User:Blue air 102/sandbox/pollution in beijing

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Pollution in Beijing
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Background


Pollution in Beijing became an important global environmental issue for the last decade. The case is now often compared to those of London's and Los Angeles'. The current environmental issue of China has drawn global attention because of its background. As the awareness toward the pollution in Beijing rises, scholarly researches regarding this subject have drawn attention from all over the world. The researches did not simply show that large scale industrialization caused this problem but the reality is more complex than that. Of course, the rapid industrialization caused the severe pollution but the specifics are left quite oblivious to the crowd. Some of the major pollutants in the atmosphere are widely known in the recent years. The introduction of particulates floating in Beijing showed the gravity of the current feature of Beijing. Annually expected Yellow Dust, commonly during spring, was well known to the neighboring countries but particulates or other kinds of air borne carcinogens are relatively newly known to the crowd.

This page focuses on the pollution in Beijing particularly not only because it is the capital of China but because it is one of the cities with the most polluted atmosphere in China. China started its nation wide initiatives to mitigate pollution that is widely spread all over the Chinese territory. Before these regulations are executed, even after they are executed, environmental watches or checks on the industrialization rarely occur. Efforts to expose to the reality regarding the unethical movements in Chinese heavy industries are sometimes censored and some claim that the observation data cause suspicion of fabrication.

PM 2.5
Particulate matter (PM) or particulates are micro solid or liquid substance floating in the atmosphere. PM 2.5 is designation for particulates with diameters of 2.5 millimeters or less. PM 2.5 were not commonly known to the public until recently. Before the updated researches Beijing only had observation and regulations regarding PM 10, while PM 2.5 are now known to have more deadly effects to human body. World Health Organization(WHO) suggested the standard amount of PM2.5 emission a day as 25 µg/m3 24-hour mean but China's standard is 75 µg/m3 24-hour mean while residents of Beijing may breathe in 5 times of the standard amount per day.

Cases of Neighboring Cities
Not only Beijing, many other cities in the northern part like Tianjin and Hebei region suffer from the air pollution as well. Tianjin, the neighboring city of Beijing, is also a heavily polluted city by getting a high score of 90 out of 100 in air pollution index. Water purity, as well as air quality in Tianjin scored to its severely polluted scale. Considering that all these cities do not belong in a developing country such results are quite surprising for public.