Air pollution News

Beijing - In Beijing, the air is so thick with toxic smog that officials are warning citizens to wear masks when outdoors, or stay inside. With air-quality levels rising far above what is considered safe, one scientist compared the foul air to a "nuclear winter."

Beijing - Some 1,300 species of microbes, including some associated with allergies and lung disease, have been detected adrift in Beijing’s thick smog.

Beijing - Imagine the Fourth of July without the fireworks display on Washington's Mall, or New Years on Times Square without the ball dropping. In China, where fireworks were invented, the Lunar New Year on Friday may be celebrated without them.

Beijing - Last week, Beijing's Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau at a press conference, addressed the dirty dish-water pollution covering the city. They blamed the toxic miasma on a number of problems, the biggest being coal-fired industries, among others.

China's air quality problem may have repercussions outside of Asia. A new study suggests that Chinese pollution is affecting America's West Coast.

Shanghai - Shanghai has reached the highest levels of air pollution in the year with PM 2.5 of up to 442, according to official AQI numbers.

Contaminants in the air are officially carcinogens (potentially cancer causing), a World Health Organization (WHO) report indicates.

Sydney - A new study has found that an estimated 2.1 million deaths per year are caused by fine particulate matter. These materials are released into the atmosphere as a direct result of air pollution.

Santiago - Seven Chilean cities, with a total population of close to seven million people, have accumulated in the first semester of 2013 more than 37 days of dangerous levels of air quality exceeding the daily maximum norm of fine particulate matter (PM2.5).

Hazardous smoke coming from neighboring Indonesia threatens Singapore residents as fire continues to spread in the vast forest of Sumatra since the beginning of the week.