SMOG

          Smog is polluted air that is a mixture of smoke and fog. Pollution is a word that can describe anything that damages something that is pure. So light pollution is when a pure dark sky is contaminated by street lights and lights in the city. And noise pollution is when loud or annoying sounds like traffic noise spoil a quiet and peaceful environment. But the smog affecting Chinese cities is a form of air pollution. The clean air has become dirty.

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            Smog used to be a problem in other world cities like London, where a combination of fog and smoke from factories and trains sometimes made the air quite dirty and dangerous.  They described it as a 'pea-souper', it means as thick as pea soup. In Los Angeles, fumes (the bad gases from car engines) and poor weather conditions used to cause poor air quality. But now, new laws and a change in technology mean the air in these cities is cleaner and safer

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           China is becoming more industrialised. That means more factories are being built, and more electricity is needed, and that often comes from coal fired power stations. And of course, more people are driving car. At certain times last year, the air was so poisonous in Shanghai that children were not allowed outside and schools were closed. Generally, the air is a threat to public health. It's particularly bad for people with asthma and it could lead to lung cancer. In the capital Beijing, pollution regularly goes over the safety limits set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

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          BBC Science Editor, David Shukman, has been investigating the problem and found that the Chinese authorities are spending 180 billion on cleaning up the air. There are two main things that they're trying to do in Beijing. First, they're closing down any power stations within the city that burn coal, that's the biggest source of pollution by plan. Next they're trying to limit road traffic by greener cars that will get priority. And officials say they're confident to be able in cleaning up.

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          China is also going to use more renewable energy. This is power made by natural materials that never get used up, such as wind and water. This would reduce air pollution caused by burning coal.

Comment

1. They used present tense because they reported some news about smog.
2. There words of David Shukman was not too fast but at first time, I was confused to listen one of his words that’s “burn” because it sounded like “bun”.
3. Again and again, something was missing from the last paragraph, they talk about Iran as the country which has a city with the world's worst air pollution that’s Ahwaz. But they didn’t explain it more why it can be the worst.

 It is the summary of "Smog" (one of the text at BBC English Learning)

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