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NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent

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Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent

#141

Post by devy »

mahranch wrote: post #16
mikeash wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone living in the US who visits China every couple of years, I would really love to see China clean up their act (the pollution has become by far my #1 dislike), but I would really hate to see the US loosen pollution regulations because of some weird idea that we shouldn't bother cleaning up our air unless everybody else does too. I love the fact that when we have air quality warnings, I can't even tell the di…

I don't think his point was that we should loosen our restrictions, but re-direct our attention on the biggest abusers. Right now that's China. And it's not even close. You would need to combine the emissions of the U.S, India and the entirety of the European Union to equal China's annual CO2 emissions. See for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... Basically, China emits as much CO…

I think it's safe to say human activities is the biggest cause of carbon emission increase in the last few hundred years.

Given that, let's get the facts straight:

- China has 1.382 billion people, India is a close second with 1.327 billion people and United States is a distant 3rd with 324 million people [1]

- Since human activities are the major factor of carbon emission increase. Let's talk a look at the emission by capita data as it's a better metric to proportionally tells the whole picture. According to 2013's data[2], US is ranked at #7 with 16.5 ton per capita. The first 6 countries are mostly middle east oil producers with the exception of Australia. That's more than 2x of China's per capita rate or almost 10x of India's.

So it's hypocritical for someone from developed countries to criticize developing countries because if China and India were emitting CO2 at the rate of United States', the total emission would have been A LOT WORSE! (I'll leave the math for you to calculate how many times worse :-)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populatio...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent

#142

Post by devy »

jdietrich wrote: post #51
mahranch wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think his point was that we should loosen our restrictions, but re-direct our attention on the biggest abusers. Right now that's China. And it's not even close. You would need to combine the emissions of the U.S, India and the entirety of the European Union to equal China's annual CO2 emissions. See for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... Basically, China emits as much CO…

Your own link shows that China's per-capita CO2 emissions are half that of the US. It is rank hypocrisy to say that a Chinese person has less right to pollute than an American.

Yup, exactly my point!

Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent

#143

Post by ethbro »

dxbydt wrote: post #120
tossaway1 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically you could draw such a straight line in any country.

This is such an interesting idea! Lots of potential. Given n (city,population, area) tuples for country C, find 2 cities, the line thru which slices C into two land masses M and N. M would then have k tuples and N would have n-k, such that the ratio of aggregate population of k tuples to the aggregate population of n-k would be 90+delta:10-delta, for delta in interval [1,9], whilst simultaneously you have the ratio o…

Given the city-local nature of most population density, I'd imagine a grow-out-from-cities + line fit model would work fairly well at lower computational complexity.

It'd be curious what different countries look like in terms of gradient decent difficulty on population density. I'd imagine most look fairly similar (densely populated regional urban areas surrounded by rural), but I imagine there are exceptions to some degree out there?

Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent

#144

Post by vkou »

mahranch wrote: post #16
mikeash wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone living in the US who visits China every couple of years, I would really love to see China clean up their act (the pollution has become by far my #1 dislike), but I would really hate to see the US loosen pollution regulations because of some weird idea that we shouldn't bother cleaning up our air unless everybody else does too. I love the fact that when we have air quality warnings, I can't even tell the di…

I don't think his point was that we should loosen our restrictions, but re-direct our attention on the biggest abusers. Right now that's China. And it's not even close. You would need to combine the emissions of the U.S, India and the entirety of the European Union to equal China's annual CO2 emissions. See for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... Basically, China emits as much CO…

China emits all of this CO2, because the US and the EU moved most of their manufacturing to it. This cooks the greenhouse gas books, but at the end of the day, the planet doesn't care.

You can't have a non-polluting China, and cheap crap at Wal-Mart.

Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent

#145

Post by nimos »

sremani wrote: post #126
stickfigure wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India doesn't have enough electricity There's something fundamentally broken about this statement, which suggests a deeper problem - why isn't the market for electricity working in India?

1. Most Indian power generation is Coal, there are hydel, and Nuclear is stuck in Gen2 (thanks to sanctions due to Nuke testing - the current Gen is 5) 2. There is scarcity of Coal, and Coal that is mined in India is high-soot 3. The demand for electricity outstrips Supply. 4. The supply never caught up with the demand because Transmission lines are owned by Government(state-level) and there is rampant theft 5. Becau…

I'm not sure there is really a scarcity of coal. Market prices are low by historical standards and India is currently looking at ways to expand coal exports because of overproduction and record stockpiles at power plants.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-05/world-s-bi...

Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent

#146

Post by kuschku »

jschwartzi wrote: post #87
HenryTheHorse wrote: post #15

That 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.

Thank god for the US EPA.

And that’s why environmental regulation – and other regulations dealing with external factors – are so important, and why treaties that try to prevent that are dangerous.

Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent

#147

Post by stillworks »

HenryTheHorse wrote: post #15

That 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.

Can't decide whether it's ironic,sad or just plain unfortunate. The WHO offices in New Delhi are on the banks of a sewage drain running foul. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/28%C2%B037'19.2%22N+77%C...

Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent

#148

Post by ptaipale »

oldmanjay wrote: post #118
ptaipale wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should the US put all that effort into cleaning up the air in China? 1) For altruistic reasons: help people who suffer. 2) For selfish reasons: block from markets industrial competitors who are gaining an advantage by applying much poorer environmental norms and therefore take market share.

For additional selfish reasons: there's only one atmosphere. ruining it anywhere ruins it everywhere i'm sort of surprised that would need to be pointed out, though

This was specifically about other pollutants than CO2. Those have local impact, so bad air in China doesn't show up in America or Europe.

Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent

#149

Post by kuschku »

visarga wrote: post #68
Daishiman wrote: post #29

Earlier 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

Actually, it has been tried.

Researchers from the GEOMAR Institute of Marine Biology have seeded the oceans in the southpolar sea with iron in large amounts.

Yes, a huge algae bloom happened – but also a huge growth of animals eating the algae, etc.

The end result was no CO2 being trapped, but fishers in South Africa had a good year.

Re: NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent

#150

Post by Retric »

dxbydt wrote: post #120
tossaway1 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically you could draw such a straight line in any country.

This is such an interesting idea! Lots of potential. Given n (city,population, area) tuples for country C, find 2 cities, the line thru which slices C into two land masses M and N. M would then have k tuples and N would have n-k, such that the ratio of aggregate population of k tuples to the aggregate population of n-k would be 90+delta:10-delta, for delta in interval [1,9], whilst simultaneously you have the ratio o…

There are not that many city's in any given country so N^2 is probably not a big deal. However, you can get approximate results by drawing a line at every angle through a country and then moving that line up and down. Then just look for city's near any good candidate lines.
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