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‘The Independent’ share ‘Shanghai Daily‘ reporting on my local filthy skies
MY COMMENT: The ‘Clear blue skies’ that were a huge visible benefit of ‘Expo 2010‘, were an element I can personally a-test to. It is a huge disappointment, therefore, that as Expo went – so too did these same clean skies – and resumption of smog!
Pollution in the southern Chinese city of Shanghai has reached record levels, pushing air quality levels to ‘severe’ or ‘hazardous,’ the highest level on the Air Quality Index Scale. Amidst long-standing concerns over pollution, governmental websites around the world allow members of the public to monitor air quality in their region.
Chinese newspaper Shanghai Daily reports that the air quality in the city over Tuesday, May 3 and Wednesday, May 4 was the “worst air quality to date.”
The US embassy in Beijing caused controversy last year when on its Twitter feed of hourly air quality (@beijingair) the automated system reported that air quality in Beijing was “crazy bad” after air pollution levels went off the scale.
High levels of air pollution are not limited to China; on April 22 the British government issued the first smog warning in two years due to high levels of pollutants over the UK, and recent reports suggest air pollution in the US could be causing asthma.
The Air Quality Index (AQI) measures pollutants in the air; the index is also sometimes called the Air Pollution Index (API) – though these two indices measure slightly separate pollutants they are often used interchangeably.
Though the AQI scale can vary between different countries, the scale of 0-100, as used in North America, is the most commonly adopted.
The scale ranks the air quality from Good (0-50), Moderate (51-100), Unhealthy for sensitive groups (101-150), Unhealthy (151-200), Very unhealthy (201-300) to Hazardous’ (301-500). On May 4 Shanghai’s air quality was rated 500.
Members of the public can monitor the daily air quality in their area with the links below:
North America- http://www.airnow.gov/
Europe - http://www.airqualitynow.eu/
China - http://www.vecc-mep.org.cn/eng/
A full list of links to other international sites is available via the North American site at:http://www.airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=topics.world
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Living in Beijing I know the feeling. I was looking around the web to try to figure out exactly how bad the numbers coming from the embassy are in comparison to other major cities. It is great to see these links all in one place. I’m sad to hear the blue skies of the expo are gone.
Hi Emily – Blue skies are gone, and grey skies seem to grow ever darker….