China ain't happy with the air it's breathing

Numerous reports all over Twitter and the Web about the horrific air quality situation in Beijing right now.   As I've predicted before,  I'll predict again that lack of environmental laws might eventually turn into a civil unrest situation that could possibly result in the end of the totalitarian rule in the country.  There are small signs that the government is being more open about the badness of the situation - and there's a faint echo of how the Chernobyl disaster forced the Soviet Union to be more open about THAT situation, eventually contributing to the breakup of aforesaid union.

Media and blog coverage:

Beijing's hazardous pollution sparks Chinese media anger


How air pollution in China has hit previously unimaginable levels

This, from a government-run newspaper:

“The public should understand the importance of development as well as the critical need to safeguard the bottom line of the environmental pollution. The choice between  development and environment protection should be made by genuinely democratic methods…“The government cannot always think about how to intervene to ‘guide public opinion.’ It should publish the facts and interests involved, and let the public itself produce a balance based on the foundation of diversification. ”The government is not the only responsible party for environmental pollution. As long as the government changes its previous method of covering up the problems and instead publishes the facts, society will know who should be blamed.”

beijing experiences worst pollution in recent memory

 It will be interesting to see the Chinese government’s reaction to this episode. We already have one depressing reaction – Xinhua’s tweet about the “fog” – though no one’s buying it and it’s hard to believe they can get away with this sort of spin much longer. What is more interesting to me is the unfortunate timing of this pollution event. After all, the Chinese government has just racked up a couple of positive wins in air pollution control, ...

Beijing's Smog Prompts Chinese Government To Be Unusually Transparent About Air Pollution 


 If this kind of thing keeps up, people are bound to get MAD.