I took the kids to the park today.  The air was grey, and it reminded me of the way the air looks on a polluted air day back in Saigon.  But I thought to myself: "This can't be air pollution.  Not here in West Michigan."

But then, I got home and Googled it, and found that: West Michigan’s air quality worst in the US Saturday.

As of 3 p.m., Grand Rapids reported the worst air quality in the United States, ranking over other Midwestern cities also dealing with dust. The Air Quality Index in Grand Rapids was 397, which is enough to be hazardous.

397!  Back in Saigon, I don't let the kids out of the house if the AQI is over 100.  And here I had them playing outside when the Air Quality Index was 397!

I should have known something was wrong with the air by the way it looked.  I just never thought I would have to deal with polluted air here in West Michigan.  (One of the main reasons we moved back to the United States was because we wanted to escape the bad air quality that is in Vietnam.)

If you read the article, you can see that the bad air quality is supposedly caused by dust, and not factory pollution or anything.  Still, I don't remember bad air quality days in Michigan when I was a kid.  Is this the result of climate change?