Battle against pollution likely a long one

We were getting closer to the days when residents of Beijing would have to worry less about nausea, coughs, sore throat, watery eyes, poor daytime visibility and bad moods.

We were moving toward full weeks without having to wear face masks — not the cosmetic variety — but the ones used for tackling smog. Some of us living in the city had already started to wonder why some others were keeping their masks on even on days when the Air Quality Index gave us little reason to do so.

There were fewer “airpocalypse” jokes on Chinese social media, too.

That was in 2017, when the Chinese capital saw its bluest skies for the longest stretches in years — a total of 226 “good air days”, as the municipal environmental protection bureau put it. And, a 33 percent reduction in PM2.5 levels in the last quarter of the year in the BeijingTianjin-Hebei region, according to a global advocacy group.

But the gray skies returned on Tuesday in Beijing with the reminder that the battle against air pollution will likely be long-drawn.

The face mask, which has become an item of daily necessity like the cellphone, won’t be going away soon.

In the past few years, government measures to control air pollution have intensified though. Polluting industries are being fined and warned. There are plans to curb the use of coal, and emphasis is being placed on the development of cleaner fuel alternatives such as wind and solar. Car emissions standards are