BEIJING, China – A month to go and do you want to know how bad the pollution is in Beijing? Check out today’s photo from my living room. There’s another photo of what it looks like on a clear day (which was Sunday, our one good day after weeks of smog and haze).

View from my living room shows what Beijing looks like on a clear day and then after the smog.

But I have absolute faith the air will be fine by the time athletes arrive. In less than two weeks half the cars will be taken off the road - odd licence numbers one day, even the next - hundreds of factories will be closed, and half a million tourists will arrive and think all the news reports about pollution have been greatly exaggerated. Trust me we’re not mad, the air is terrible. I have a four-year-old daughter with a regular cough which seems to clear up whenever we leave. I wonder what the other billion or so Chinese people do who can’t get out for oxygen breaks.

There are serious questions being asked about the lasting environmental legacy.

But Beijing will dazzle the world with amazing venues, beautiful gardens, and a population eager to please. It even seems security guards and police may have gone to smile school.

They smile a lot these days when they politely say no. No is a word reporters hear a lot in this country, especially when it comes to Tibet - as in no way on the planet are you going to be allowed to go there, despite press freedom being the one solid promise the Chinese made to the IOC (apart from the bricks and mortar of sporting venues).

One month to go, and after seven years of construction and controversy, billions and billions of U.S. dollars, Beijing is ready and for the most part, they’ve done all of this on their terms.

As far as a sporting spectacular goes, it’s right on the money… It’s just hard to breathe easy about anything else.