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title: Clear The Air | Feature
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SEEING IS BELIEVING

## Clear The Air

Little did I know that I would dedicate months of pulling rabbits out of the hat to do something about the lockdown-like inconvenient air pollution that my New York Times colleagues and I had to personally suffer for years in China before the 2008 Summer Olympics.

The results, an award winning mini-site, a series of videos and bylines, were worth the wait. 

[![TheAtlantic-chinas-air-pollution vert crop](https://michaelcontent.us/hubfs/TheAtlantic-chinas-air-pollution%20vert%20crop.jpg "TheAtlantic-chinas-air-pollution vert crop")](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/opinion/18kristof.html)

#### I wrote in The Atlantic:

When a ranking Chinese government official slammed the U.S. embassy and consulates in China earlier this month for measuring local air pollution data, ... Chinese web users snapped back. "Can't you see the bad pollution yourself?"

Read [full story](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/a-stunning-visualization-of-chinas-air-pollution/259455/)

To put things into perspective, I made a graph comparing four months of Air Quality Index daily numbers between Beijing (brown line) and New York City (green), to the right

![BeijingAir-NYC 2012 PM2.5 lines](https://michaelcontent.us/hubfs/BeijingAir-NYC%202012%20PM2.5%20lines.jpg "BeijingAir-NYC 2012 PM2.5 lines")

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[![AirAnimated-sliding-2009-06-full](https://michaelcontent.us/hs-fs/hubfs/AirAnimated-sliding-2009-06-full.gif?width=432&height=300&name=AirAnimated-sliding-2009-06-full.gif "AirAnimated-sliding-2009-06-full")](https://asiasociety.org/files/pdf/US_China_Roadmap_on_Climate_Change.pdf)

#### Award Winner

ChinaAirDaily.com (and its predecessor on AsiaSociety.org) won [Asian American Journalists Association](https://www.aaja.org/)'s National Online Journalism award.

(The site has been decommissioned after I left due to lack of funding and technical upgrades of AsiaSociety.org. Watch video below to get a glimpse of its glory.)

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![Forbes logo_black background](https://michaelcontent.us/hs-fs/hubfs/Forbes%20logo_black%20background.png?width=200&height=200&name=Forbes%20logo_black%20background.png "Forbes logo_black background")

### Forbes.com

Air quality improved after the Olympics, and there have been good days since, but why August was this bad is something of a mystery.

[Read..](https://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2012/10/05/how-dirty-are-chinas-skies-a-daily-photo-archive-shows-the-truth/?sh=266e92b76a4b)

![Beijing Air ground inside satellite img](https://michaelcontent.us/hs-fs/hubfs/Beijing%20Air%20ground%20inside%20satellite%20img.jpg?width=200&height=200&name=Beijing%20Air%20ground%20inside%20satellite%20img.jpg "Beijing Air ground inside satellite img")

### Fresh Air by 2030

The air pollution history of New York and London suggests that China will clean up. Just a matter of time. [Watch...](https://youtu.be/WogBqX2ChKI)

![Beijing Air video still](https://michaelcontent.us/hs-fs/hubfs/Beijing%20Air%20video%20still.jpg?width=200&height=200&name=Beijing%20Air%20video%20still.jpg "Beijing Air video still")

### Longing for Blue Skies

Watch the [first video](https://youtu.be/v-SEJfpQLSI?si=y2E5C2fRqXA64WYC) that kicked off the daily air quality chronicler that enables comparing Chinese and U.S. cities.

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#### Watch: Longing for Blue Skies

## Thanks for reading

Appreciate the clean air we breathe

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