A Video Clip Is Worth ... Linfen, China: The Most Polluted City in the World
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY on 08.25.08
In case you ever wanted to see just how bad coal-fired pollution can get, the folks over at VBS.tv have produced Toxic Linfen, a six-part documentary which may redefine your idea of pea-soup toxic fog and how far China has to go to clean up its energy act. The first of the series of clips is embedded above, (you may have to sit through an advertisement at the beginning of each of the clip) and the footage itself is truly eye opening.
If a single picture of the most polluted city in the world is worth a thousand words then a six part video series, at about five minutes each, has got to be worth nearly an entire Masters thesis worth of exposition...
You can make a start of the rest of the series by viewing Toxic Linfen-Part Two.
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Damn. Linfen makes Pittsburgh look like the garden spot of America.
That looks almost as bad as London was after the war until about 1960something when, after study after study, the government finally stopped letting people use coal to heat their homes. The toxic fog that resulted from that disaster typically killed dozens of people every time London got foggy, until one night in 1952 when over 4000 were killed from breathing the thick smoke.
They're still cleaning the crap off the buildings, especially the heritage buildings around the city, many of which date back to the Renaissance.
I hate to think what the average life expectancy is.