Companies in South China See Opportunity in Beijing’s Smog

You don't have to search hard to find reports of how much of all this pollution is directly affecting the West Coast of the United States. Walmart & Amazon get to profit from importing products over for cheap and hand the health bill the the people. No wonder the Republicans want to block Climate Change initiatives and single payer health care, they're profiting too much from its long term disastrous affects on the American people. Just like there are child labor laws that limit or are suppose to limit the import of goods made by children, there should also be a similar law that limits imports of any goods made in an environmentally unsound way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/world/asia/china-also-exports-pollutio...

http://www.sgvtribune.com/environment-and-nature/20150810/air-pollution-...

http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/environmental-issues/about-29-of-san-f...

"Sunny south of China"? "Laid-back lifestyle"? Whom are they kidding? If the dogs don't eat your lunch too anywhere in China, consider yourself lucky.

The statement about Jinan sounds really strange to me. I grew up in Jinan now live in Beijing. Jinan's average AQI is far worse than that of Beijing. It's one of the worst in the entire country. i suggest the authors should do more fact-check before publishing.

It's completely false that Shenzhen is always warm in winter. You could see people wearing coats in the videos of the landslide. I spent Christmas in Guangzhou, not too far north of Shenzhen, and it was quite cold. The air is often very bad in Guangzhou and Hong Kong, and of course in Shenzhen which is between the two. So much is fake and false here. In a job posting for North China Institute of Science & Technology in Yanjiao next to Beijing they said that the air was good. As a teacher there I could see a giant coal-burning power plant from my window. The air was just as bad or worse than Beijing.

In 1970 the Clean Air act was passed by the house and senate: it passed unanimously in the Senate and with only a single nay vote in the House. President Nixon promptly signed it into law, saying:

"As we sign this bill in this room, we can look back and say, in the Roosevelt Room on the last day of 1970, we signed a historic piece of legislation that put us far down the road toward a goal that Theodore Roosevelt, 70 years ago, spoke eloquently about: a goal of clean air, clean water, and open spaces for the future generations of America."

In 1990 the Clean Act was strengthened by House votes of 401 to 21 with 10 abstentions. Of those "nay" votes the following are interesting today: Tom Delay, Dick Armey, and particularly John Kasich (Governor and presidential Candidate). The senate passed the bill 89-11, with no abstentions.

George H.W. Bush signed it into law saying "Today I am signing S. 1630, a bill to amend the Clean Air Act. I take great pleasure in signing S. 1630 as a demonstration to the American people of my determination that each and every American shall breathe clean air.

My proposal was designed to improve our ability to control urban smog and reduce automobile and air toxic emissions, and to provide the enforcement authority necessary to make the law work. It also proposed new initiatives to cut acid rain in half and to promote cleaner automotive fuels."

My how Republicanism has changed.....

Now if you folks in Beijing want some REALLY wonderful air, why don't you travel a bit farther and visit Hawaii? Bright blue skies; sparkling clean ocean waters; deep green mountains and valleys; and every day, it's warm and sunny. Enjoy the world's best climate! Why don't you join us?

I am waiting for an inversion event where the air kills thousands in Beijing AND THE SURROUNDING AREA.Then we shall have a real meeting on global pollution,. Perhaps this will spur a Manhattan Project to develop a solution before the rush to prosperity assures a very short and painful life.It is likely a large portion of the population will die early and have sever lung and cancer problems. If we can not see this already we are truly the blind ones.

I am ethnically Chinese but there is no way I would willing go and live on the mainland due to the pollution alone. For decades the government has sacrificed the environment for economic growth leading to the detriment of food and living conditions, I would rather avoid the slow sickening death of cancer and lung disease.

I used to live in Northern China and I love this. However this is sort of like calling one island "Iceland" and another "Greenland" when they are really both pretty darn cold.

这个问题我知道了一下。 This problem is difficult problem to solve. If comes from development gone out of control! But, ask the ordinary Beijing resident if the pollution is bad, of course they will say yes. Ask the ordinary Beijing resident if the government does enough about it, of course they will say no. But these questions are actually the wrong questions to ask. Too many Chinese people still think this pollution is the price to pay to develop the nation （一边发展经济一边发展国家。然后解决空气污染的问题）. The ordinary Chinese still believe that incredible fable that since the West polluted to get to where we are, well then they're allowed to do it too, just the same... Of course this argument if faulty because in China everyhting is 亿万 bigger; people, cars, development, .... So it's very superficial to blame the government for everything in China. Some things are in ingrained the people's contradictory attitudes and expectations. The ordinary people on the street will have to make a conscious choice to forego the love affair with out of control development... They have not done that yet. It may have to get a lot worse before they do. The change that is needed is within the common people's psyche.

In some sense this is a bit like the gun problem problem in America, the people have to forego something to solve it, in this case a little of personal freedom. However Americans on the whole are not willing to do this.

中国空气污染的问题很难解决。中国人民需要放弃奔放的发展。这个问题向美国的枪支的问题。美国人民需要放奔放的自由一下。

It seems the Chinese industrialization is the last straw on the camel's back. But I do not see that as the last... The solution, however, is not in China. It is the hey stack the Western lifestyle has and continues to have accumulated. If we are so concerned with the environment, it is us who must start to reduce our carbon release.

I laugh when people say and worry that China is any kind of threat to the world: China will implode in the next decade before it takes over anything. With all of the pollution, the explosions, the landslide, etc. nobody has much to worry about but the Chinese people.

Also, with China as polluted as it is, why would the government lift the 1 child rule?? As if they need more people to pollute their country. That was a very strange decision to me.

i have been living in south China for a few years. i recently had a daughter and due to pollution we are leaving now.
In Beijing they wait for the north south winds to make their air livable. Of course south China is below Beijing. We live in Zhuhai near the sea and more often than not the air is deemed "UNHEALTHY" and sometimes "VERY UNHEALTHY" which is just below "HAZARDOUS" on the AQI chart
Locals seem mostly unaware or indifferent which the goverment encourages by ignoring it and lowballing pollution numbers on Chinese sites.
Yes the air in Beijing is 3 times worse than southern china but that is still a lot of poison .

I have experienced the smog in Beijing on a number of occasions going back a number of years. Initially, the official explanation was usually dust from the Gobi desert, and there was a determined unwillingness to attribute the condition to anything other than natural causes. Now, that the conditions have degraded even further, the government seems willing to take a more realistic look at what is really happening. There are obviously trade offs in China's development program, and there was a willingness to tolerate a degree of pollution to accomplish economic objectives more rapidly. Now, that is going to have to change. The larger problem is that pollution in China does not stay in China, which has to be a matter of concern not only for China's neighbors but the rest of the world as well. These concerns are exacerbated because it is doubtful that even China's leaders really know exactly how much China's economy depends on coal, which appears to be a major source of the pollution.

It is 1948 all over again in Beijing/Pittsburg as rich people/baseball-players stream out of Stan Musial's home town for spring training in Florida

Sir,there was a news item recently which said that a hotel in Beijing ,has started charging for clean air ,alongwith food items. Chinese businessmen see a great business opportunity in air pollution. Other cities in the world may also take the same route.