Breathing Delhi Air Eequivalent to Smoking 44 Cigarettes A Day

[Stuart G]

Source: CNN

New Delhi (CNN) — It was early on Tuesday morning when residents in the Indian capital of Delhi first began to notice the thick white haze that had descended across the city.

Initially viewed as a mild irritant, by mid-week its debilitating effects were evident to all, as the city struggled to adapt to the new eerie, martian-like conditions brought about by the pollution.

With visibility severely reduced, trains have been canceled, planes delayed and cars have piled into each other, with multiple traffic accidents reported across the city.

The sense that this is now a city under siege has been enhanced by the unusually far-reaching actions of the Delhi government.

On Tuesday afternoon, city chiefs closed all public and private schools, requesting instead that the city's tens of thousands of school-aged children remain indoors; on Wednesday, they banned incoming trucks and halted civil construction projects; while on Thursday, they announced new plans to begin implementing a partial ban on private car use as of next week.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/10/health/delhi-pollution-equivalent-cigarettes-a-day/index.html

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Air Pollution in New Delhi and Peking is as bad as anywhere. This article is about New Delhi and how bad it is, and what the authorities are trying to do. It is a long article but it descriptive and inclusive. I hope changes can be made that improve their air.

[Cattledog]

1. I was there in the mid 90s and the air was terrible!

[Irish_Dem]

2. Clean air, food and water. Is that too much to ask? nt

[Stuart G]

4. No, not too much to ask, fortunately in the U.S. we have been working on this for many years.

Actually the clean air movement started in London in 1952 with a "killer smog" Below is a link to this event.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London

Over 4 or 5 days the smog laid in the city and was deadly. It was determined that it killed 4000 people were killed.. Few know about this, but it raised the awareness of the problem in London and the United States. Also, 100,000 people became ill as a result of the killer smog. Much was changed in London. One cause was the coal burning furnaces. They were eventually outlawed both in Great Britain and the United States.

I remember in 1954, the city passed a law that all furnaces had to be changed from coal to oil within a year or so. Where I lived, the furnace was coal fired, and we had to convert to oil. It was very expensive, but no coal shoveling or dumping of loads of coal into a storage area. Then moving the coal into a automatic coal feeder that fed it into the furnace. From time to time the furnace went out, and the fire needed to be started again. That all changed with the oil burning furnace.

After a number of years, all business and government agencies had to have either oil or natural gas for heat. Many of the public schools had coal burning furnaces and had to convert. Over years, the air gradually improved. In the 70s, laws were passed to mandate pollution devises on cars. That too improved the quality of the air in cities. All and all, conditions are much better in cities where strict laws were passed and enforced. But in India and China, conditions deteriorated due to lack of laws.

[Irish_Dem]

5. Seems like what people want is fairly simple and straightforward.

Clean food, air and water. Access to medical care and education.
Ability to support and raise a family. Housing and food.

Sometimes I just don't understand this planet.

[Codeine]

10. But people also want cars, electricity,

heated and cooled homes, and telecommunications. As our lifestyles modernized we befouled our air and water quite unreservedly, and it took killer smogs and rivers on fire to make us begin our journey toward cleaning up our environment.

Now the developing world is going through that same process. It's a normal step on the ladder of economic progress, as ugly as that sounds. The saving grace is that modern technologies will allow the transition to cleaner air and water at a much quicker pace than we experienced. You can already see it happening in China, who lead the world in electric vehicle technologies.

[Irish_Dem]

12. Yes there is cleaner technology available. I think we can be comfortable but not kill Mother Earth.

[Liberalagogo]

6. London 1952, not '54

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_1956

[Stuart G]

7. Correction made... Thanks for posting those links...I also posted the top on in the OP.

[EL34x4]

3. There'd be less pollution in India if Indians weren't...

...lighting elephants on fire.



Fuck 'em. I hope they all choke.

[SammyWinstonJack]

8. WTF?

[EL34x4]

11. Posted here the other day.

Heartbreaking.

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/10029820478

[Loyd]

9. So, I should stay away from Katz's in New York?

Stupid joke, I know. Rec for thread.