Avoid At All Costs!

How Long Can You Hold Your Breath?

The infamous BP oil gusher is one of the most devastating natural disasters we've ever had. I'm not telling you anything new; and, of course, there's plenty of blame to go around in addition to BP. The lives of everyone and everything along the Gulf Coast may be destroyed for years and years to come. Heck, we're still talking about the Exxon Valdez spill of how long ago? This got me to thinking about places where the devastation is ongoing yet little is made of it. Sure, we know China is polluting the earth on an unheard-of scale, but more on that later. We are killing ourselves here every day yet can't seem to control ourselves, if evidence from the American Lung Association is to be believed. This group has undertaken the task of deciding which cities in America are the most polluted and in which of them are we dying every day.
The study was based on three areas of ficus: 1. the number of days per year on which the ozone level exceeds a healthy level 2. the places with the highest level of short-term particle pollution and 3. The locations which had the highest level of year-round particle pollution. Here's a summary of the top five in each category, according to the A.L.A.

CATEGORY #1: Number of "worst ozone" days per year. An acceptable number is 7

#5 Sacramento, CA: 48 days
#4 Fresno?Madera, CA: 66 days
#3 Visalia/Porterfield, CA: 110 days
#2 Bakersfield, CA: 115 days
#1: Los Angeles: 141 days

CATEGORY #2: Number of "worst short-term" pollution days per year. An acceptable number is 3

#5 Birmingham, AL: 25 days
#4 Los Angeles: 27 days
#3 Pittsburgh: 45 days
#2 Fresno, CA: 53 days
#1 Bakersfield, CA 55 days

CATEGORY #3: Worst year-round air. An "acceptable"number of micrograms per cubic meter of air is below 15

#5 Pittsburg: 18.3micrograms per cubic meter of air
#4 Visalia, CA: 19.7 micrograms per cubic meter of air
#3 Los Angeles: 19.7 micrograms per cubic meter of air
#2 Bakersfield, CA: 21.5 micrograms per cubic meter of air
#1 Phoenix/Mesa/Scottsdale AZ: 21.6 micrograms per cubic meter of air

Thus, it is obvious that we should avoid California altogether, especially since the lung association reports that 18,000 people die prematurely every year in California as a result of the pollution. Yet, as bad as those numbers are, we are mere posers compared to the folks in China.
According to a World Bank survey at the time of the last olympics in Beijing, 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are located in China...a country trying to move from water buffalo farming to microchips manufacturer to the world (never mind all those people committing suicide int he Chinese factories) in a generation...and doing so at the expense of, well, everyone; this is especially true when you consider that particulate matter from China has already begun to reach the West Coast of the U.S. No wonder California is dying. But, I hear you ask, which is the MOST polluted city, and how bad is it, really?
According to the World Bank study, the most polluted place on this planet is a coal mining city in the Shanxi Province named Linfen. The air is literally visible every moment of the day (which is shortened considerably by an early sunset as the sun disappears behind smog banks. Living and breathing in Linfen is akin to smoking three packs of cigarettes a day...every day of your life! Can you say "cough, cough, hack, hack"?
And remember, anything that gets to the West Coast can also reach you and me.
And you thought the soon-to-be-exorbitant price of shrimp was a tribulation?