Red smog alert
 

Apparently smog levels are worse than they've ever been in Beijing: 10X worse than healthy levels.

I'm just wondering, what is wrong with the government/citizens of China to let it get so bad?
http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/624/c...457_bjpic1.jpg

greed / money

You would think the Chinese would have learned from our shining examples of the last 100 or so years.

regards
mech

Looks like Southern California in the 70's. It would be clear in the morning and you could watch the smog rise during the day. The only nice days were when the Santa Ana winds blew the smog out to sea.

I don't remember SoCal as being nearly as bad as that picture, though. It's where I learned to fly, and I don't recall ever having been unable to go VFR due to smog, while that picture is definitely instrument conditions.

It was good for learning to navigate by landmarks, though. Get on top of the smog layer at 4-5K ft, and it'd be perfectly clear, but you could only see the ground looking straight down. So you'd put yourself over the airport by reference to the mountains...

SoCal in the 70s wasn't running on coal. Apparently construction dust exacerbates it.

...10x worse than no longer healthy levels. (Sorry)

As bad as it is in China, it isn't even close to the worst:

Beijing not the most polluted city in the world

A list of the world cities with highest pollution levels:

Rank, city, country, pollution level
1 Delhi, India 153
2 Patna, India 149
3 Gwalior, India 144
4 Raipur, India 134
5 Karachi, Pakistan 117
6 Peshawar, Pakistan 111
7 Rawalpindi, Pakistan 107
8 Khormabad, Iran 102
9 Ahmedabad, India 100
10 Lucknow, India 96
11 Firozabad, India 96
12 Doha, Qatar 93
13 Kanpur, India 93
14 Amritsar, India 92
15 Ludhiana, India 91
16 Idgir, Turkey 90
17 Narayonganj, Bangladesh 89
18 Allahbad, India 88
19 Agra, India 88
20 Khanna, India 88

Source: World Health Organization