Chinese state-run TV tries to spin the “surprising benefits” of their terribly polluted air

You’ve got to hand it to China Central Television, who either see the silver lining in every cloud (even if the cloud is smog), or are the most bloodyminded of propagandists. As eastern China continues to be blanketed in a brown cloud of air pollution, they published this list of the five “surprising benefits” of smog:

1. It unifies the Chinese people.
2. It makes China more equal.
3. It raises citizen awareness of the cost of China’s economic development.
4. It makes people funnier.
5. It makes people more knowledgeable (of things like meteorology and the English word haze).

The article has since been yanked from the site — presumably after much ridicule from insides and outside the Middle Kingdom — but that hasn’t stopped China’s government boosters from singing smog’s praises. A pro-smog article on the nationalist Global Times’ website reads:

“Smog may affect people’s health and daily lives … but on the battlefield, it can serve as a defensive advantage in military operations.”

The South China Morning Post has an article on this claim, which includes this cartoon:

While this sort of thing isn’t done as crudely and transparently as in China, it happens here in North America too, as documented in the book below, which is where I drew the first photo’s caption from: