'Half a million die every year in China due to air pollution'

A documentary highlighting China's air pollution woes with claims that annually over half a million people die prematurely due to burning of coal has won praise after it went viral evoking mixed reactions.
The video by former China Central Television presenter Chai Jing went viral after it was released online, with critics questioning the scientific basis of her claims and supporters applauding her for shining a light on the issue.
Gruesome pictures of withered trees, murky skies and lifeless rivers appear but the film also shows a scientific perspective backed by data, field investigations at home and abroad and interviews with officials, scientists and the general public.

Beijing had 175 polluted days in 2014, eclipsed by neighboring Tianjin with 197 and Shijiazhuang with 264 days, official media reported on the video today.
The video shows satellite images from NASA demonstrating worsening air quality in north China over the past 10 years.
Citing former health minister Chen Zhu, the video claimed that an estimated half a million people die prematurely in China every year because of air pollution, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

In Beijing, the use of coal meant the concentration of cancer-causing PM2.5 particles in winter was 25 times higher than that in summer, it said.

The burning of coal and oil contributes to 60 per cent of PM2.5 pollutants, or airborne particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter that penetrate the lungs.
China had burnt 360 million tonnes of coal in 2013, more than the rest of the world combined, but much of the energy has been wasted in ill-performing steel factories which rely on government subsidy for survival, state-run China Daily reported.
Among those who cheered the film was new environmental protection minister Chen Jining, who sent Chai a text message to thank her for focusing attention on environmental problems.
In the production, which echoes the slide-show format of former US vice-president Al Gore's 2006 documentary, Chai called on the public to help take remedial action.

The video also accused domestic oil giants of failing to improve petroleum quality, a step that could go a long way to cutting pollution from car exhausts.
Writer and activist Ran Yunfei said on his microblog that the government was at the heart of the problem.
"A government that has unrestricted power is the biggest pollutant of society. We are not getting to the crux of the issue if we do not see this problem."
Another critic, economist Wen Kejian, called for courage to continue investigating the problem. "It's like peeling an onion, and the truth may be scary when the inner layer is exposed."

But some academics claimed that Chai's presentation was biased, saying she became concerned about air quality after her daughter was diagnosed with a benign tumour in 2013, but then failed to prove a link between the two.