We can talk about this all day without moving anywhere. Remember tanks in 1989 Tiananmen Square? From primary school people are brainwashed with CCP-is-holy thing. Many understand what is going on, but the attitude is "survival comes first". There are still plenty are too well brainwashed to know why life in China could be so hard.
Yes, people can dream, but communism has its tradition, brutal tradition. People become realistic, you know, pay the bill and feed their children.
People could see the smog for sure, but official forecast would report nothing unusual or indicating the hazard to people's lives. It was till Americans embassy spoke it out that the majority realised we breathe highly polluted air.
As a Chinese I would prefer to believe our government is behind this. Do you know Beijing (or even the whole country) has a serious smog issue which was first uncovered by American embassy in Beijing? The incident makes the government lose their trust in public, and for quite some time people only want to trust forecast from NOAA in stead of Beijing. If Chinese government hacked NOAA, it would be out of their intention to contain domestic reactions. Actually, our government has greater problems at home than abroad.
As a Chinese HN reader, I have to say something. It is not surprising at all that all these happen in China. Food is poisonous, air is unbreathable, rivers are smelly. All this attributes to one single fact, this government only wants to loot from the country. The people have never had the right to made a single vote to select a president for the country. If people do not show "necessary obedience", they would have to face police or tanks.
It is even a total waste of time for me to write this comment here because I am writing about things that would never change unless the country is overthrown.