India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'
1–10 of 81 posts
Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'
#2I have a ready solution to all their problems. They should simply do what we did in Kazakhstan a couple of years ago: raise the maximum permissible exposure levels by an order of magnitude and declare all of the previously extremely polluted areas as safe. I am not sure it made the air look any different, or had any effect on my chronic bronchitis, but at least the air pollution indicators look nice: they are now permanently in the "green zone".
Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'
#3Tangent:
Does anyone know if/how the human impact of planting trees is measured?
What I mean is, what metrics determine the "quality" of a tree plant? I assume this can vary greatly based on location and type of tree planted.
I often see impact quantified by CO2 removed from the environment, but what about the impact on people nearby?
Would it be better to plant 100 trees in the center of New Delhi, where the air is toxic and the population is sky high, or 10,000 trees in rural USA where the air may already be very clean?
On topic:
This is incredibly serious as pollution has serious effects not just on health, but on intelligence and behavior. It's a vicious cycle and India needs to break out of it. The environment minister's comments in the article are unbelievable.
Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'
#4I have a ready solution to all their problems. They should simply do what we did in Kazakhstan a couple of years ago: raise the maximum permissible exposure levels by an order of magnitude and declare all of the previously extremely polluted areas as safe. I am not sure it made the air look any different, or had any effect on my chronic bronchitis, but at least the air pollution indicators look nice: they are now per…
Same tricks used by governments when reporting inflation!
Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'
#5Tangent: Does anyone know if/how the human impact of planting trees is measured? What I mean is, what metrics determine the "quality" of a tree plant? I assume this can vary greatly based on location and type of tree planted. I often see impact quantified by CO2 removed from the environment, but what about the impact on people nearby? Would it be better to plant 100 trees in the center of New Delhi, where the air is…
There are many trees around New Delhi, they don’t do much in terms of air pollution. https://www.greenpeace.org/india/en/story/454/are-the-green-...
At best they spread pollution over a wider area thus reducing the concentration.
Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'
#6> A major factor behind the high pollution levels at this time of year is farmers in neighbouring states burning crop stubble to clear their fields
What is the obstacle to fining these farmers? (Most agricultural systems have moved past burning stubble.)
Do the farmers form a blocking bloc? Or are there other factors at play.
Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'
#7> A major factor behind the high pollution levels at this time of year is farmers in neighbouring states burning crop stubble to clear their fields What is the obstacle to fining these farmers? (Most agricultural systems have moved past burning stubble.) Do the farmers form a blocking bloc? Or are there other factors at play.
Systematic corruption?
Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'
#8I found this great NASA imaging tool. You can see that all of Punjab is on fire
https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#z:6;c:77.5,28.8;d:...
Further reading on crop stubble burning: https://www.news18.com/news/immersive/crop-burning-punjab-po...
I realized this in 2015 when I was looking at the sky and got the small/taste of something burning (and then I must have done some research). It has taken several years for everyone to 'get' it because winter pollution is confounded by other issues (low wind/rain, Diwali firecrackers, etc.) and people stop paying this much attention to the issue after these couple weeks of Armageddon--until the next year, when it happens again.
To this day the issue is obfuscated -- the media is talking about "Delhi pollution" which enables rival politicians to make it sound like a local governance issue when actually all of North India is under a cloud of smoke.
Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'
#9Some specific points that may be lost in the headline / cursory reading of the article:
1) India as a whole is overpopulated and has a pollution problem. This particular issue is limited to Delhi, however.
2) From the perspective of the magnitude and extreme levels of pollution, this is a seasonal issue whose primary contributor, by a large margin, is farmers burning off their crop stubble after their harvest ends. This has been happening every year for some time (more on this below).
3) Political ideologues have hijacked this issue to push their pet issues like automobile emissions and firecrackers. These are obviously important issues which most reasonable people will agree ought to be curbed. Sadly a lot of otherwise intelligent folks have a blind spot when it comes to these issues, so there is a temptation to let it slide when these kinds of politics are being played dishonestly, even though their motivations are different. By emphasizing one's biased issues, the root cause is ignored, which helps nobody.
On stubble burning:
There was a time when sowing paddy in the neighbouring state of Punjab began during the first week of June. Harvest season would be mid October, and sowing would resume in late November.
During the period between October and November, farmers would let the stubble decompose over time. This required a lot of water and time.
Unfortunately this took a toll on groundwater levels. Government intervention led to a reduction in water supplies to the fields during the summer (June), when there was a shortage of water across the state. This led to a delay in the sowing season (moved to July). The entire crop cycle got moved up, and so the time previously available to allow decomposition of stubble had reduced to barely a few days. Their solution to this problem was to burn all the stubble.
Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'
#10> A major factor behind the high pollution levels at this time of year is farmers in neighbouring states burning crop stubble to clear their fields What is the obstacle to fining these farmers? (Most agricultural systems have moved past burning stubble.) Do the farmers form a blocking bloc? Or are there other factors at play.
No Indian government will openly fine farmers (they secretly fine for not maintaining the minimum balance in the bank accounts of state owned banks) -- with majority of population coming under the name "farmers" (including Amitabh Bachchan.