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Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

theguardian.com

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Re: Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

#71

Post by fyolnish »

berntb wrote: post #54
davepage wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1000! Crazy laowai. As a data point, my current F visa is 2 years, multi-entry, 90 days and cost the nominal fee plus about $100 for the visa company to drop it off at the consulate. Apparently, the F visa has been re-purposed and there is a new M business visa. Any practical experience with that? [of course, China habitually hassles journalists (Bloomberg) over visas]

I assume China is impossible for someone with a bad peanut allergy? (Gets sick just with a bowl of peanuts in the same room.)

Yes, in fact no Chinese person born with a peanut allergy survived more than a few years.

Re: Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

#72

Post by dylandrop »

rz2k wrote: post #62
dylandrop wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the problem is that there's a bit of a cultural difference between Americans circa-Industrial Revolution, and the Chinese now. So saying that the Chinese will stand up and protest isn't necessarily true. I don't want to speak for all Chinese, but from what I've read -- please correct me if I'm wrong -- is that there is more of a culture of deference to authority in China. Compare this to Americans, who have a…

There are astonishing numbers of protests in China every year.[1][2] I also think the culture for factory workers during the industrial revolution was one of deference to authority, and that it took extreme conditions to spur them to protest their conditions. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest_and_dissent_in_the_Peop... [2] http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/02/rising-protests-i...

That's good to hear. My only point about protesting in America was that it's very ingrained in our culture to protest, even for small issues. I didn't really know much about Chinese protesting culture, but it's good to hear they do it in large numbers.

Re: Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

#73

Post by matsur »

Nav_Panel wrote: post #26
tcas wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The air pollution levels are similar to living an airport smoking lounge. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-30/beijing-air-akin-to...

EDIT: apparently my post below was predicated on a false assumption, please disregard. That's Beijing, not Shanghai, and I think we can assume that Beijing is at least slightly cleaner than Shanghai, if not by much. According this article[0], Shanghai's level reached 602.5, which, when compared to the data on the graph you linked, is about 75 points higher than Beijing. [0]: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireSt…

Beijing sits in a geographic bowl (trapping pollution) and is inland from the coast compared to Shanghai. It also gets hit with dust storms from the desert to its west, all of which lead to it being "crazy bad"[0] in relation to Shanghai.

re: "crazy bad" being tweeted by the US Embassy in Beijing -- a cautionary tale on string sanitization. "The "crazy bad" terminology – which was at odds with the normally sober and scientific language of the Twitter account – appeared to have been a joke embedded in the embassy's monitoring program and triggered by a reading that was off the normal scale."

[0] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/nov/19/craz...

Re: Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

#76

Post by mratzloff »

petermcd wrote: post #43
jkimmel wrote: post #12

Is there a level of public outcry regarding the pollution? I realize that criticism may be somewhat muted given the nature of the PRC government, but I can't imagine a city as large and cosmopolitan as Shanghai merely accepting this level of environmental mismanagement. Unfortunately, articles regarding Beijing/Shanghai pollution usually fail to mention public sentiment above the level of brief individual anecdote ("…

Fair question. My impression here in Beijing is that people are highly dissatisfied with the pollution situation. They don't want lung cancer and they don't want their kids breathing this crap. That being said, the government is taking steps to address the issue. Specifically, due to an outcry on Weibo last year about having to get PM2.5 numbers from the US embassy's twitter feed and iPhone app (twitter is blocked, b…

I think I accidentally down voted this great post, sorry! Wish I could change it like on Stack Overflow.

Re: Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

#78

Post by Lagged2Death »

Sharlin wrote: post #16

I wonder how this compares to the worst smogs experienced in London and elsewhere before the West got its act together with regard to particulate pollution. Apparently the Great Smog of 1952 killed on the order of 10000 people in just a few days. I'm not sure many young people nowadays realize how horrible the situation was just half a century ago. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_1952

I'm not sure many young people nowadays realize how horrible the situation was just half a century ago.

This is a great point. We've made so much progress in this area that "pollution" can seem like an abstraction. This is something we should be impressing upon our children, in a more serious way than stories about walking to school uphill in the snow both ways, etc.

I was two years old when this picture was taken in my home-town. I remember summer days in the following years that looked like this, with the brown air leaching colors from the sunlight itself.

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/documerica111611/s...

From here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/11/documerica-images...

It didn't compare to the Great Smog, of course, but for Americans, it's closer to home and of course also closer to the present.

Re: Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

#79

Post by huxley »

kibwen wrote: post #69

For historical reference, here are some breathtaking photos of mid-century Pittsburgh: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2155742/Hell-lid-tak... I wonder if anyone can cite a source for one of the claims made in the article: "Also lots of people thought that high smoke output was a sign of high productivity and that coal smoke was good for the lungs and helped crops grow."

If you've lived near farms, pulp-n-paper mills or fish processing plants, you will often be told that the stink is the smell of money and you should stop complaining. I expect it was something similar.

Re: Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

#80

Post by k2enemy »

yk wrote: post #50
ck2 wrote: post #2

Unbelievable http://i.imgur.com/lef99jm.jpg Has to take years off your life to be breathing that.

The sky above the port was the color of a TV, switched to a dead channel.

It is kind of funny that future generations may interpret that opening to mean a clear blue sky.
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