China's Surprising Solutions to Clear Killer Air
More than a million people are thought to die a year from air pollution in China, but now the country is fighting back with innovative solutions.
Tangshan, ChinaIn 1976 this city by the Yellow Sea, some 100 miles east of Beijing in Hebei Province, was obliterated by an earthquake that killed at least 240,000 people—around a quarter of the population. Afterward the city was rebuilt, and it helped build modern China.
Tangshan today is a hub of heavy industry and coal-burning, a city that produces cement, chemicals, and more than five percent of the world’s steel. Flatbed trucks loaded with big rolls of steel are parked on roadsides. From the rubble of 1976, clusters of tall, concrete apartment buildings have risen to house the workers who keep the mills and factories running and the towering smokestacks pumping.
A thick gray smog hangs over it all.
In China today, air pollution
