I'll just assume you didn't watch it then. Anyone else actually watch this?

Alex, I am interested. if one can not read others comment from which to determine whether it is relevant to the subject matter. i tender my surrender. :-)

lol, the iq is growing again

I have watched it. Actually, I think for the Chinese this documentary may be as important as Silent Spring was in the US and Europe. I will now explain why I think this.
Even though the film is simplistic, and only covers a small part of the whole problem, the film maker is not preaching to the choir. Many of us on here already know the words, chorus and verse, and the melody. Some of us grew up with a great deal of environmental awareness, at school and in the media.
However, the audience this film is aimed at is only just beginning to become aware of the issues. I remember the LA smogs of the 1970s and the step change it brought about in environmental awareness and environmental legislation. Before this time, most of us were ignorant of the issues.
The message in the documentary is simplistic. It perhaps needs to be so that the maximum percentage of the audience can 'see' the issue. That is why factory output was highlighted, you can see the output from smoke stacks. You cannot see the output from most cars. It was why the images of smog were show, it is visible. Picking on the poorer farmer, won't go far. Picking on the car driver demanding that 'you' (the audience) need to change is a message that some are not ready for yet, maybe more so in a face culture. Picking on big industry is a pill that many are ready to swallow, now.

The film may not be the most comprehensive piece, but it was a hearts and mind piece. It was an emotive piece. It was designed to grab the attention of those who had not really got a grip of the situation enough to express their opinion.

The responses to this video have shown that it hit the mark. It has achieved a huge out flowing of opinion. IMHO it has been very effective/succesful.

@tigertiger, Haali
Yeah, I'm also pretty happy hundreds of millions of Chinese got a chance to see it. She had an uncut 4 hour long version, but heeded her friend's advice to shorten it. All in all, I think for a Chinese audience it's effective with the grounds up presentation style, but Westerners might find it simplistic.

What do you guys think of the UK tidbits closer to the end. Did she more or less get that right?

Yeah, more or less! London had terrible smogs in the 50s cos its was heated by coal. People lived in terraced houses with no heating other than coal fires. The power stations were in the city itself, mostly on the banks of the Thames for cooling and waste disposal purposes.
The Clean Air Act effectively banned use of smokey coal, closed the old city power stations, and replaced them with new ones outside the city. The terraced slums were mostly replaced in the 60s by tower blocks with central heating and running water.

it is great, tigertiger. good to read your comment.

here my take. The documentary is not simplicity, to the contrary, it is a piece of "sophisticated" work of investigating journalism that why the doco was censored. I am not surprised that the doco being shown for a short time and then censored. it would seem to me that the doco has the blessings from someone higher up the chain but not high enough, so its fate has been sealed on day one when it is made.

here is my observation. the doco actually drives deep into the heartland of the establishment by questioning the status quo.

1. it questions why a "environmental standard" committee was largely made up of members from the Chinese oil cartel who are, by and large, the oil executives of state enterprises bar one member from the EPA. so the standard was set so low that the end product contains far below world standard as contain more sulphuric compound......

2. it questions the car industry for making cars that are not meeting modern environmental standards, yet labelling and marketing them as if they are.....

3. the coal industry, most are state enterprises, collective employing a lot of people, is not washing coal to save money, a 160 odd yuan per ton saving, heavy pollution as a result.

4. it implicates the People's Congress for not doing its best of overseeing legislation...and allow subsidising the so called "zombie industries", like, the coal, oil, and electricity generation industries, so the more they lost, the more they get, and using their power to suppress oppositions within.

5. it questions why the EPA on various provincial level not strictly enforcing vehicles inspection.

it ..... the list is much longer than I can repeat here. it urges people to take note all of that and react so changes can happen. that, no authoritarian establishment will tolerate. finally.......

for your info, I do read and write Chinese and can speak reasonable fluent mandarin. I strongly suggest people who have not watch it, try watch the original.

The problem is not only foul air, its also polluted lakes, rivers, ground water, and soil.

The soil pollution is by some experts considered a more serious issue than the air pollution.

If something can be done to reduce air pollution, it should have a knock on effect on soil and water pollution too, right? That is from my recollection of a module I did on pollution as an undergrad.

@Haali
That correlation is probably very high. Since once you focus of cleaning up air, then all kinds of pollution and polluters get put under the spotlight.

Also, I don't think I've ever seen the UK presented in such a good light. It came off bangin. Usually, you guys are selling opium or pointing bayonets at Chinese peasants.