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A breath of fresh air
After
sitting indoors for a couple of hours, whether
listening to a lecture or writing a proposal on
the
computer, one of the most natural
things we want to do is to have a breath of fresh
air. Unfortunately such a
natural
thing
is
becoming
increasingly
difficult
to
find.
For
people
living
in
mega-cities
like
Beijing,
Shanghai and
Guangzhou, a breath of fresh air is almost a
luxury.
The
main
reasons
why
air
pollution
is
aggravated
in
cities
in
developing
countries
include
increasing
traffic, growing cities, economic
development and industrialization. Smoke for
example, is a combination of
water
vapour, dust and various gases which are largely
produced when fuels are burnt (by cars, for
example).
Smog
caused
big
problems
in
London
in
t
he
19th
and
early
20th
century.
From
Charles
Dickens’
Oliver
Twist
we
know the serious problem of smog in London at that
time, and this is why London was named Wu
Du, meaning “smoggy capital”. Even
today, many Chinese still think London is very
smoggy.
Through
my
own
travel
experiences
in
England
and
my
many
visits
to
Beijing
in
recent
years,
I'm
convinced that Beijing has successfully
inherited the name Wu Du from London. In Beijing,
in spite of all
those claims about
“blue skies”, thick smog frequently
f
ouls the air and disrupts hundreds of
flights.
In September 2011,
I visited London again with my family. We went to
see Wesminster, Bridge Big Ben,
Tower
Bridge, the Globe Theatre, Trafalgar Square, and
other places of historical and cultural interest.
What
impressed us most were the clear
blue skies, the green parks (big and small)
flowers of all sorts, and seagulls
gliding above the River Times, which is
the complete opposite of what T.S. Eliot wrote in
his poem The
Waste
Land.
In
Hyde
Park,
we
even
had
close
encounters
with
squirrels
begging
for
nuts,
pairs
of
white
swans,
Canadian
geese,
Mandarin
ducks,
and
many
other
wild
birds
that
we
could
not
name.
Serenity,
beauty and harmony
were some of the words that came to mind when
strolling through this fabulous park.
Looking at the huge problem of air
pollution and serious ecological damage in our
country, I strongly
feel that we need a
breath of fresh air in environmental protection, a
breath of fresh air in our legislative
bodies in writing laws to control
emissions, a breath of fresh air in the scientific
research on the damaging
effects of and
the solutions to air pollution, and a breath of
fresh air in our education system, from nursery to
postgraduates schools, so that every
one of us is aware of the problem and will be
prepared to do something
about it. If
we all take action and make peace with our planet,
a breath of fresh air will no longer be a luxury.
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