This seems like a promising opportunity for startups to tackle...I wonder if there are any out there, would love to hear more.
NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent
81–90 of 211 posts
Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Air pollution is killed with known measures, and it goes away as soon as these are enforced. Climate change? We have literally changed the climate for the entirety of humanity's future unless we devise a system, whose energy requirements would overshadow practically anything we have ever invented and whose workings we still don't understand, and even so its impact would take decades, at the very least, to be felt.
I read once about an idea: to stimulate the growth of algae in the oceans by seeding them with iron. It would lead to an algae bloom which will die and settle on the ocean floor, trapping the carbon. Yep, found it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization
If history is any indication, fertilizer runoff from rivers causes anoxic events in the ocean. That is shit is not to be fucked with; you can trivially destabilize an ecosystem and destroy it, as has already happened in many places.
Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent
#83Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent
#84To be fair though, like in any Indian metropolitan, there is immense pressure on the infrastructure that takes solving such problems to the next level. The sheer growth in population(primarily due to immigrants from other parts of India) on a daily basis would put any government in a quandary.
Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent
#85A related story : There's a mega mall in Chandigarh, India that wasn't given approval for a power connection for quite some time (politics / corruption). Real estate is super expensive & the owners couldn't afford to sit idle and play games with the government so they decided to run the mall from morning till night on diesel generators. That's ~ $4500 of diesel each day, probably 6-8k litres. This is an example of a…
Why would anyone protest? India doesn't have enough electricity to waste on Malls and Movies theaters. Or big offices like tech parks in Bangalore! What you have mentioned applies to every tech park in Bangalore, so should people now protest against their very source of employment?
AND if the government purposely delayed an electricity connection by months or years, then you should protest against them too. The above problem doesn't seem to be an issue of supply & demand of electricity, but more of a power tussle between the builder & authorities for possible kickbacks.
Related, it seems like India is almost power surplus according to these sources : [1] [2] [3]
[1] http://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/features/we-can-tell-th...
[2] "By the end of calendar year 2015, India has become power surplus country despite lower power tariffs" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_India
Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
I look at as as Climate change being caused by air pollution (of CO2 & certain other gasses). The old fashioned air pollution is more localized, but isn't completely localized - acid rain was/is a regional air pollution issue for example. Some of the particulates generated on the other side of the world certainly do travel here on air currents, not in high amounts, but if they carry potent pollution items, it may hav…
A better way to phrase the parent's comment, which doesn't deliberately obscure the point: "Dare we suggest that particulates are more important than CO2?"
Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent
#87That satellite image of the haze is scary. Scarier still is how the deterioration of air quality in the cities is affecting health. (The WHO estimates ~15 million bronchial asthma patients in India.) You haven't experienced air pollution if you haven't breathed in the evening air in Mumbai or Bangalore during the rush hour.
Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't think so, India is typically 4 stroke because of pollution norms and 4 strokes are more fuel efficient which we're very sensitive to. Frankly, India's problem can only be fixed by population control. If Sanjay Gandhi hadn't been an idiot and forever poisoned the idea of population control, India would be much better off, especially if we can get the population to around 300M - 500M
There are still a lot of older two-stroke engines in use. Four-stroke engines from local and Chinese manufacturers are typically crude air-cooled carbureted designs with very high emissions. A modern European motorcycle might produce 20x lower emissions than a typical Indian bike thanks to much stricter regulations.
Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent
#89Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent
#90How much worse is the air pollution in New Delhi compared to a relatively polluted US city such as Los Angeles?
http://aqicn.org/map/delhi/mandir-marg/#@g/28.6188/77.2405/1...
http://aqicn.org/map/losangeles/los-angeles-north-main-stree...
Quite a lot worse, as you can see!