People’s Daily Online has noted Beijing only saw five clear days in January, showing the severity of environmental deterioration. [File photo]

Severe air pollution in northern and eastern China over the past month has seriously affected people’s livelihood. The hovering thick smog both disrupts traffic and damages people’s health. People’s Daily Online has noted Beijing only saw five clear days in January, showing the severity of environmental deterioration.

The World Bank has shown air pollution in China cost 3.3 percent of the entire country’s national income in 2009. The medical journal "The Lancet" published a report saying air pollution cost 3.2 million lives in 2010, most of which were Asians.

Facing such serious air pollution, however, the Chinese people have failed to show any urgency in preventing situation from getting worse. Media reports said surgical masks of all kinds had been sold out in many cities; however, most people did not realize the consequences of the extended period of poor air quality.

At least in Beijing alone, street hawkers showed complete indifference, defying the suffocating thick smog and peddling their wares late into the night. Of course, they are keener on fighting to make ends meet.

My family told me not to "make such a big fuss," while my PhD students said I had been too sensitive to this issue.

Perhaps these are just individual cases which couldn’t generalize the public’s negligence to the air pollution problem, but my students’ research was more convincing.

They surveyed peer postgraduates in Beijing Jiaotong University. The result showed 49 percent of those surveyed said the smog didn’t affect them, and no surgical mask was needed, 17 percent never paid attention to environmental protection agency’s quotation, and 66 percent "occasionally took a look."

The survey also showed 12 percent people never heard of the term "PM2.5" while only half of the people who took the poll said they understood what it meant.

If college students were so unaware of air pollution, how can we expect the general public to do more to solve the problem?

Policymakers’ response to combating air pollution should call upon efforts of the entire society.

First, the government ought to provide surgical masks to police officers, sanitation workers, and all others who face long time exposure to air pollution, in order to reduce the risk of workplace hazard. Construction workers, field engineers who work in companies, too, should also have such basic labor protection.

Second, wearing a surgical mask is both for everyone’s own good and a proclamation to the government to show that people are concerned with air pollution and that they wish to live and work under a clear blue sky.

More importantly, the entire society – including government as well as individuals – must change their concept of value amidst this crisis, and act right away. Small efforts such as taking more public transport and setting off less firecrackers in the coming Chinese New Year will all add up to become a major force in improving air quality.

We really need to start acting now instead of waiting for the blue sky to return in 20 years’ time.

The author is a professor of the Beijing Jiaotong University.

This article was first published in Chinese and translated by Chen Boyuan.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.