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Twenty-five cities across northern China are under red pollution alerts, the highest pollution warning in the Chinese system. Due to the thick haze, thousands of flights have been cancelled. Beijing is under a yellow alert, the second highest pollution warning level. The pollution is due to stagnant air hanging over the northern half of the country. The jet stream has dropped down over southern China, as is normal in winter, but the lack of air circulation bordering the stream, coupled with generalized poor pollution controls in factories and power plants throughout China, has led to this extreme situation.
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The United Kingdom has been shrouded in a blanket of smog for the past few days, caused by record levels of pollution.

The U.K. government stated that the situation is temporary and has arisen due to a ‘combination of local emissions, light winds, pollution from the continent and dust blown over from the Sahara’, but this allegedly blinkered viewpoint has been widely criticized.

European Commission spokesperson, Joe Hennon, described the prime minister’s comments as "more than disappointing" and of showing a "clear misunderstanding" of the air pollution crisis.
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It seems like EVERYTHING is dangerous these days–but dryer vents? It turns out that the scented air wafting from household laundry vents, due to scented detergent or dryer sheets, can be hazardous. Some of these products even contain chemicals that cause cancer! And manufacturers are not required to disclose the ingredients used in fragrances or laundry products.
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Newswise – It’s recently been proven that secondhand tobacco smoke isextremely dangerous for nonsmokers and actually causeschromosomalbreakage in the fetuses of pregnant women. Now it’s beenrevealed that in 1987, tobacco industry executives at PhilipMorris deliberately planted lies in a journal they published.

The Lancet reports that, according to Australian researcherSimon Chapman, who reviewed 484 articles published in thejournal “Indoor and Built Environment” between January 1992and February 2004, paid consultants to the tobacco industrywrote most of the articles. Not surprisingly, 61% of thesearticles came to the conclusion that secondhand smoke isn’tdangerous.

Photo credit: http://www.freeimages.co.uk
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