Making head and tail of eco-problems

Purple haze. For those who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, the words bring back memories of the electrifying Jimi Hedrix and his more electrifying ways with the guitar. For many living in North China today, they may sound more like one of the stanzas in the song: Purple haze all in my eyes/Don't know if it's day or night/You got me blowin', blowin' my mind/Is it tomorrow, or just the end of time?

We are talking about smog. The smog that prompted the world media to pounce on China, blaming it for all that was wrong with emission control.

When Beijing issued two red alerts for smog in succession in December, foreign media outlets made it out as it was the end of the world. Images of people in different types of masks were splashed across the foreign media, some even highlighting people wearing gas masks. Some Chinese media outlets too joined the fray, either enamored by their overseas counterparts or to genuinely portray the serious state of affairs.