SHANGHAI (AP) — Shanghai authorities ordered schoolchildren indoors and halted all construction Friday as China’s financial hub suffered one of its worst bouts of air pollution, bringing visibility down to a few dozen meters, delaying flights and obscuring the city’s spectacular skyline.
The financial district was shrouded in a yellow haze, and noticeably fewer people walked the city’s streets. Vehicle traffic also was thinner, as authorities pulled 30 percent of government vehicles from the roads. They also banned fireworks and public sporting events.
Shanghai’s concentration of tiny, harmful PM 2.5 particles reached 602.5 micrograms per cubic meter Friday afternoon, an extremely hazardous level that was the highest since the city began recording such data last December. That compares with the World Health Organization’s safety guideline of 25 micrograms.
The dirty air that has gripped Shanghai and its neighboring provinces for days is attributed to coal burning, car exhaust, factory pollution and weather patterns, and is a stark reminder that pollution is a serious challenge in China. Beijing, the capital, has seen extremely heavy smog several times over the past year. In the far northeastern city of Harbin, some monitoring sites reported PM 2.5 rates up to 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter in October, when the winter heating season kicked off.
The environmental group Greenpeace said slow-moving and low-hanging air masses had carried factory emissions from Jiangsu, Anhui and Shandong provinces to Shanghai. But it said the root problem lies with the excessive industrial emissions in the region, including Zhejiang province to the south.
“Both Jiangsu and Zhejiang should act as soon as possible to set goals to reduce their coal consumption so that the Yantze River Delta will again be green with fresh air,” Huang Wei, a Greenpeace project manager, said in a statement. Watch in the video below, how a Chinese watchdog group is protecting the environment
“Environmental Watchdog Group Monitors Pollution in China | PBS NewsHour” eMediaVA.org. Version 3.105.0. eMediaVA, 7 Dec. 2015. Web. 1 Jan. 2021.
Case Study- US-
Great progress has been made in achieving national air quality standards, which EPA originally established in 1971 and updates periodically based on the latest science. One sign of this progress is that visible air pollution is less frequent and widespread than it was in the 1970s.However, air pollution can be harmful even when it is not visible. Newer scientific studies have shown that some pollutants can harm public health and welfare even at very low levels. EPA in recent years revised standards for five of the six common pollutants subject to national air quality standards. EPA made the standards more protective because new, peer-reviewed scientific studies showed that existing standards were not adequate to protect public health and the environment.
Today, pollution levels in many areas of the United States exceed national air quality standards. Despite dramatic progress cleaning the air since 1970, air pollution in the United States continues to harm people’s health and the environment. Under the Clean Air Act, EPA continues to work with state, local and tribal governments, other federal agencies, and stakeholders to reduce air pollution and the damage that it causes.
Conduct some research, learn about two kinds of “smog,” photochemical smog and industrial smog.
For this lab, write a report ( include all components of the report) explaining in the results section:
Part A: How does the air around smell to you? Is it clean? How do you know? Can you see any pollution? How do you know if your air quality is safe?
Discussion Section:
Part B: Describe three different reasons why smog could be a pollution problem? Don’t just say, “it causes pollution,” instead explain what problems it causes for animals and/or plants.
Part C: Based on the Environmental Watchdog Group Monitors video- Suggest one way you will consider protecting the air quality.
Part D- At the link below, locate and post the air quality stat for the county. city you reside in.
https://www.epa.gov/air-trends/air-quality-cities-and-counties
Check-out these websites for information about the causes.
Industrial smog: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=873954
(Links to an external site.)
Photochemical smog: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5400950
(Links to an external site.)
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