Blackest day

　　ON January 12th of last year, in an article in the print edition of The Economist, we reported that the public outcry over Beijing’s atrocious air quality was putting pressure on officials to release more data about more kinds of pollutants. We also noted that Chinese authorities had already embarked on a wide range of strategies to improve air quality, and that they probably deserve more credit than either foreign or domestic critics tend to give them. But we concluded with the sad reality that such work takes decades, and that “Beijing residents will need to wait before seeing improvements.”

　　On January 12th of this year, Beijing residents got an acrid taste of what that wait might be like, as they suffered a day of astonishingly bad air. Pollution readings went, quite literally, off the charts. Saturday evening saw a reading of 755 on the Air Quality Index (AQI). That index is based on the recently revised standards of the American Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA), which nominally maxes out at 500. For more perspective, consider that any reading above 100 is deemed “unhealthy for sensitive groups” and that anything above 400 is rated “hazardous” for all.

　　Like many Beijing residents, your correspondent has mobile-phone apps that keep up with the pollution readings. At an otherwise pleasant Saturday-evening meal with friends, he joined his companions in compulsively checking for updates.

编辑：张雨

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