I have visited smoggy cities in the US but in recent years as environmentalists are being heard more and more and the environment has become part of a growing concern for everyone at home and even politician's campaign alike, there have been laws made to govern emissions and pollution.
While here in the US it isn't perfect, our government is set up in such a way that those concerns get noticed and the laws that have been made and in the process of being made should help reduce our impact on the environment as a country.
The sad part is, China has MANY more people than we do and a government that is not sympathetic to its people or the world they live in. My husband's family is from Hong Kong and have told me stories of their visits over there and the mindset people are in. China just now is being a little progressive in its government and they are seeing a huge boom in their economy. I think, in part, some of that is due to their lax requirements on pollution (if they even have any heh I'm not sure they do but admittedly I haven't researched that bit yet)
What I have been reading about are things China is doing to make its capital suitable for the olympics. When you keep in mind the strange things imported from china that have been lethal and nearly deadly in other cases (pet food, halloween candy etc) and combine that with their new rules its a little crazy. For example they are restricting how often you can drive your car to work in Beijing in hopes of clearing up some of that smog ( I think the traffic light was off to the side of the picture like some of the ones you see in cities, not the hanging kind we have here in FL)
I have also read, and granted I don't know the veracity of it that the government is trying to clean up stray animals in the city and is intimidating its people with propaganda about their cats being dirty and having disease and they have collection crews that go and pick up strays and the cats people give up if they buy into what their government says. They then take these animals to sit and die in cages with no food or water.
Here's a little bit about that (it has some pictures that are a tad graphic but are mostly depressing so be warned)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li...ews.html?in_article_id=528694&in_page_id=1811
There was also recently an article (it was on yahoo filed through AP but the link is broken right now
) about an area in china that put down 50,000 dogs for some government campaign in China.
I do feel the US is guilty of hurting the environment, but I think China goes above and beyond, not so much intentionally but because of the nature of its government and its culture. They have different concerns than we do, and a different quality of life but as a side effect are slaughtering the environment and natures creatures with it
