Living In Beijing Is Worse Than Living In An Airport Smoking Lounge

Flickr/GreenmelindaThe air in Beijing is worse than the air inside a U.S. Airport smoking lounge — you know, the special rooms where nicotine fiends suck down cigarette after cigarette in preparation for their smokeless flights, and where the ceiling tiles are stained yellow from all the tar in the air.

A new chart from Bloomberg News indicates that Beijing's PM2.5, a measurement of tiny particles that pollute the air and sicken people, is worse than the PM2.5 of the average U.S. airport smoking lounge. That's worse than the World Health Organization's recommendation to not exceeding a PM2.5 of 25 micrograms per cubic meter for longer than 24 hours.

In contrast to those recommended levels, Bloomberg reports, Beijing's average is much worse:

The 2013 daily average was 194 micrograms per cubic meter, with an intraday peak of 886 on Jan. 12, the data show. By contrast, PM2.5 levels averaged 166.6 in 16 airport smoking lounges in the U.S., said a 2012 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Levels exceeded 1,000 in Fairbanks, Alaska during a 2004 wildfire that engulfed 6.6 million acres, the state’s website says.

See the shocking chart at Bloomberg News.