I’m sorry, I was thinking this was some sort of weird IQ thing and was about to roll my eyes. But its actually Air Quality Index, which leaves me feeling incredibly sad.

On the plus side, air this bad tends to produce popular backlash that states can’t easily ignore. From LA to Beijing, we’ve seen huge reversals in air quality in the face of widespread public demand for breathable air. A good foundation for a next generation environmental movement is putting several million people into an industrial smoker and telling them to politics their way out.