This is a guest column written by Amber Davis

The sight of blue surgical masks and thick smog is what has captured America’s attention in the past few months with Beijing’s worsening air pollution.

Beijing has recently had to take action by allotting funds for cleaning up the air pollution problem.

The country’s government has allotted 10 billion Yuan ($1.65 billion) this year to reward cities and surrounding regions for cleaning up the air.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, to meet the Clean Air Act, costs have almost tripled from the year 1990.

As of last December, China’s health and environmental bureaus estimated that the human cost of air pollution in China was between 350,000 to 500,000 deaths per year.

“After going through poverty, famine, a planned economy with limited supplies, the Chinese people are desperate for some luxury such as having a car,” Tao Fu, a Ph.D. student studying Mass Communication and assistant professor at University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said.

China has been affected in more than just their economic situation. The thick smog has caused flights to be delayed, kids to miss school and has cut off transportation.

A middle school in Beijing recently came under attack when they went against the Trial Emergency Measures for Heavy Air Pollution and canceled classes.

Currently, classes are supposed to cancel when the alert is upgraded to “red” – this signifies the most severe air pollution.

Some teachers have started to make a stand against the government’s regulations by cancelling classes while the alert is still orange.

According to the World Health Organization, the fine particulate levels are to be no more than 25 micrograms per cubic meter in 24 hours, but 198 micrograms per cubic meter has been reported near Tiananmen Square.

Several years ago the U.S Embassy reported pollution figures that were much worse than what the Beijing government had reported.

“Air pollution is what the ‘new’ Chinese government has to deal with since it is pivotal to the political stability, economic development, and international image of China,” Fu said.

The fine particulates pose the greatest risk for the health of the Chinese because of the particulates getting into people’s lungs and bloodstreams.

Some of these health problems are harmful lung development in children, early onsets of asthma and higher incidences of heart problems.

China has an average of 1.2 million premature deaths because of this growing air pollution problem.

There are several other cities in China and in the United States at high risk for similar pollution problems.

In China, cities with the same or very close air quality levels are Tianjing and Shanghai with the major pollutant being particulate matter.

As for the United States, California is heavily polluted in cities like Los Angeles and Bakersfield.

Almost 12 percent to 24 percent of daily sulfate concentrations in the western United States are from China.

While the luxury of a car may be new to this area of the country, by requiring car emission testing air pollutants such as hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide are significantly reduced.

China will have roughly 6 million private cars by 2015 and many of these cars don’t have air filters to capture particulate pollution.

With China’s growing population, the growth of car ownership is just going to continue to increase.

According to China’s Ministry of Public Security, car ownership in 2012 reached 120 million, in 2020 car ownership will reach 200 million.

“China is just a zoomed in picture of how developing countries are trapped in a predicament of developing the economy and protect the environment,” Fu said.

Hopefully, waiting until smog is creeping into office spaces will not be how other