India air pollution at 'unbearable levels' • Hacker News Board

Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'

#61

Post by tialaramex » Sun, Nov 03, 2019, 11:22 PM UTC

stan_rogers wrote: post #39

georgeburdell wrote: post #24

>Harsh Vardhan, the union minister for health and family welfare, urged people to eat carrots to protect against "night blindness" and "other pollution-related harm to health". A small part of the article, but I just wanted to point out the night vision part is a WWII disinformation campaign by the British to hide the fact that they had sophisticated RADAR: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-wwii-propagand…

Not entirely. What the British did was to take a medical truth - that vitamin A deficiency leads to night blindness, which is often the first reported symptom of vitamin A deficiency - and transform it into a plausible "night vision enhancement" story. Curing or preventing a problem is real; creating a corresponding opposite super-power, not so much.

This trick fuels the modern "supplements" industry too.

(In the UK for example) You aren't allowed to advertise "This product will make you smarter" because that's a lie.

But you are allowed to advertise "Vitamin D is essential to normal cognitive function" and "This product has all the Vitamin D you need" which are both technically true - and let the audience draw the false conclusion themselves that they'd be smarter if they used the product.

The product maker has plausible deniability, and especially if consuming the product has no major harmful effect they'll be allowed to keep this up. After all there are also advertisements for fizzy drinks, booze, and plenty of other products that are hardly a good idea, so what's the problem?

Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'

#62

Post by mycall » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 2:12 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #33

luckydata wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Introducing new technologies is difficult with the supposedly highly educated American farmers. Reality is, farmers worldwide are awfully anti-intellectual with a strong contrarian streak and rarely listen to science, even if ironically science has given them their way of life in the form of fertilizers, GMOs etc... Source: I worked for an ag-tech company and I will never EVER have anything to do again with anything…

American farmers are anti-intellectual and rarely listen to science? Citation is really needed, because that’s not what reality shows. It’s very true that farmers are risk adverse, but that’s for good reason: it takes years for “discoveries” to be vetted and people aren’t going to literally bet the farm on trendy tech until it’s proven. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/06/business/farming-technolo...

American farmers are extremely innovative, today and throughout history. Hell, they invented TV.

Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'

#63

Post by rayiner » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 3:14 AM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #47

Peckingjay wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a lot poorer overall, which certainly doesn't help. GDP(PPP) per capita for India was 7874 in 2018. Versus 41351, 44227 and 53023 for South Korea, Japan and Taiwan respectively. These countries that manage their high population density pretty well are also much smaller (Japan is around 10 times smaller than India) and it is much easier to optimize/organize on a smaller scale.

The way I think of it, India's pollution and poverty are both caused by their society not organized well. I believe South Korea was poorer than India in living memory!

When my dad was born in what was then Pakistan in 1951, South Korea was about as poor as India and Pakistan. Today, it’s as rich as France.

Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'

#64

Post by puranjay » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 3:55 AM UTC

Jedd wrote: post #42

paulsutter wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Korea and Taiwan have higher population density than India, and Japan is not far off (517/km, 652/km, 412/km, and 334/km, respectively) > 1) India as a whole is overpopulated...

> South Korea and Taiwan have higher population density than India ... This is disingenuous. Australia has an astonishingly low population density (3.1 people / square kilometre) however it has about the same volume of arable land as France and most of that land is poorer (soil, nutrient) quality, and has a lot lower rainfall and is prone to more severe weather events ... etc. Assessing or comparing population densit…

India has the highest proportion of arable land in the world. Lack of land isn't India's problem. We've long had the resources to house and feed our population, which, ironically, is the reason why we have so much population in the first place.

Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'

#65

Post by puranjay » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 3:57 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #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.

Farmers are virtually half the population and going against them is a guarantee that you'll never be elected again.

Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'

#66

Post by puranjay » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 3:59 AM UTC

inapis wrote: post #51

throwawaysea wrote: post #22

I don’t see how we can address resource consumption and pollution more broadly without population controls. We need a two child, replacement rate rule. Otherwise we will continually play whack a mole with patching symptoms and bickering politics. And yet no one wants to own up to this reality.

India is already at almost replacement population levels when you look at the data nationally.

To add to that, outside of a few states, fertility rate is well below replacement level for most states.

The problem is that these rogue states have a) very high fertility (3.3 for Bihar iirc) and b) very high base population which greatly accelerates population

Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'

#67

Post by puranjay » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 4:01 AM UTC

alienallys wrote: post #56

Diwali is an Hindu festival where Indians burn firecrackers in millions. Should stop the festival and firecracker.

While I'll be very happy if we stop bursting firecrackers (its not in the spirit of Diwali; I hate the noise; my dogs hate the noise), much of the pollution is because of crop burning. Because firecrackers alone can't explain why Moradabad and Meerut have the same pollution as Delhi

Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'

#68

Post by kamaal » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 4:47 AM UTC

fareesh wrote: post #9

Some 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. T…

>>This particular issue is limited to Delhi, however.

Not anymore. Pretty much a huge chunk of North India is in trouble now. Delhi is where the peak problem is manifesting. Our media has other pointless issues to rant on than show problems in smaller towns and cities, that doesn't mean the problem is only in Delhi.

Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'

#69

Post by kamaal » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 4:53 AM UTC

throwawaysea wrote: post #22

I don’t see how we can address resource consumption and pollution more broadly without population controls. We need a two child, replacement rate rule. Otherwise we will continually play whack a mole with patching symptoms and bickering politics. And yet no one wants to own up to this reality.

The problem is rapid unplanned urbanization. And that is because there is not enough money to develop new cities. Heck, let alone that there is not enough money to sustain existing ones.

So you end up huge masses of population concentrated in existing cities.

The areas around Bangalore are empty. Try visiting Kolar or Tumkur during weekdays, chances are you will be bored in 30 minutes of your visit and fall asleep. The afternoons feel empty and totally devoid of any activity. Bangalore itself was this way a few decades back, when I was growing up here.

The problem with the cities will continue for the obvious reasons. There is economic activity, schools, colleges, hospitals and better life prospects.

Re: India air pollution at 'unbearable levels'

#70

Post by kamaal » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 4:59 AM UTC

India as a whole is on the verge of some totally different set of changes which won't end up well on the longer run. Pollution, excessive sugar consumption, unhygienic living, sedentary lifestyles will likely destroy a lot of what my generation is living through. This could be anecdotal evidence, but I hear male fertility problems in men above age 30 very common these days.

Almost every home has people with diabetes/hypertension. And every neighborhood has thyroid camps every now and then, and you see a huge mass of women there. Dengue and other infectious disease breakouts are becoming common and you see a rise every 6 months or so. There are waiting queues running into months for open heart surgeries in affordable hospitals, which should tell you the overall direction of health situation here.

This is beyond a total political meltdown looming above the whole country.