor vehicles allowed on the road on any given day by banning even- and odd-numbered license-plates on different days.
Ikea said that customer deliveries would be slower because of the vehicle restrictions while Taobao, China’s most popular online marketplace, warned customers that packages might be delayed because of the smog. 

SF Express, one of China’s largest logistic companies, said the heavy smog would delay packages for customers in Beijing, Tianjin and part of Hebei province for up to two days.
And visitors hoping to taste the capital’s most famous dish would have been disappointed on the weekend, when restaurants were banned from burning wood for roasting ducks. 

Plagued by industrial overcapacity, the Chinese government is now trying to shift the economy towards the service sector, and letting factories close in the industrial rust-belt of the northeast.