{"id":3333,"date":"2014-12-21T08:34:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-21T13:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=3333"},"modified":"2014-12-21T08:34:00","modified_gmt":"2014-12-21T13:34:00","slug":"inside-beijings-airpocalypse-a-city-made-almost-uninhabitable-by-pollution-cities-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=3333","title":{"rendered":"Inside Beijing’s airpocalypse \u2013 a city made ‘almost uninhabitable’ by pollution | Cities | The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inside Beijing’s airpocalypse \u2013 a city made ‘almost uninhabitable’ by pollution | Cities | The Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The scene could be straight from a science-fiction film: a vision of everyday life, but with one jarring difference that makes you realise you\u2019re on another planet, or in a distant future era.<\/p>\n

A sports class is in full swing on the outskirts of Beijing. Herds of children charge after a football on an artificial pitch, criss-crossed with colourful markings and illuminated in high definition by the glare of bright white floodlights. It all seems normal enough \u2013 except for the fact that this familiar playground scene is taking place beneath a gigantic inflatable dome.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a change having to go through an airlock on the way to class,\u201d says Travis Washko, director of sports at the\u00a0British School of Beijing<\/a>. \u201cBut the kids love it, and parents can now rest assured their children are playing in a safe environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reason for the dome becomes apparent when you step outside. A grey blanket hangs in the sky, swamping the surroundings in a de-saturated haze and almost obscuring the buildings across the street. A red flag hangs above the school\u2019s main entrance to warn it\u2019s a no-go day: stay indoors at all costs. The airpocalypse has arrived.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a>…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inside Beijing’s airpocalypse \u2013 a city made ‘almost uninhabitable’ by pollution | Cities | The Guardian. The scene could be straight from a science-fiction film: a vision of everyday life, but with one jarring difference that makes you realise you\u2019re on another planet, or in a distant future era. A sports class is in full […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1761,2052,2045,130],"class_list":["post-3333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-air-pollution","tag-airpocolypse","tag-beijing","tag-china"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3334,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3333\/revisions\/3334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}