Story highlights This year has been one of the worst for air quality in China

Residents have termed the smog event the "air-pocalypse"

John Sutter says the country should pass a Clean Air Act

It's a matter of human rights and public health, not image

Air pollution in China has gotten so bad lately that one environmentalist's wacky idea for a solution doesn't seem all that far-fetched: putting clean air in a can.

"Free fresh air. Open it and drink it and breathe it!" the Guardian quoted the multimillionaire and national celeb as saying . "It keeps you fresh the whole day!"

Ego aside (the bright cans feature an image of Chen's face and the words " Chen Guangbiao is a good man " on them), the clever political stunt is just the sort of thing that China needs these days. Such creative and public protests should help push forward much-needed national reforms to combat air pollution in the country.

A "Clean Air Act" for China is long overdue.

And the recent " air-pocalypse ," as the suffocating air pollution that hung over several Chinese cities in January has been termed, should be more than enough proof of that.

John D. Sutter

"The air has this kind of greenish-gray pallor to it. And it smells like you're standing next to a chemical plant, really chlorine-y," said David Pettit , a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. "It's an awesomely bad smell."

He was telling me about Beijing air on a normal day.

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"I'm standing outside my office building but am unable to see its top," one Beijing resident said, according to China's state news agency, Xinhua

"The new normal in Beijing is sending your kids to school wearing gas masks," Christina Larson wrote in Bloomberg Businessweek

Fixing China's air pollution is not just about the country's image or economy, although those certainly suffer because of smog, too. It's about the right of all humans to walk outside and breathe in air that won't choke them or make them sick.

Similar deaths can and should be prevented.

And I'm optimistic they will be. For several reasons.

The first is history. It wasn't all that long ago, in 1952, that the "Great Smog" covered London in gray, sooty pollution, resulting in an estimated 4,000 premature deaths

The government reacted by passing sweeping reforms.

Now London is known for its real fog, not smog.

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Air pollution in Los Angeles was handled in a similar fashion.

After the city's car culture created a smog problem, scientists started researching protective helmets to protect people. Others wore gas masks. But, eventually the government took action to reduce the pollution. California led the way for the nation, and in 1963, the United States passed the Clean Air Act.

These changes took time. And it's unfortunate that things had to get bad before they could get better. But China, like others, is finally realizing that its air really is that bad.

Its own people are calling for the change and more vigorously than before.

Maybe that's just one man's social media feed. But there's a history of this kind of thing working in China. In 2011, Pan successfully used his online network to press Beijing authorities to report more smog data, according to the Wall Street Journal's China blog

It's clear the government has taken notice this time as well. Beijing implemented several emergency measures to curb smog. State media is talking about the pollution.

After speaking with a few experts, it seems clear what needs to be done: China has to reduce its reliance on coal, increase renewable energy, regulate the amount of smog-causing sulfur that can go into its diesel fuel and increase vehicle efficiency.

"It's not rocket science," said the Natural Resources Defense Council's Pettit.

Fixes may be expensive, but the United States has made the compelling case that the costs of enforcing clean air regulations are offset by gains in health and worker productivity. China, which does have some air quality regulations, already seems to be realizing this. The country on Wednesday announced stricter fuel standards that go into effect by the end of 2014 for diesel and 2017 for gas, according to the Financial Times . An environmental official, Wu Xiaoqing, also told state media this week that "China will formulate regulations, standards and policies to reduce air pollutants and control coal burning."

The energy industry estimates it will costs billions for China to meet tougher fuel standards. It may be up to people like artist Ai Weiwei, who posed in a photo wearing a gas mask , and Chen, the man who's peddling cans of clean air, to ensure that the public and the government see that clean air is worth the cost.

"I want to tell mayors, county chiefs and heads of big companies: Don't just chase GDP growth, don't chase the biggest profits at the expense of our children and grandchildren, and at the cost of sacrificing our ecological environment," Chen told Reuters

If Chinese leaders don't want to drink air from a can, they should listen.

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