Enter the Smog

On Friday, December 6th, the Chinese city of Shanghai suffered its worst case of smog. The smog has closed down the city, schools are not allowed to let students out, flights delayed,  and sporting events canceled. People have been advised not to go outside and government vehicles have out numbered the number of civilian vehicles as they watch the smog. The smog is expected to be around till Monday.

Shanghai is not the only city in China experiencing the unsafe smog levels. Beijing and Guangzhou have also been notorious in having smog in the city. The smog also moves closer into inland cities of China, instead of just sticking to the big three on its eastern coast. The smog is attributed to coal burning, factories, and car exhaust from the cities.

China is known for its unsafe levels of smog that plague the cities, for example when Beijing came under attack during the 2008 Olympics, because of its high levels of air pollution. However the cities of China are not the only place that suffers from heavy air.

Smog affects many major cities across the globe. Even here in the US cities are periodically affected by Smog. Most of the the areas in the US that are affected are those in the state of California and on the east coast.

Smog has attacked cities as long as we have been industrialized and there a ways to combat and reduce smog across the world. Car exhaust is a huge contributor to smog across the world. By creating cars that produce less CO2 and that are more fuel efficient smog can be prevented in major cities like Beijing and LA. There is the obvious of creating factories that produce less CO2 and using clean energy instead of fossil fuels. Of course there are other solutions that will get rid of smog in the short term.

The Chinese government has invested about $277 billion dollars into rockets that will make it rain. These rockets will create artificial rain that will help clear up the smog in cities.

One way or another we will have to combat the smog either with weapons that create rain in the short term or reducing the amount of CO2 we produce.

China in Smog
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/07/shanghai-smog_n_4402477.html
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1376388/smog-set-lift-eastern-china-experts-say-solution-long-way
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24700-could-china-combat-smog-with-artificial-rain.html#.UqUx1tJDto0
Locations in the US
http://environment.about.com/od/smogfaq/f/smog_faq_four.htm