The documentary starts with the narrator, Chai Jing, explaining how originally, she nor anyone else really paid attention to the air pollution issue in China back in January 2013, despite going on four business trips to the provinces of Shaanxi, Henan, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang. It was not until Chai became pregnant that she started to take notice of the smog she was living in, not only because of her being concerned for her new child, but also because her daughter had to undergo surgery immediately after being born, due to the presence of a benign tumor. The child luckily survived the process, and from then on, Chai decided to tackle this subject. The narrator does an excellent job of capturing the audience’s attention with this initial story, which allowed the listeners to relate on a personal level with Chai and thus take the issue very seriously. She furthers this by equating the pollution situation in China to living under a sealed dome.

Chai then goes on to take about the scientific background of the smog issue, which she does a phenomenal job of explaining, using the evidence she gathered on her various trips to several experts. She explains the term of PM2.5, which refers to airborne particulate matter that have a diameter less than 2.5 micrometers, thus rendering it essentially invisible to the human eye, but still dense enough to carry 15 types of harmful carcinogens; the results are clearly seen when utilizing a sampling device filter.

Using an informative video, Chai demonstrates the effects of these PM2.5 pollution particles on the human body. First, they enter the body through the nostrils. While most fragments are blocked or killed in this process, because PM2.5 particles are so small, they are able to slip right past. This applies to the upper respiratory tract in the throat as well. They keep sliding down until they reach their final point in the lungs. Because of the PM2.5 particles, there has been an increase in the number of lung cancer cases in China. Unfortunately, the issue of pollution did not gain much attention at the start; Chai attributes this to the media, which initially published the “smog” as merely just “fog” in as early as 2004.

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