Unique air quality rating for Beijing

[Smitty]

Usually, when I was growing up down in the Los Angeles area, the worst the air quality would be rated was "unhealthy."

 

Apparently Beijing's air quality was so bad that the US Embassy ran out of ways to describe it and temporarily said it was "crazy bad."

 

As we said down in LA "I don't trust air I can't see!"

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131440157

[hugazebra]

After looking at the PM10 time series, I think "crazy bad" is still an understatement...

 

AMFIC air quality

 

Anyhow, it's good reason to start smoking heavily. The air coming in through the cigarettes would be much cleaner than trying to breathe the air directly.

 

I gave up on China after five years because I finally developed asthma and started getting fluid in the lungs and coughing like crazy if anyone within a 10m radius lit up... (and that was at Shanghai pollution levels - equivalent only to a C. on the C.R.A.Z.Y. pollution scale)