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  • Don't worry! Everything's fine!

  • I'm just in a fairyland.

  • Ughhh, dying.

  • Hi, welcome to China Uncensored I'm your host Chris Chappell.

  • Okay, sorry, one second.

  • Help me Captain Planet!

  • Ah, much better.

  • So a few days ago,

  • state-run Xinhua News asked on their Twitter account if the city of Shenyang was experiencing

  • a fairyland or doomsday.

  • Those things are easily confused, I know.

  • You see, the pollution there was so bad,

  • they couldn't tell.

  • And if you think it's just China's problem, it's not.

  • Like wealthy officials fleeing corruption charges,

  • China's air pollution is also flying across the Pacific and landing in America.

  • In fact, nearly a third of San Francisco's air pollution comes from China.

  • China's air pollution is bad--and it's probably only going to get worse.

  • But why am I telling you this? Let me show you...

  • Here are 10 images to help you understand China's doomsday air pollution.

  • Number 10.

  • This is downtown Beijing.

  • The China Central Television Headquarters.

  • Can't see anything?

  • This is what it looked like on a slightly better day,

  • and this is what it's supposed to look like--after the Communist Party ordered hundreds of factories

  • to close down to clear the skies ahead of the 2008 Olympics. That was temporary.

  • Number 9.

  • This was Beijing's air pollution two years later, in November 2010.

  • That's after the US Embassy accidentally called Beijing's pollution "crazy bad" on Twitter.

  • Apparently that was a joke embedded in the embassy's air monitoring program.

  • If the level of PM 2.5 pollution went beyond the most "hazardous" level of 500--

  • which was so outrageous it wasn't supposed to ever happen--

  • it would Tweet "crazy bad." Oops.

  • Number 8.

  • So you know how a pollution level of 500 is hazardous,

  • and above that is crazy bad?

  • Well this was the northeastern city of Shenyang on Sunday.

  • It reached 1,400.

  • That's 50 times higher than what the World Health Organization considers safe to breath.

  • And you really shouldn't be driving in this.

  • Number 7.

  • Would you want to eat food grown on this farm?

  • Some Chinese scientists have said air pollution is so bad it's like a nuclear winter.

  • Because it's affecting plants' ability to grow.

  • Number 6.

  • Did you know that 9 out of every 10 Chinese cities fail the government's own pollution

  • standards?

  • But, hey at least you can enjoy a beautiful sunrise in Jilin.

  • Number 5. Part of the reason China's air is so bad is

  • they burn almost as much coal as the rest of the world combined.

  • 66 percent of China's energy comes from it.

  • But who knew coal could be so colorful?

  • Number 4.

  • You know how people say you can see the Great Wall of China from space?

  • Well that's not true. But you know what you can see from space? Beijing's smog.

  • The gray part is the smog. It's 600 miles across.

  • Number 3

  • There's an old Chinese saying:

  • "In the sky, there is heaven. On earth, there is Hangzhou and Suzhou."

  • Well, this is Hangzhou.

  • Like I said, it was an old saying.

  • Number 2

  • Ah, the beautiful Saint Sophia Cathedral in Harbin.

  • Illumined by an angelic halo... of smog.

  • And Number 1.

  • With pollution so bad, Chinese citizens are taking things into their own hands.

  • Or faces.

  • Since you have to wear facemasks so often thee days, why not be fashionable?

  • I wonder if I could get my own custom design?

  • Now I know this is all pretty scary. But just relax, take a deep breath and

  • on second though,

  • no, maybe don't do that.

  • So what do you think about the doomsday levels of air pollution in China?

  • Leave your comments below and be sure to subscribe for more episodes of china Uncensored.

  • Once again I'm Chris Chappell, see you next time.

Don't worry! Everything's fine!

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