Most shocking environmental story of the week that you (or at least I) never previously gave one second’s thought to: everyone knows that, in industrially booming, madly coal-burning China, the pollution is catastrophic, especially in its cities. (Hence, last year’s “airpocalypse.”) The New York Times reported yesterday in a stunning story (well worth reading in full) that the pollution in China’s cities is essentially a walk in the park compared to the pollution in India’s New Dehli (and assumedly other Indian cities). There the figures for particulates in the air are so staggeringly unhealthy as to be almost unbelievable. This is evidently the story of the industrial “miracles” of Asia – health disasters so massive as to be stunning (and, as other reports have suggested recently, in the case of China blowing back – the most literal form of “blowback” -- on the U.S. west coast. Tom “In mid-January, air pollution in Beijing was so bad that the government issued urgent health warnings and closed four major highways, prompting the panicked buying of air filters and donning of face masks. But in New Delhi, where pea-soup smog created what was by some measurements even more dangerous air, there were few signs of alarm in the country’s boisterous news media, or on its effervescent Twittersphere. “Despite Beijing’s widespread reputation of having some of the most polluted air of any major city in the world, an examination of daily pollution figures collected from both cities suggests that New Delhi’s air is more laden with dangerous small particles of pollution, more often, than Beijing’s. Lately, a very bad air day in Beijing is about an average one in New Delhi… “Experts have long known that India’s air is among the worst in the world. A recent analysis by Yale researchers found that seven of the 10 countries with the worst air pollution exposures are in South Asia. And evidence is mounting that Indians pay a higher price for air pollution than almost anyone. A recent study showed that Indians have the world’s weakest lungs, with far less capacity than Chinese lungs. Researchers are beginning to suspect that India’s unusual mix of polluted air, poor sanitation and contaminated water may make the country among the most dangerous in the world for lungs. “India has the world’s highest death rate because of chronic respiratory diseases, and it has more deaths from asthma than any other nation, according to the World Health Organization. A recent study found that half of all visits to doctors in India are for respiratory problems, according to Sundeep Salvi, director of the Chest Research Foundation in Pune.” nytimes/2014/01/26/world/asia/beijings-air-would-be-step-up-for-smoggy-delhi.html
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 13:45:20 +0000
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