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.
