Because reducing pollution is out of the equation.
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You can guess that, but after 4+ years of āmasksā almost exclusively meaning something else the speaker and media really have a responsibility to make it clear what kind of masks are being referred to.
Otherwise, itās just going to be overwhelmingly read as bobbing on yet another useless surgical mask, which isnāt doing shit for air pollution or peopleās lung cancer.
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Umm, havenāt you heard? Taiwanese are actually pretty good at math. Not sure if you got your memo, but itās kind of a thingā¦
Incomingā¦
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Environment warned of overseas pollution brought in by the northeasterly wind, which may accumulate in downwind central and southern regions.
āOrange alertsā for air quality have been issued for northern, central Taiwan, the Yunlin-Chiayi-Tainan regions and outlying Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, the ministry said, adding āorange warningsā could be issued for other areas duringthe day.
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Already bad, or the āoverseasā pollution havenāt been merge with the local yet?
I noticed yesterday was pretty hazy
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Its exactly like that in Taipei today also.
Its been pretty shit in general this year.
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Where have all the people that just see blue gone? Itās not fun anymore when we all just agree we are breathing poison.
But i must say, that forest on the mountain is a pretty shade of blue 
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As a result, theyāre going to recommend wearing masks more often.
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Theyāre decreasing the standard from 15 ug/m3 to 12.5 ug/m3, but I wonder what that quite small reduction means in real terms and how theyāre going to actually regulate for lower emissions.
Apparently āwe considered the economic and health costs and calculated that they intersect at a PM2. 5 concentration of 12.5 ug/m3.ā
Translation: this is their take on balancing the āmake $$$$$ā / ākill peopleā equation.
Call me crazy but Iāve always felt the decision-makers in Taiwan have their fingers firmly on the left hand side of the scale. 
Guy
Yeah, thatās how I interpreted it too. Iām not sure how reassuring Iāll find that if I ever develop lung cancer.
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I love the subtlety of this sentence:
Every day, the air we breathe contains industrial fumes, vehicle exhaust, and pollutants blown into Taiwan.
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So knowing that, as an avid cyclist, are you going to continue cycling as hard as you do? Iām asking myself the same question.
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What can we do. Besides, the north is not as bad and once out of the city is generally good. Which is insane taking into consideration that pollution is being poured into Taiwan.
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Itās also being created in Taiwan. A lot! End of the day we can only control our own production, not that of the international communities and weather patterns. Our geography and climate is already pretty lucky that much of it can be blown away and/or washed away. Which should be that much more alarming given how bad it still is.
Seems more like a small inch by inch measure. We need to grind down our pollution creation dramatically, but doing what we need to tomorrow with probably halt the economy. Certainly political suicide, which is a bit sad. We are so setup for dirty and wasteful practices in taiwan, itās going to take years to try and wind things back, even a bit, to more normal levels of pollution. That is, if we collectively even care enough.
Lung cancer, liver and kidney problems, digestive organs etc diseases are already SUPER high in Taiwan. Eventually the right people will be important enough and dead that we get the odd knee jerk jumps in making our living space cleaner. We canāt keep relying on an over spent NHI system to put bandaids on problems we should be preventing and keeping us alive, though messed up, long enough to keep our stats up.
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Itās just plain bad luck that China is targeting Tainan today while we are here. At least we have a mainly indoor activity.
I wonder if the PRC has some huge fan along the coast, with which they can redirect the particles more precisely, aiming today at William Lai and Hsiao Bi-khimās Big Day. 
Guy
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