It is about people who smoke without actually smoking. Yep, without lighting up a cigarette, people smoke about two packs every single day. Adults, children. Everybody.
On Tuesday, levels of the most dangerous air particles, called PM 2.5, reached more than 700 micrograms per cubic meter in parts of the city, according to data from the United States Embassy. Experts say that prolonged exposure to such high concentrations of PM 2.5 is equivalent to smoking more than two packs of cigarettes a day.
The smog in Delhi is so intense that breathing that air throughout the day is the equivalent of smoking more than two packs of cigarettes!
While in many contexts I metaphorically write about puking, kids and adults are literally throwing up because of this atrocious conditions:
Manish Sisodia, the deputy chief minister of Delhi State, said he was driving to a meeting Wednesday morning when he passed a school bus and saw two children throwing up out of the window. “That was shocking for me,” he said. “I immediately told my officers to pass the order to close all the schools.”
Schools closed for a week. But, what are the kids going to do? Their homes don't filter out all the crap. Further, they will end up playing outside.
The situation prompted the state’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, to say on Twitter: “Delhi has become a gas chamber. Every year this happens during this part of year."
A gas chamber!
Pollution kills. It kills way more than the notorious tobacco industry can ever kill. “Pollution has not received nearly as much attention as climate
change, or Aids or malaria – it is the most underrated health problem in
the world."
Pollution kills at least nine million people and costs trillions of dollars every year, according to the most comprehensive global analysis to date, which warns the crisis “threatens the continuing survival of human societies”.People, especially those in India, need to ask themselves whether such a "development" of a country is worth all the physical and emotional toll.
...
The vast majority of the pollution deaths occur in poorer nations and in some, such as India, Chad and Madagascar, pollution causes a quarter of all deaths. The international researchers said this burden is a hugely expensive drag on developing economies.
2 comments:
The situation in Delhi is more nuanced. I was there last weekend. Nobody is puking because of pollution. The effect is long term and that's the problem. Because the effect is not immediate, everybody continues to pollute merrily. In varying degrees, the problem is in every Indian city. Delhi simply gets the publicity because its the capital. The worst polluted cities are all in UP.
There are multiple problems that need to be tackled
- First is the crop residue burning practice in Punjab & Haryana. This is the current cause of the problem. It has been legally banned. Nobody is able to implement it on the ground with farmers
- Second is vehicular pollution - both the number of vehicles as well as the very poor emission standards. The first one is difficult to solve (despite the superb public transport in Delhi Metro). The second is an implementation issue which is always the bane in India
- Third is the construction industry. I don't even think there are any laws governing pollution there and in any case the industry is so corrupt and outside the law. Construction dust is a third big cause of the pollution
- Fourth is industry, especially small scale in and around Delhi which happily pollutes, despite laws. Again a failure of implementation
And the biggest issue of all - nobody gets votes for tackling pollution. If you take any steps , you'll get defeated in the elections because of the inconvenience such steps cause. Delhi experimented with odd/even vehicles rules. Big outcry. The AAP government in Delhi, despite its clownish behaviour, has at least tried some things to tackle pollution. For its efforts it will be soundly thrashed in the next elections.
"nobody gets votes for tackling pollution"
Which means that voters prefer the deadly pollution ... which means that plenty of political leaders prefer the deadly pollution ... which means that there is plenty of support for such a model for "development" :(
Even here in Oregon, farmers used to burn the fields after the harvest season, despite people complaining about it. (This was well before I got to Oregon.) And then one year this caused such a thick smoke that clouded visibility, and resulted in a mult-vehicle pile up on the freeway. A few people died too.
Or, take the case of the Cuyahoga river in Ohio that was seemingly on fire back in the late 1960s. These visuals stunned the population and politicians were forced to respond.
My point is this: If even now Indian politicians do not take steps to respond to the pollution (air, water, land, ...) crisis across India, then ...
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