The intensification of the smog has to do with weather—as temperatures dip in more northern cities like Harbin, the coal plants that provide most of China’s energy and heat kick into overdrive. (It doesn’t help that in 1950, the Chinese government declared that everyone who lived north of China’s Huai River and Qinling Mountains—which includes major cities like Harbin, Shenyang and Beijing—could receive coal-powered heating for free.) The pollution was so bad that the police had to close off highways and the provincial airport because of accidents, while admissions into Harbin’s hospital spiked because of patients with breathing problems.The New York Times noted that:
The Harbin government reported an air quality index (AQI) score of 500, the highest possible reading, with some neighborhoods posting concentrations of PM2.5 — fine particulate matter that are 2.5 microns in diameter or smaller and especially harmful to health — as high as 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter, according to the China News Service.Avoiding the cleanup costs of these environmental catastrophes cannot be a long-term policy of the Chinese government. At some point, the economic playing field will have to be leveled with the western nations that are at least a bit more attentive to air pollution than this. It is regularly repeated that China will grow old before it grows rich. It may also grow sick before it grows old.
(By comparison, the air quality index in New York was 41 on Monday morning.)
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