"In one Chinese city after the next, the background sound is of thousands, even millions, of car drivers hooting incessantly more-or-less around the clock as they weave and jockey for position across jam-packed, multiple-lane highways. Smog, often thick and oppressive, sometimes ghostlike and wispy, seeps around the many clumps of concrete high-rise buildings to conceal the horizon.
Manicured trees and shrubs line most roads and freeways, but you seldom see any sign of birdlife among the foliage. Look up from the centre of the biggest cities, like Beijing,Shanghai and Chongqing, all with populations of 20m and more, and you're unlikely to spot a cloud through the enduring grey haze, let alone the clear of the sky that hints of inner space and other galaxies.
Air pollution is so bad in China that, it struck me on a trip this month through the country, there must be tens of millions of a whole generation who have grown up not experiencing the world as having a blue sky. The water in the canals and rivers, like the Yangtze that cuts through China's centre, is the colour and consistency of a milky tea where little can surely survive other than the hardiest of frogs and bottom-feeders"..............READ MORE
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