Asian Yellow Dust


There’s been a bit in the news about the air quality for the Summer Olympics. All of the articles I’ve read have been seemingly ‘balanced’ and ‘fair’ with a few people (somewhat) fearful about their health, and then others saying that China will of course have this taken care of in time.
I can’t see how this is remotely possible; and I’ll just bring up one example, this.
I lived in Asia for a number of years, and let me tell you, that yellow dust is a real humdinger. Yes, it is yellow, and not sand-yellow but more of a chromium yellow or some other toxic yellow color. Guaranteed I’d get sick when that was blowing into town. I can’t say my days in smog-choked cities in Asia are to blame, but these days I’ve developed a bit of a wheeze, and I might even get an inhaler.
Would I race in Beijing this summer? Heck no. I think we’re going to see people dropping like flies. It actually might make for the first environmentally-aware Olympics ever. Maybe they’ll stop relocating millions of farmers or damming rivers to have stadiums built. It could end up being a positive thing.

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