Jonathan Watts posts to the Environment Blog at the Guardian:
The need for a new air pollution index in Beijing was gloomily apparent today as visibility plunged, yet official statistics indicated the Chinese capital was just short of enjoying a “blue sky” day.
[…]The independent monitoring station BeijingAir reported a peak in the air-pollution index over 500, the worst limit on the scale and far past the point where children, the elderly and people with lung diseases should avoid outdoor physical activity.
[…]Yet, the official data showed a benign 104, deemed lightly polluted and only four over the point at which Beijing would notch up another “blue-sky” day.
