There's tons of smog in China right now, and there's nothing they can do about it. They have some proposals, from cloud seeding to reducing carbon emissions, but the situation continues to worsen. Chinese scientists are now warning that the city's toxic air pollution is becoming akin to a nuclear winter.

Six of the country's northern provinces are covered in a cloud smog that isn't expected to lift at least until Thursday. Beijing is still the worst with its concentration of PM2.5 particles (the particles that cause all those health risks in the first place) hitting a solid 505 micrograms per cubic meter.

People and plants are at risk here. He Dongxian, an associate professor at China Agricultural University's College of Water Resources and Engineering, notes that these kinds of conditions are "similar to a nuclear winter."

Hopefully, the government there finds a way to get around this. And they'd better find it fast. [The Week]