陳韋廷譯
The Chinese capital endured another day under an air quality "red alert" on Wednesday, with schools still closed, half of all cars kept off the roads and factories shut. But in other cities across northern China, tens of millions of people went about their daily routines in toxic air that was far worse than Beijing's.
In Anyang, Henan province, the air quality index read 999 at 3 p.m., three times worse than in Beijing and at the top of the scale. Handan, in Hebei province, was not much better, at 822. And in the same province, the city of Shijiazhuang, a bit closer to Beijing, registered 460.
北京星期三仍然處於空氣品質「紅色預警」的緊急措施之下，學校還是停課、半數車輛不准上路、工廠關閉，然而在華北各地其他城市，卻有數千萬人在遠比北京更毒的空氣裡照常生活。
河南安陽下午3點的空氣品質指數是999，三倍於北京，達指數最頂級。河北省的邯鄲也好不了多少，是822，同省離北京更近一些的石家莊市，指數是460。
By United States standards, anything above 300 is "hazardous," meaning people should stay indoors.
So while Beijing officials issued their first code-red alert, cities that are even more polluted enacted milder emergency plans, or none at all. There was no wholesale shutdown of coal-burning factories. Children continued to attend schools without air purifiers.
依美國的標準，高過300即屬「危險」級，表示人們應待在家裡。
雖然北京官員首度祭出「紅色預警」，空汙更嚴重的城市卻只頒布更為溫和的緊急措施，甚或並未頒布。燃煤工廠並未全面關閉。孩子們繼續在沒有空氣淨化機的校園上課。
The patchwork policies pointed to a major shortcoming of efforts by Chinese officials to battle air pollution and protect residents from its effects.
The variety of emergency plans and rules means that many residents of northern China are living under much looser health and safety standards than their counterparts in Beijing. The red alert in the capital has led residents to take more precautions — many more people are wearing facemasks outdoors now, for example. Even members of the People's Armed Police marching in Tiananmen Square wore masks for the first time.
這些不同的政策顯現出，中國官員在對抗空汙與保護居民免受影響努力上的一大缺點。
不一致的緊急措施和法規意味，許多華北居民正生活在遠比北京寬鬆的健康與安全標準下。北京的「紅色預警」已引導居民採取更多預防措施，例如，現在在室外戴口罩的人多了不少。就連在天安門廣場行進的武警都首次戴上了口罩。
The laxer policies outside the capital also mean that the sources of pollution that afflict Beijing are not being addressed by the red alert regulations: Most of the pollution comes from coal-burning factories in Hebei, Henan and other provinces, not from Beijing itself.
Some experts said that Beijing's red alert was a watershed moment, though, and that other provinces could feel pressure to impose stricter measures during awful smog attacks — if only to lessen some of the pollutants from their factories blowing to Beijing, a showcase metropolis of more than 20 million people and home to the Communist Party leadership.
北京以外地方政策較寬鬆也意味，影響北京的汙染源未因「紅色預警」規範而受到整治，大部分空汙來自河北、河南及其他省份的燃煤工廠，而非北京本身。
有些專家說，北京的「紅色預警」仍可視為一個轉捩點，或可讓他省感受到在可怕的霧霾期間採取更嚴格措施的壓力，哪怕只是減少一些從境內工廠吹向北京的汙染物。北京是個2000萬人的櫥窗城市，亦是中共領導階層的大本營。
"Each city is still fighting its own game," said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a nongovernmental organization that promotes transparency in pollution reporting. "It's still very hard to trust what the others are talking about. We need a new level of transparency if we want to coordinate this regional pollution control."
公眾環境研究中心主任馬軍說：「每個城市仍在各自為政，仍然很難相信其他城市說的話。我們要在區域汙染控管上協調合作，就得把透明度提高到新的水平。」該中心是以促進汙染上報透明度為宗旨的非政府組織。
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