[Progressive Reform] What would your city look like with Beijing's air pollution? Use this smog simulator

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What would your city look like with Beijing's air pollution? Use this smog
simulator<http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ProgressiveReform/~3/InPvlv-Tsfc/what-would-your-city-look-like-with.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email>

*by Matt Berger <http://www.marketplace.org/people/matt-berger>*
*Marketplace Radio <http://www.marketplace.org/>*
 A cloud of pollution three times the size of California blanketed
China<http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/dangerous-air-pollution-levels-hit-beijing>
last
month that was so dangerous residents were warned to stay indoors and avoid
outdoor activities.  Many locals reported visibility so poor that buildings
down the street were obscured.  Images of Beijing covered with murky brown
air were a startling reminder of how rising pollution from factories and
automobiles can spoil the air in that industrializing nation.
 [image: beijing air
quality]<http://www.marketplace.org/sites/default/files/beijing-smog.jpg>In
cleaner cities around the globe, those images of Beijing -- like the one at
left -- served as an effective tool for understanding what it's like to
live and breathe Beijing-quality air.
 Marketplace's China correspondent Rob Schmitz has been covering China's
bad air for years (today on Marketplace he reports on theeconomic boom of
bad air<http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/pollution-boosts-clean-air-industry-china>)
and notes that on bad days the visibility is, at most, 50 feet to 100 feet
in front of you.
 The U.S. Embassy in Beijing, which tracks the tiny toxic particles
<https://twitter.com/BeijingAir>that
cause the sky to turn dark, known as PM2.5 particles, reported levels last
month that were off the charts -- topping out at 755 on the air quality
index <http://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=aqibasics.aqi> (AQI), a system of
measurement that officially *maxes out at 500*.
 *Simulating smog*
 We wondered what other cities around the globe might look like under these
pollution conditions, so we built a simple simulator to illustrate.
Using side-by-side
photos of Beijing<http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/01/chinas-toxic-sky/100449/>
to
calibrate our not-so-scientific "obscurity filter," we applied the tool to
photos of some major cities around the globe.  Play around with the sliders
below to see what these cities might look like with a Beijing-level air
quality index.
  *Visibility an indicator*
 The science backs this up, according to Sam Atwood, a spokesman for the
South Coast Air Quality Management District, one of 35 districts in
California that monitors air quality to comply with state and federal
requirements.  He explained that the PM2.5 particulates that pollute the
air directly correlate with
visibility<http://www.epa.gov/visibility/program.html>.

 "Essentially, these very tiny particles absorb and scatter light coming
from the sun," Atwood said.
  Another pollutant, nitrogen oxide, is known for creating the
whiskey-brown haze.  And moisture also reduces visibility and enhances
particulates, making the air look more polluted than it actually is, Atwood
added.
 "We focus on PM2.5 because that’s the size of particle that the federal
government now sets its health standard by," he added.  "The very tiniest
of them can even pass through the lung tissue into the blood stream.
 That’s why PM2.5 has been associated with a wide-range of health effects,
including thousands of premature deaths every year in California."
 Here's a look at how some other cities might look like with the haze we
see in Beijing and Shanghai.  Want to see what your city might look like
under a toxic cloud of pollution? Tweet us a photo
@MarketplaceAPM<http://www.twitter.com/marketplaceapm>.

     ------------------------------
 *Photo Credits: Baltimore courtesy Daniel Ewald via Twitter; San Francisco
by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images; New York by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images;
Beijing by Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images; Paris by Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty
Images; Toronto via Twitter*
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