There was a time, as China began opening to the world in the early 1980s, when the sign of success was for a family to have a bicycle and electric light. The streets of Beijing, the country's capital, teemed with cyclists. Few cars filled the wide avenues. Hazy days meant winter winds had blown desert sands into the skies over the capital. Today, those same streets are jammed with the new sign of China's upwardly mobile middle class: automobiles. Beijing has 20 million residents, five million cars, and a huge pollution problem. And the thick soup that obscures the sun is man-made. Janis Mackey Frayer looks at the thick blanket of smog created by China’s rapidly-expanding industrial economy, and its impact on the land.

An excellent program that shows the effects of industry on the surrounding land and its people. Can be used in science, social studies, geography and business classes.