ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

2013 Northeastern China smog

Alright kiddo, imagine you're looking outside your window and everything looks hazy, almost like there's a fog outside. But this isn't any ordinary fog, it's actually smog.

In 2013, China (which is a country far, far away from where we live) was having a big problem with smog in a region called northeastern China. This smog was caused by a bunch of different things, like factories, power plants, and cars that were all releasing pollution into the air.

This pollution mixed with the cold winter air, and instead of dissipating like on a normal day, it got trapped in the atmosphere, making it really thick and hard to breathe. It was so thick that sometimes people couldn't even see more than a few feet in front of them. That's kind of like if you had a really thick fog that made it hard to see while you were outside playing.

This smog was really bad for people's health. It made it harder to breathe, which made people feel sick, and it could cause long-term health problems too. So the Chinese government had to take measures to try and stop the pollution from getting worse, like closing factories and getting people to drive less.

It's important for people to take care of the environment, so we don't have big smog problems like the 2013 northeastern China smog happening in other parts of the world in the future.