i absolutely love it when the air is like this. i run to and fro, over hill and dale, korean clamp will never fail.

Too bad this is nowhere near as bad as Beijing on a bad day.

北京的空气污染问题比较严重！

how about trying to respect the planet

This prob has been going on for years all over the world mexico city is supposed to be the biggest offender with the highest levels of air bourne lead pollution it leads one to think will their ever be a solution,

Where's all the pollution coming from? Cars? Industry? Being down wind of something?

damn cats their evil knows no bounds

Being downwind of the Pearl Delta in China, the region where there are lots of factories and power plants whose emissions China doesn't restrict due to corruption. China claimed this pollution was from HK traffic and factories but NASA revealed a series of pictures showing the gunk move down towards HK from China.

OMgosh dude that is scary!

R
www.online-anonymity.net.tc

More details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution_in_Hong_Kong

Taiwan's big cities are just the same, especially Taipei and Kaohsiung. I lived there for two years. Usually the air was more or less like the lower picture. My nose and throat would often feel sore or at least irritated. I never got used to it. There I think most of the pollution came from the filthy hordes of mopeds and scooters. If I cleaned my apartment, after a week, the white surfaces would look OK, but if I wiped a finger across them it would leave a grey streak. And I couldn't wipe them clean, I had to use a detergent cleaner. With a room fan, if I did the same, my finger would be just black. Black as soot. And oily. Because, I reckon, that's exactly what it was. Soot from motorbike exhausts. Meanwhile, in Vietnam where I am now, companies like Honda are boasting how they'll sell a million motorbikes in a year. Dirtier than the Taiwan bikes probably, because they're cheaper / lower tech. Vietnam is already bad, HCMC is appalling, and it's rapidly getting worse. And meanwhile, in the West, those same companies are telling us how astonishingly clean and green they are, advertising their hydrogen vehicles etc etc. Utter hypocrisy. It's all about money and they absolutely couldn't give a sh*t about the environment regardless of what they say. They only say / do that because they have to, so they can continue making sales. It's just marketing. It's despicable.

It's called fog (water vapor). But if misrepresenting the truth furthers your agenda...then, by all means, go for it!

They use cheap coal power plants for energy

It mostly came from the factories in Southern part of Guangzhou in China, esp Donghuan, i.e. the factory of the world.

There really isn't much HKese can do about it. Considering most of HKese don't even drive a car, and take public transport, and HK doesn't even rely on manufacturing. It's really a shame though, HK has such a beautiful harbor.

Thats it I'm going to china

Where does it go afterwards

might it be fake?
there are same boats in both picture!

Sometimes it's called fog, yes.
Other times and many, many of the days that I lived in China, it was smog. Puke from the factories and coal burning power plants in the sky.
I lived in and around the pearl river delta. The cleanest the skies get is during some of the festivals when factories slow down or close for the holiday. When the pollution is gone you can see how rich and beautiful China can be. It is probably just like the United States 100 years ago when we were industrializing. Factories and power plants clogged the skies here as well. Unfortunately we have continued to burn coal. Natural resources should be considered emergency rations, not resources.

Isn't the free market awesome? Who needs pesky guhment regulations? I wish the USA would follow this example!

scary!
no wonder humans get sick and get all kinds of breathing problems with things like that!
we should all start doing efforts everywhere, to fight pollution and preserve our poor planet that suffers! :-(

this is also the difference between ps3 and ps1.

From Alex Hofford

I would like to take this opportunity to personally vouch for the 100% accuracy of this combo image, as I in fact took them both. There is absolutely no Photoshop trickery involved whatsoever, I swear. Not even the slight tweaking of levels, colour balance etc - nothing! Only cropping. Anyway, why would I bother to manipulate the photos? This would be a) editorially unsound, and b) too much like hard work for me. What you see in the picture is exactly what you get (breathe) in Hong Kong in reality.

The air pollution here in Hong Kong really is truly awful. Some of the time. It's a seasonal thing, and is very much dependent on the weather. If it's a northerly wind blowing the factory smoke down from China, then our lungs are in trouble. If it's a southerly wind blowing up from the ocean, it's a lot better (like these last few days). But at roadside level it is always bad, because of all the trucks and buses and cars. Not to mention the container ships that spew dirty filth into the air all year round:-

http://www.google.com.hk/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%...

If people are interested in the subject of Hong Kong air pollution I would strongly recommend a visit the Hong Kong Clean Air Network website which is here:-

http://hongkongcan.org/eng/

The Hong Kong Air Pollution album in the portfolio section of my website is here:-

http://www.alexhoffordphotography.com/node/6

Best regards to all and thanks for posting.

Alex Hofford

The boats in the pictures don't indicate anything, they all belong to Star Ferry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Ferry), which regularly run between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island - if you every visit Victoria Harbour, you're guaranteed to see these.

The reason you see the same boats is they are ferries that run from where the photo was taken to the other side. Its called the star ferry.

It's southern China's pollution. 10-15 years ago the skies over Kowloon were relatively blue and cloudy. With the massive, massive surge in factories in Southern China and the winds blowing south, this is what you get.

It's not fake. I have been driving along the expressway and you can barely see HK island. The "same boats" are the Star Ferry's that traverse the bay.

Well..I heard that the air pollutions are due to industrials,but not in Hong Kong,but from mainland china,and wind blows the bad air to Hong Kong from mainland china,it's pretty bad.

whoa

So sad :(

I cant believe pollution is getting to be this bad. We as a family need to step it up and make the world a better place.

Wow,

Im scared that if you take the same picture in 10 years you won't just see anything.....

Sad!

That is really scary... Pollution is now responsible for a lot of health problems and we should be more respectful to the environment.

It's sad, I work for a bike panniers company. Lots of client say that there is no way they will do bike in cities because of major pollutions...

now that's pollution.

I don't know what it gonna take for human to decide to get rid of pollution... really sad