Before-and-after photos of China's air show just how terrible its air pollution is
Here's how Beijing looked on a particularly high pollution day in August, exactly a month before the parade.
... And here's how the skies looked on the day of the parade, September 3. Residents nicknamed the color of the sky "parade blue."
China's had a pollution problem for years, as a result of rapid industrialization that started in the 1950s. In some areas, it's gotten so bad that its impact on your health is equivalent to smoking 40 cigarettes a day.
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That's because the country is teeming with coal plants, like this one in Shijiazhuang, about 200 miles from Beijing. These coal plants and other factories spit out large amounts of a pollutant called PM 2.5.
PM 2.5 is a type of particulate matter that's found in soot, smoke, and dust. The particulates are tiny, which makes it easy for them to get stuck in the lungs, leading to conditions like asthma and chronic lung disease. Wearing a face mask can help keep the pollutant out of the body.
To get ready for the big parade, Chinese officials reduced the operations at thousands of factories and construction sites — even shutting some down — in Beijing and its surrounding provinces a couple of weeks in advance.
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Chinese officials also restricted vehicles to drive every other day. The good air quality lasted for 15 days up until the festival, so that aerial stunts like this "70" made of military helicopters could be visible.
But in just one day, the sky made a drastic change back to its gray hue. On September 3, the air quality was at a healthy level of 17 on the air quality index (a measure of how many harmful pollutants, including PM 2.5 are in the air). One day later it jumped up to 158, which is considered an unhealthy level of air pollutants.
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Beijing before and after military parade pic.twitter.com/Xb6W6NQBSK
The last time it was this clear was during an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, held in November 2014, when China used similar tactics to cut down on smog. That year, levels of pollution were 55% lower than the same period in 2013, and it left the sky clear enough for stunning views, like this one of the Forbidden City.
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In 2014, China launched a war on pollution, vowing to cut down on hazardous emissions of PM 2.5. It's hard to do that amid a growing economy, but so far, Beijing has been able to shut down coal plants within city limits, and has tried to curb car emissions by limiting the number of license plates.
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According to China Daily, readings of PM 2.5 dropped by 11% in 2014, though it's clear from the still lingering heavy pollution days (like this one in October 2014) that China still has a long way to go.
If more measures are taken to curb air pollution, then hopefully the skies of blue in Beijing — like this one in September 2013 — can become a more common occurrence.
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