Whenever I come across these kinds of stories, about air pollution in major European or Asian cities, only one movie comes to my mind: Lorax.
As water is becoming a very precious commodity around the world, & companies like Nestle, are making billions from selling bottled water, there soon will be a time when clean oxygen tanks will be selling like bottled water.
First, food became unaffordable for millions around the world. Meat & meat-derived products are a luxury for millions of people who live below the poverty line (which in itself is very low). Even fruits, vegetables, & grains are becoming unaffordable now.
Next up was water. Well, be it US or Pakistan, Nigeria or Uganda, Sao Paulo (Brazil) or Peru, water is becoming the next gold or oil ... except, water is needed to live, unlike oil or gold. Bottled water is a billion-, or perhaps, trillion-$$$ business around the world.
After that, clean air is the next up to be bought & sold. Oxygen is even more precious than water or food. A human can live for days without food & a couple of days without water. Muslims fast in Ramadan around the world, during which, they don't eat or drink at all, during the day. But nobody can survive for a few minutes without oxygen.
Rich people will always find a way to survive, either by buying clean air or apparatus to clean the air in their homes & offices or moving to places with cleaner air. But what about the billions of poor around the world? They let go of their desires to have meat on their dinner tables. They are letting go of their desires to have clean water & hence, suffering terribly from drinking dirty & polluted water. But how will they let go of breathing clean air?
I am foreseeing a very bad future for the billions of poor, dying on the streets by the scores, because the rich have polluted the air. Poor didn't do anything to deserve such a painful life & death, but they will be the ones who will suffer the most.
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Saharan dust, traffic fumes & smog from Europe may be clogging up London's air at present ... but in the world's most polluted city London's air would be considered unusually refreshing. That city is Delhi, the Indian capital, where air quality reports now make essential reading for anxious residents.
In London last week, the most dangerous particles - PM 2.5 - hit a high of 57 - that's nearly 6 times recommended limits.
Here in Delhi, we can only dream of such clean air.
Our reading for these minute, carcinogenic particles, which penetrate the lungs, entering straight into the blood stream - is a staggering 215 - 21 times recommended limits. And that's better than it's been all winter.
Until a few weeks ago, PM 2.5 levels rarely dipped below 300, which some here have described as an "air-pocalypse".
Like the rest of the world, those of us in Delhi believed for years that Beijing was the world's most polluted city.
But last May, the World Health Organization announced that our own air is nearly twice as toxic.
The result, we're told, is permanent lung damage, & 1.3 million deaths annually. That makes air pollution, after heart disease, India's second biggest killer.
And yet, it's only in the past 2 months as India's newspapers & television stations have begun to report the situation in detail that we've been gripped, like many others, with a sense of acute panic.
At first, we simply shut all our doors & windows & sealed up numerous gaps. No more seductively cool Delhi breezes could be allowed in.
We began checking the air quality index obsessively.
Then, we rushed out to buy pollution masks, riding around in our car looking like highway robbers. But our three-year-old wouldn't allow one anywhere near her face.
Despite our alarm, many Delhi-ites reacted with disdain. "It's just dust from the desert," some insisted. "Nothing a little homeopathy can't solve," others said.
But we weren't convinced.
When we heard that certain potted plants improve indoor air quality, we rushed to the nursery to snap up areca palms, & a rather ugly, spiky plant with the unappealing moniker, mother-in-law's tongue.
But on arrival, the bemused proprietor informed us that the American embassy had already purchased every last one.
In any case, we calculated that to make a difference, we needed a minimum of 50 plants.
..., we borrowed an air pollution probe from a friend to work out what progress, if any, we'd made.
Switching it on, our PM 2.5 levels registered an off-the-charts 44,000.
My husband scratched his head, consulting the manual.
"This says 3,000 is hazardous."
"It must be broken," I said.
But it wasn't, so we had to call in the experts.
One afternoon, a young man turned up with a small, free-standing air filter, specially modified for Delhi's dust. He pressed a button, which activated something called a "plasma cluster".
After 20 minutes, the numbers on our air monitor began to drop... precipitously.
My husband & I watched, ... as the readings went down from 44,000, to 20,000, then 11,000. Eventually, the probe settled around the 1,000 mark.
That's still worryingly high by global standards... & that's only the air inside our home. There's nothing we can do about the air outside.
The government has announced that it will install more air quality monitors in Delhi & that it will ban diesel-belching vehicles more than a decade old.
But that's a drop in the ocean compared to India's pro-growth economic policies, which still rely heavily on subsidised, dirty diesel.
The trouble is on many days, you can't see the pollution.
Right now outside my window is an intensely blue sky filled with flocks of lime green parakeets and frangipani trees just beginning to unfurl their waxy, fragrant blossoms & I find myself wondering if it isn't perfectly OK to take my kids out to play football.
But in the past few months, at least a dozen families we know have moved away, either to cleaner towns & cities, or outside of India.
And although I'm still lulled by the reassurances of long-time residents - "Don't worry - it's nothing," they chide - I am beginning to wonder if it isn't time to think about moving too.
Compared to Delhi right now, London & even Beijing are looking like pretty good options.
As water is becoming a very precious commodity around the world, & companies like Nestle, are making billions from selling bottled water, there soon will be a time when clean oxygen tanks will be selling like bottled water.
First, food became unaffordable for millions around the world. Meat & meat-derived products are a luxury for millions of people who live below the poverty line (which in itself is very low). Even fruits, vegetables, & grains are becoming unaffordable now.
Next up was water. Well, be it US or Pakistan, Nigeria or Uganda, Sao Paulo (Brazil) or Peru, water is becoming the next gold or oil ... except, water is needed to live, unlike oil or gold. Bottled water is a billion-, or perhaps, trillion-$$$ business around the world.
After that, clean air is the next up to be bought & sold. Oxygen is even more precious than water or food. A human can live for days without food & a couple of days without water. Muslims fast in Ramadan around the world, during which, they don't eat or drink at all, during the day. But nobody can survive for a few minutes without oxygen.
Rich people will always find a way to survive, either by buying clean air or apparatus to clean the air in their homes & offices or moving to places with cleaner air. But what about the billions of poor around the world? They let go of their desires to have meat on their dinner tables. They are letting go of their desires to have clean water & hence, suffering terribly from drinking dirty & polluted water. But how will they let go of breathing clean air?
I am foreseeing a very bad future for the billions of poor, dying on the streets by the scores, because the rich have polluted the air. Poor didn't do anything to deserve such a painful life & death, but they will be the ones who will suffer the most.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saharan dust, traffic fumes & smog from Europe may be clogging up London's air at present ... but in the world's most polluted city London's air would be considered unusually refreshing. That city is Delhi, the Indian capital, where air quality reports now make essential reading for anxious residents.
In London last week, the most dangerous particles - PM 2.5 - hit a high of 57 - that's nearly 6 times recommended limits.
Here in Delhi, we can only dream of such clean air.
Our reading for these minute, carcinogenic particles, which penetrate the lungs, entering straight into the blood stream - is a staggering 215 - 21 times recommended limits. And that's better than it's been all winter.
Until a few weeks ago, PM 2.5 levels rarely dipped below 300, which some here have described as an "air-pocalypse".
Like the rest of the world, those of us in Delhi believed for years that Beijing was the world's most polluted city.
But last May, the World Health Organization announced that our own air is nearly twice as toxic.
The result, we're told, is permanent lung damage, & 1.3 million deaths annually. That makes air pollution, after heart disease, India's second biggest killer.
And yet, it's only in the past 2 months as India's newspapers & television stations have begun to report the situation in detail that we've been gripped, like many others, with a sense of acute panic.
At first, we simply shut all our doors & windows & sealed up numerous gaps. No more seductively cool Delhi breezes could be allowed in.
We began checking the air quality index obsessively.
Then, we rushed out to buy pollution masks, riding around in our car looking like highway robbers. But our three-year-old wouldn't allow one anywhere near her face.
Despite our alarm, many Delhi-ites reacted with disdain. "It's just dust from the desert," some insisted. "Nothing a little homeopathy can't solve," others said.
But we weren't convinced.
When we heard that certain potted plants improve indoor air quality, we rushed to the nursery to snap up areca palms, & a rather ugly, spiky plant with the unappealing moniker, mother-in-law's tongue.
But on arrival, the bemused proprietor informed us that the American embassy had already purchased every last one.
In any case, we calculated that to make a difference, we needed a minimum of 50 plants.
..., we borrowed an air pollution probe from a friend to work out what progress, if any, we'd made.
Switching it on, our PM 2.5 levels registered an off-the-charts 44,000.
My husband scratched his head, consulting the manual.
"This says 3,000 is hazardous."
"It must be broken," I said.
But it wasn't, so we had to call in the experts.
One afternoon, a young man turned up with a small, free-standing air filter, specially modified for Delhi's dust. He pressed a button, which activated something called a "plasma cluster".
After 20 minutes, the numbers on our air monitor began to drop... precipitously.
My husband & I watched, ... as the readings went down from 44,000, to 20,000, then 11,000. Eventually, the probe settled around the 1,000 mark.
That's still worryingly high by global standards... & that's only the air inside our home. There's nothing we can do about the air outside.
The government has announced that it will install more air quality monitors in Delhi & that it will ban diesel-belching vehicles more than a decade old.
But that's a drop in the ocean compared to India's pro-growth economic policies, which still rely heavily on subsidised, dirty diesel.
The trouble is on many days, you can't see the pollution.
Right now outside my window is an intensely blue sky filled with flocks of lime green parakeets and frangipani trees just beginning to unfurl their waxy, fragrant blossoms & I find myself wondering if it isn't perfectly OK to take my kids out to play football.
But in the past few months, at least a dozen families we know have moved away, either to cleaner towns & cities, or outside of India.
And although I'm still lulled by the reassurances of long-time residents - "Don't worry - it's nothing," they chide - I am beginning to wonder if it isn't time to think about moving too.
Compared to Delhi right now, London & even Beijing are looking like pretty good options.
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