A group of Edinburgh medical students dugup the facts on the Great London Smog of 1952 (the photos are fascinating; areal shock for people who think environmental problems are something new). Thestudents provided numbers on the level of air pollution in London 1952 and Ihave compared these to recent numbers for Beijing.
几位爱丁堡大学医学院的学生发掘了1952年伦敦大雾霾的'一些事实(其中的照片引人入胜;这对于那些认为环境问题历史甚短的人无疑是当头棒喝)。这些学生提供了1952年伦敦空气污染水平的一批数字，我把它们与北京的最近数字做了比较。
Beijing’s poor airquality – 300 or somicrograms of particulate matter per cubic metre – has generated volumesof purple prose, but London’s numbers in the 1950s were consistently above 400, and surged to 1,600 during theGreat Smog – more than five times Beijing’s inearly August.
北京上空每立方米空气约含300微克粉尘物质，这一恶劣的空气质量已经让人写出了许多华丽的抱怨文章，但伦敦在1950年代的这一数字持续超过400，并在大雾霾期间狂涨到1600，这是北京八月初数字的5倍以上。
