A visual tour of Beijing's crippling pollution problem

[phantom power]

In American schools and media, pollution is often discussed in terms of what will happen in the future if we don't clean up our act now. But in China — where wildly overpopulated cities churn out toxic emissions, and hardworking plants produce 95 percent of the world's rare-earths elements — the effects of pollution accumulate like dust in an attic.

Just last month, thousands of pig carcasses suddenly appeared in one of Shanghai's major water supplies. Farther west, run off from local mining industries have turned clear rivers into milky waterways. In Beijing, the remnants of dangerously high pollution levels leave a thick smog that shrouds the city's skyscrapers. In response to public outcry over environmental degradation, China pledged last week to spend 100 billion yuan (about $6.1 billion) over the next three years to deal with pollution in one of its biggest and most troubled cities — Beijing. A photographic tour of the city's pollution problem:

(more photos at the link)

http://news.yahoo.com/visual-tour-beijings-crippling-pollution-problem-151400353.html

The day's catch: A woman wearing a chef's hat collects fish with a co-worker along the muddy shores of a polluted canal in central Beijing on October 21, 2010. The canal has been drained for cleaning, enabling fishermen and local residents to collect the small fish from the thick, black mud lining the bottom of the canal. Data from 2010 revealed almost a quarter of China's surface water to be so polluted that it is unfit even for industrial use, while less than half of total supplies are drinkable
http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/brNPtOELvXiAEL6_5MdbGw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/

[polly7]

1. So awful. :(. nt.

[Rabid_Rabbit]

2. Chilling

pictures at the link. I remember many, many years ago reading a story in National Geographic about the pollution in the Soviet Union. These pictures reminded me of that story