this is not fog

Today the AQI was 453 when we woke up. For those of you who happily don't need to know such things, this means the air quality was scientifically defined as "hazardous." At levels beyond 500 the chart simply says, "Beyond Index."

With these levels of pollution the air takes on weight. It makes the dog's fur feel gritty. It obscures the view. Just ask the buildings in the photo above.

Buildings? Yes. A whole missing backdrop of them. (See below for a day when the air quality dipped to about 80.)

I wore a mask when I went to walk the dog (and take these photos) but most people did not. And I was surprised to see that the neighbors still had their windows open. 

Sure, high levels of pollution are considered normal here. Anything even close to the numbers that we regularly see would cause alarm elsewhere. For example, New York was at 35 the last time we checked and on a trip to Singapore we saw newspaper articles in a state of panic when their numbers spiked near 80.

But today's pollution was bad even compared to Chengdu normal. The photo above is from this morning. The photo below is from the same spot a week ago. 

I'm not asking for blue skies. I know better than that.

At this point I'd be happy just to see the buildings on the ground.