In an effort to stop sand storms in Beijing, the Chinese army is planning to plant 520,000 trees in Inner Mongolia before the Beijing Olympics. I really wonder if trying to recover years of environmental degradation in just 6 months will have any effect on the environment. Most people I have spoken to in Beijing say the air has gotten better recently.

I took a trip recently to Tianjin which is just an hour away from Beijing and the pollution seemed to be much worse there.

I took this picture the other day from my apartment at about 4 pm. I am not sure if it was a sandstorm or not, but the sky suddenly turned into this dark orange color.