Poluicao urbana: voce ainda pensa que Sao Paulo e' muito poluida? Pense outra vez...

O Financial Times nao deixa de ter senso de humor...
Mas Londres já foi, em outras épocas, uma cidade muito poluída, justamente pelo uso de carvao para aquecimento, o que foi abandonado posteriormente.
China e Índia fazem uso intensivo de carvao, tanto para aquecimento doméstyico, como para fins energéticos e industriais, e o pior é que se trata de carvao de péssima qualidade.
Nao espanta, assim, essa situacao terrivel, que eu já contemplei pessoalmente, da janela do trem, de Shanghai a Beijing: passamos por cidades onde era impossível distinguir qualquer coisa, tal a quantidade de smog no ar. Tudo cinzento.
O custo humano é terrível.
Esses sao os nossos aliados no BRICS...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

“Crazy bad” air pollution – in pictures

Financial Times, Blog Beyond Brics, January 31, 2013  

by Pan Kwan Yuk

A picture is worth a thousand words. And China’s extreme air pollution problem – now “beyond crazy bad” as one blogger put it, really needs to be seen to be believed.
In that spirit, beyondbrics has put together some images of the toxic smog that has hit swathe of northern China this month, causing flights to cancel, prompting runs on air purifiers and face masks and even inspiring one entrepreneur to sell fresh air in a can.
Tiananmen Square – with toxic smog….

Credit: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

…and sans smog

Credit: ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images

Good to see someone in the government has a sense of humour. Residents can take comfort in being able to LOOK at TV images of a blue sky.

Credit: Feng Li/Getty Images

Because there’s not not much blue sky to be found here….

Credit: Feng Li/Getty Images

or here….

Credit: Feng Li/Getty Images

That last photo? That’s supposed to be a view of the Forbidden City. Below, sans smog.

Credit: Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images

Can’t blame people for stocking up on masks and air purifiers. What next? People walking around with gas masks and carrying oxygen tanks?

Credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images

One entrepreneur doesn’t think that’s so far fetched. Chen Guangbiao, a philanthropist and one of China’s richest man, has started selling “canned fresh air” (pictured below) for RMB 5 ($0.80) each as a tongue in cheek protest over China’s air quality. The air is purportedly from far-flung and pristine regions of Tibet and Taiwan.

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O Shanghai Daily confirma a poluicao da capital:

Rain helps clear the air a little in Beijing

Source: Xinhua 

Shanghai Daily, February 1, 2013

 

THE heavy smog that has choked Beijing for the past five days weakened slightly yesterday due to rain, although the capital's air remained heavily polluted.

A little rain fell overnight on Wednesday, the Beijing Meteorological Bureau said. The air quality index fell but was still above 200, or seriously polluted.

Earlier this week, Beijing implement stricter measures to reduce pollutants, including suspending the use of 30 percent of local government vehicles and halting production at 103 heavily polluting companies.

But not everyone abided by the measures. More than 800 government vehicles supposed to be suspended were still in use, municipal traffic authorities said.

And several construction sites ordered to suspend their work failed to do so on Wednesday.

In many other parts of north and east China, smog has disrupted flights and traffic.

Thirty flights were canceled and 78 flights were delayed yesterday morning at an airport in Tianjin, just east of Beijing.

Visibility was reduced to less than 50 meters in many parts of east China's Shandong Province.

However, the National Meteorological Center rescinded its yellow smog alert early yesterday with smog in central and east China expected to be dispersed by a cold front due today.