NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / World

Smog crisis focus of discontent

By Jonathan Kaiman
Observer·
18 Feb, 2013 04:30 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

A hazy day in Beijing. Photo / AP

A hazy day in Beijing. Photo / AP

Chinese people are finally speaking out about health dangers of toxic air in cities.

Hu Li's heart sank when she realised that she could gauge how close she was to home by the colour of the air.

Driving 140km from Tianjin City to Beijing last week, she held her breath as the chalky-white horizon became a charcoal grey haze.

The 39-year-old businesswoman has lived in Beijing for a decade, and this past month, she said, brought the worst air pollution she had ever seen. It gave her husband a hacking cough and left her 7-year-old daughter housebound.

"I'm working here and my husband's working here, so we have no choice. But if we had a choice, we'd like to escape from Beijing."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

A prolonged bout of heavy pollution over the past month, which returned with a vengeance for a day last week - called the "airpocalypse" or "airmageddon" by internet users - has fundamentally changed the way that Chinese people think about their country's toxic air.

The event was worthy of its namesake. On one day, pollution levels were 30 times higher than is deemed safe by the World Health Organisation. Flights were cancelled. Roads were closed. One hospital in east Beijing reported treating more than 900 children for respiratory problems. Bloomberg found that for most of January, Beijing's air was worse than that of an airport smoking lounge.

The smog's most threatening aspect is its high concentration of PM 2.5 - particulate matter that is small enough to lodge deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream, causing respiratory infections, asthma, lung cancer, cerebrovascular disease, and possibly damaging children's development.

The WHO has estimated that outdoor air pollution accounts for two million deaths a year, 65 per cent of them in Asia. Yet the smog has become more than a health hazard in China - it has become a symbol of widespread dissatisfaction with the Government's growth-first development strategy.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Feelings of resigned helplessness have given way to fear, anger, and society-wide pressure to change the status quo.

The Lunar New Year usually coincides with clear blue skies - an estimated nine million cars depart from the capital, and its emissions-spewing factories shut down as workers go on holiday.

Yet the smog came back with a vengeance last Thursday.

Environmental authorities sent text messages to Beijing residents urging them to mitigate the pollution by refraining from the long-held holiday tradition of lighting fireworks.

Discover more

New Zealand

Waikato 'can take city's overflow'

11 Feb 04:30 PM
New Zealand

Greens attack oil-spill levy

12 Feb 04:30 PM
Business

Super fund role adds interest to China job

15 Feb 04:30 PM
World

Anxiety drugs in rivers altering fish behaviour

15 Feb 04:30 PM

According to state media, they took heed. Fireworks sales fell 37 per cent compared with last year.

"PM 2.5 and data measurement issues with regard to air quality have entered into mainstream Chinese life," said Angel Hsu, a doctoral candidate at Yale University.

Hsu has tracked use of the term "PM 2.5" on Sina Weibo, China's most popular microblog, over the past two years. In January 2011, it was mentioned about 200 times. Last month, the number soared above three million.

In China, PM 2.5 has acquired a symbolic weight to parallel its medical gravitas. Young internet users post photos of themselves wearing air filtration facemasks. Last year, Shanghai hosted a PM 2.5-themed rock music festival. A music video called Beijing, Beijing (Big Fog Version) went viral on video-sharing websites.

Experts say that the last month's pollution was probably caused initially by a cold snap, forcing huge use of coal, followed by a rare temperature inversion, which trapped emissions under a blanket of warm air.

Others say that it could be related to a prolonged period of high humidity, trapping particulate matter in the air.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Pollution levels depend heavily on the force and direction of the wind. A strong northeastern gust can blow the smog out to sea; a few stagnant hours are enough to make noon look like early evening.

The standard international measurement for air quality - the US Air Quality Index, or AQI - rates air quality on a scale of zero to 500. With experience, it becomes possible to guess the AQI in Beijing without looking at official readings.

One hundred correlates to a thin grey gauze hovering above the horizon. When the index hits 200, the sky is visible only in a small patch directly overhead. An AQI reading of 300 blots out the sun, smothering the city in drab uniformity. When the AQI reached 755 on January 12, the worst day on record, the air felt like industrial smoke - chemical-tasting and eye-watering.

On particularly smoggy days, the toxic cloud is visible in satellite photos. The worst of the last month's pollution stretched 1770km south, closing highways near the southwestern city of Guiyang.

When the smog clears, it does not simply vanish, but instead drifts to surrounding countries. January's smog spurred Japanese authorities to release health warnings to people living in the country's western cities. Traces of China's smog have been detected as far afield as California.

The Beijing municipal government has taken steps to curb the pollution, temporarily shutting down factories and ordering government cars off the roads.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

While propaganda authorities used to quash reports of air pollution for fear that they could spark social unrest, Chinese newspapers were allowed to report freely on the crisis.

"I'm pretty optimistic this happened at the right time to prompt the most action possible," said Deborah Seligsohn, an expert on China's environment at University of California, San Diego.

President Xi Jinping took the reins of the Communist Party in November; incoming Prime Minister Li Keqiang has promised to make environmental protection a focus of his tenure. Beijing authorities hope to wean the city off coal and implement stricter vehicle emissions standards by 2016.

People have begun to take protection into their own hands. "People are starting to treat air purifiers as a necessary appliance," said Bi Xiuyan, a salesman for Amway. Observer

Save

    Share this article

Latest from World

World

A world from above: View the best images from the Aerial Photography Awards

05 Jul 09:00 PM
WorldUpdated

Elon Musk says he has created a new US political party

05 Jul 08:21 PM
World

Girls aged 8 and 9 among at least 27 people killed in Texas flash flooding

05 Jul 07:39 PM

There’s more to Hawai‘i than beaches and buffets – here’s how to see it differently

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from World

A world from above: View the best images from the Aerial Photography Awards

A world from above: View the best images from the Aerial Photography Awards

05 Jul 09:00 PM

Joanna Steidle won top prize at the inaugural International Aerial Photography Award.

Elon Musk says he has created a new US political party

Elon Musk says he has created a new US political party

05 Jul 08:21 PM
Girls aged 8 and 9 among at least 27 people killed in Texas flash flooding

Girls aged 8 and 9 among at least 27 people killed in Texas flash flooding

05 Jul 07:39 PM
Trump ‘very unhappy’ with Putin on Ukraine, hints at sanctions

Trump ‘very unhappy’ with Putin on Ukraine, hints at sanctions

05 Jul 06:38 AM
From early mornings to easy living
sponsored

From early mornings to easy living

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP