Air quality
GUEST BLOG
Blue skies
I’m sure everyone reading this has heard about the infamous smog that regularly covers the air over the city of Beijing. Flying in on July 3, we couldn’t see the city from the air because it was covered in smog, and we could tell the difference between the smog and the clouds. It wasn’t a cloudy day on July 3; it was a smoggy day.
I have seen blue sky on three of the days that I’ve been here so far: once for a little while on Thursday morning, a few patches intermittently throughout the day Saturday, (of which I took a picture) and for the entire day Sunday, with smog creeping in only a few hours before sunset (which is about 7 p.m. here). The sky was totally blue! If I could speak Chinese or had a Chinese translator, I would have stopped people in the street and asked them the last time they had seen an entirely blue sky for a whole day in Beijing. Monday started off with what is becoming a regular-looking smoggy day. (Friday was the smoggiest I’ve seen yet.) -Beth Androuais
I already miss that fresh country air
For the first time today, I saw blue sky and clouds — but just for a little while in the afternoon. I have always heard about the pollution in Beijing but could never truly grasp what it meant. The pollution looks like a thin fog everywhere and all the time. The first day was the hardest — having rarely been around smog and never to this extent adjusting was not an easy task. I can only imagine the health risks it has on the people of Beijing. I know that there has been a lot of talk about outdoor athletes being wary of the breathing conditions and while I feel the Olympics will still go on, I wonder if any world records will be broken, and if so to the same extent if the event was held in a less polluted area. -Julia Shuck
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