Delhi Trudges Through Another Air Pollution Nightmare With No Answers (nytimes.com)
- Reference: 0175509347
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/20/1743201/delhi-trudges-through-another-air-pollution-nightmare-with-no-answers
- Source link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/world/asia/india-delhi-air-pollution.html
> On Tuesday morning, the air quality in India's capital under a widely used index stood at 485. While that is almost five times the threshold for healthy breathing, it felt like a relief: The day before, [1]the reading had shot up to 1,785 . Infinitesimal air particles were still clogging lungs and arteries, but it was possible to see sunlight again, and to smell things.
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> [...] Every year this suffocating smog accompanies the drop in temperatures as the plains of north India shed their unbearable heat for wintertime cool. And like clockwork, political leaders roll out emergency measures intended to quit making the problem worse. Yet India seems powerless to reduce the effects of this public health catastrophe, as its politicians stay busy trading blame and trying to outmaneuver one another in legal battles.
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> The haze was so shocking this week that Delhi's chief minister, Atishi, who goes by one name, declared it a "medical emergency" endangering the lives of children and older people. The Supreme Court, whose members also live in the capital, chided the national government for responding too slowly and ordered special measures: halting construction work and blocking some vehicles from the roads. Schools were closed indefinitely to protect students.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/world/asia/india-delhi-air-pollution.html
It's amazing (Score:2)
The sky is literally blocked out with pollution, it is impossible to breathe normally, and they're still really only taking last minute knee-jerk action with very short term partial effects.
Re:It's amazing (Score:4, Funny)
> The sky is literally blocked out with pollution, it is impossible to breathe normally, and they're still really only taking last minute knee-jerk action with very short term partial effects.
So...did anyone call the support number about this?
Re: It's amazing (Score:3)
Yes but they just got a redneck who kept calling himself Rajesh.
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I tried, but I just received a recorded message that the office was closed because of an air pollution emergency.
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Yeah funny.
I'm contracting (remote work) with an Indian outfit and today their QHSE dept. send out a mail advising all on ways to survive the pollution.
They expect over the next weeks it could become worse...
Refuse to learn (Score:2)
India refuses to learn the lesson of other countries and continues to burn fossil fuels. At this point, wind and solar are cheaper than coal. Roll out those solutions rather than stubbornly insist on old solutions such as coal which are worse for everyone, including yourselves.
Re:Refuse to learn (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is not just fossil fuels. Most of the pollution is coming from burning fields to clear crop residue. This practice is already against the law but apparently authorities are turning a blind eye. Perhaps they would be smarter to assist farmers in getting the tools they need to deal with residue without burning. Here in North America, burning crop residue generally requires permitting and is not usually done anymore on a large scale. Residue is dealt with in other ways, such as baling it for animal bedding or chopping it more finely and incorporating it into the soil. Burning crop residue is literally burning nutrients that will have to be purchased later in the form of fertilizers. There are options but no doubt Indian farmers don't have the resources, equipment, and knowledge to do it. Indian government has to step up and help them make this change. Food production is in everyone's interest in every country.
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You are absolutely right, the government needs to step it up.
[1]https://indianexpress.com/arti... [indianexpress.com]
"[Hay baler] machines have been around for a decade, and currently around 2,000 of them operate in Punjab. Of these 1,268 are highly subsidised (50-80%) under the Centre’s Crop Residue Management (CRM) scheme."
This is where government regulation, subsidies and enforcement are necessary. It's not like nobody knows the answers, they're just not implementing them until it becomes too big of a problem to ignore.
[1] https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-economics/baler-a-machine-for-off-site-management-of-farm-stubble-9022266/
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Burning fields is just obviously stupid. But alternatives require having more money, even if that money is for education (plow the old stuff under and rotate the crops). India is still fundamentally a third world developing country, with vast amounts of the country stuck where Europe was in the industrial revolution.
What worked when the population was smaller becomes a massive unworkable solution when the population has grown exponentially. Even greenhouse gases would not be a big problem if we only had
Field Burning for Weed Control (Score:2)
I think field burning is often done not just to get rid of stubble but to kill the weeds and weed seeds. So the solution is not just tilling but herbicides. Those cost money. The wealthy people complaining about pollution are in the cities and the poor folks burning fields are in the country. So it may be that field burning really is the major source of the problem or it may be that the farmer's are convenient scapegoats.
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I'm not sure that is the case if you have no standards for mining, no standards for smokestack emissions and no standards for ash disposal.
You can make coal quite cheap if you push all the costs onto someone else.
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That still looks like a whole group of lessons that other countries learned for how to deal with these problems that India refuses to learn.
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Its not so much refuses to learn as there needs to be enough infrastructure in place to support alternatives.. And while there is, its not accessible/affordable to the masses yet.. which means most fall back on old polluting methods with the mindset of the future being some "far off" location that doesn't matter when you are hungry/cold NOW!.
Until now, most countries (despite what many want to claim), have left it up to "the market".. and that works when there are cost effective alternatives.. but when your
I guess they will find cleaner air (Score:2)
in lunar orbit [1]https://science.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org]
[1] https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/11/19/0052216/india-plans-to-build-a-moon-orbiting-space-station-by-2040
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There's plenty of knowledge in India (and Pakistan) to solve this problem, the issue is politicians don't step up to the plate.
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> Would a kind of X prize for solving the problem have potential? For those who are too young to know, the X prize for affordable space launches kick started exponential growth in launch technology.
Turns out it didn't. The X-prize did result in developent of the [1]Space Ship One [space.com], a winged rocket vehicle launched by a carrier aircraft capable of carrying two people to an altitude above the Von Karmen line, 100 km. Space Ship One in turn led to Virgin Galactic's space tourism rocket, a venture that is still going, although it hasn't made a profit yet.
But that approach to launch wasn't what kick started exponential growth in rocket technology; turned out that was when one of the several "new space" compa
[1] https://www.space.com/16769-spaceshipone-first-private-spacecraft.html
Air should be the least concern (Score:2, Offtopic)
The biggest problem in India is the insane lack of basic hygiene practices -- that's leading to a high morbidity and chronic illness issue there. I don't believe the lack of hygiene is genetic, could be cultural acclimation -- which is far worse. If it was genetic, it's fixable using CRISPR technology. But the problem with cultural issues is that it can't be fixed, as the brain rejects any sort of criticism of it no matter how much statistics and evidence you present. Note it's not related to finance as the
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*measurably unhygienic
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Ok, I just found a way to curb my appetite and help my diet. I have NO DESIRE to eat anything after watching just one of these disgusting videos.
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Big Pharma doesn't want you to see those videos so you will continue to buy Ozempic/Wegovy.
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Or, you know, India just has the standard problems that come with the combination of being poor and densely populated. Don't let that slow down you insane looking all caps speak and YouTube anecdotes though. The same anecdotal videos that could have been filmed in almost any third world country.
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Near me, in Florida, is a food establishment selling "Indian Street Food".
I can't think of anything less appetizing!
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You're also describing Europeans from a couple centuries ago. Heck, you're describing the proposed Defense Secretary nominee who claimed he didn't wash his hands for a decade. It's no more racist than describing Europeans as slovenly barbarians who smell their own farts, and not just in the IT departments.
Stop burning stuff then (Score:2)
Climate change isn't just a temperature rise, it's filling the atmosphere with chemical garbage. Coal power, fossil fuel vehicles, crypto mining, wooden stoves, anything that burns turns into smog.
Re:Stop burning stuff then (Score:4, Informative)
This particular problem is not climate change, it is old-fashoned pollution. [1]https://www.bbc.com/news/artic... [bbc.com]
A significant source is burning fields to clear stubble in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, but other [2]sources of airborne particulates [indiatimes.com] contribute, too.
Your top line, however, is correct: ultimately: stop burning stuff, then.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0k8dxpr8x5o
[2] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/etimes/trending/delhi-air-pollution-7-biggest-causes-of-air-pollution-and-effective-preventive-measures/articleshow/115264093.cms
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So "old-fashion pollution" doesnt cause global warming? Burning crops only effects air quality?
I don't think you understand the issue of global warming like you seem to think you do.
Re:Stop burning stuff then (Score:5, Insightful)
> So "old-fashion pollution" doesnt cause global warming?
This is particulate pollution. Particulates can be either warming or cooling, depending on the scattering albedo, but low level particulate pollution like this doesn't really have a significant climate impact, no.
> Burning crops only effects air quality?
The article we're discussing is about air quality.
In addition to the particulates being discussed here, which causes the local pollution discussed here, burning fields releases carbon dioxide which of course does have greenhouse effect identical to any other carbon dioxide released. But that's not what is being discussed. It's also so tiny a portion of the carbon dioxide emitted worldwide (about 0.00001%) that you could not detect the greenhouse effect. If you want to complain about India's contribution to the greenhouse effect, complaing about their coal-fired power plants, the emissions from which dwarf the seasonal burning.
> I don't think you understand the issue of global warming like you seem to think you do.
And I don't think you understand the issue of global warming at all.
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India and their neighbor China get most of their electrical energy from coal. Could that be the culprit?
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> This is particulate pollution. Particulates can be either warming or cooling, depending on the scattering albedo, but low level particulate pollution like this doesn't really have a significant climate impact, no.
I see you need to be stepped through this.
Okay so now where is this particulate pollution coming from? What are the chief sources?
> In addition to the particulates being discussed here, which causes the local pollution discussed here, burning fields releases carbon dioxide which of course does have greenhouse effect identical to any other carbon dioxide released. But that's not what is being discussed
It is what both yourself and the person you were responding to were in fact discussing though. Your entire response to them was telling them what they brought up had nothing to do with global warming so yes it was in fact exactly what you were discussing.
> If you want to complain about India's contribution to the greenhouse effect, complaing about their coal-fired power plants, the emissions from which dwarf the seasonal burning.
You mean one of their chief sources of particulate pollution? But according to you "old-fashioned pollution" doesnt cause globa
Re: (Score:3)
You are clearly mixing up a couple of facts.
Sure, a coal plant will contribute to smog but this is a smog particular to the season and the power plants are there the whole year.
What every year is special in this season is the burning of stubble, it is added to the already existing pollution resulting in grave smog.
Global warming is a global phenomena mainly caused by CO2 and methane, not local smog.
Politicians worth their keep would stop the burning of stubble and clean up the coal plants.
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> Sure, a coal plant will contribute to smog but this is a smog particular to the season and the power plants are there the whole year.
Their air quality is shit year round, it's just particularly bad this time of year.
[1]https://www.iqair.com/us/india... [iqair.com]
"For a city to be in the unhealthy bracket as a year-round average, it is an indicator that there are significant health hazards from the air quality."
> Global warming is a global phenomena mainly caused by CO2 and methane, not local smog.
> Politicians worth their keep would stop the burning of stubble and clean up the coal plants.
I thought this was clearly spelled out in my last post but I'll speak more plainly here. The things that cause local smog are the same things that contribute to global warming.
[1] https://www.iqair.com/us/india/delhi
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And yet the conversation in this thread has always been about climate change. Try to keep up.
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Perhaps we could fill the atmosphere with smart nanoparticles with programmable clumpiness/affinity to create cool-/hot-spots as needed.
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But politicians claim that global warming is a hoax. All those billionaires can't all be wrong can they?
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The real problem climate deniers are the folks who think we can fix the problem without inconveniencing them. They can add an electric car to the road and air condition their huge house with a heat pump and the problem will be solved. Oh, and buy carbon offsets when they fly off on vacation because that will magically eliminate the emissions from the plane. Of course a lot of the folks who deny climate change is happening at all are really just opposed to having to do anything about it. But they are less d
Re: (Score:2)
> Stop burning stuff then
This must be incorrect as TFS -title states there are NO answers.
Re: Stop burning stuff then (Score:2)
Well, it is India: Breeding like rabbits, castes, reincarnation, shitting everywhere. Getting them to use tractors and plows to till stubble into the ground instead of burning fields, will be nigh impossible.