Smog pollution in Beijing Smog pollution has been around since the start of industrialization, and there are many cities that suffer from its consequences. Among them, Beijing is singled out as the hotspot these days. In the past winter, an unprecedented amount of smog cloaked Beijing, filling the city with noxious air and causing convulsive coughing among the local residents. Not only does smog cause inconvenience in transportation by reducing visibility, but also, according to a study at UC Berkeley, smog has a huge impact on people’s health: “people living in the smoggiest cities were 30 percent more likely to have succumbed to lung diseases such as chronic bronchitis, emphysema and pneumonia.” In his essay, “The Tragedy of The …show more content…

First, Beijing has a “heavy reliance on coal power” for both electricity generation and central heating during winter. Besides its major ingredient, carbon, sulfur also exists in a relatively large amount in coal. Therefore, burning coal generates a lot of sulfur dioxide, one of the main components of the smog. Moreover, since there was “a lack of wind in dispersing the haze”3 this winter, the smog cloaked Beijing for several days and did not dissipate as quickly as before. Secondly, the smog pollution is also a result of increased car ownership in Beijing. The total number of registered motor vehicles in Beijing has reached 5 million in 2011, and “an average of 15,500 new cars go on the city's roads every week.” The noxious air emission by motor vehicles largely pollutes the air of Beijing. In fact, “the motor vehicles are blamed for nearly a quarter of the capital's PM2.5, or airborne particles measuring less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter”, according to Wang Yuesi, a researcher of Chinese Academy of Sciences. The fact that the sulfur content of China's standard oil is 15 times greater than that of European oil made the pollution worse. Therefore, 15 times more sulfur dioxide is generated when the same amount of oil is consumed. The low quality of oil and explosion in number of cars contributed a lot to the smog in Beijing. Technical solutions will prove effective in solving the smog pollution in Beijing by creating clean energy reducing the emission of