New Delhi’s air quality is consistently ranked among the world’s worst. But a perfect storm of problems is exacerbating the problem to potentially deadly levels. Farmers who have recently harvested crops in neighboring states are illegally burning their fields, sending smoke into the air. Construction projects and pollution from vehicles in a city that lacks adequate public transportation are making things worse.
This week, the smog was 10 times worse than reigning pollution champion Beijing, where air-quality problems have reached Olympic proportions. Some parts of New Delhi have pollution 40 times the World Health Organization-recommended safe level.
People huddled indoors with expensive air purifiers, indoor plants and closed windows.
But doctors say it won’t be enough to prevent some deaths in the city of 20 million people. Children are the most vulnerable.
The air is equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes per day or over 2 packs a day.
The air quality index – on which anything over 100 is considered unhealthy – hit the severe level of 451 – and in parts of the city some monitors even recorded levels off the scale – over 999.
On an annual average there are cities in Iran and India that are worse than Delhi.
* Global urban air pollution levels increased by 8%, despite improvements in some regions.
* In general, urban air pollution levels were lowest in high-income countries, with lower levels most prevalent in Europe, the Americas, and the Western Pacific Region. The highest urban air pollution levels were experienced in low-and middle-income countries in WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean and South-East Asia Regions, with annual mean levels often exceeding 5-10 times WHO limits, followed by low-income cities in the Western Pacific Region.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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It seems since incompetent party like BJP came into power in Centre, the things are going wrong in India.
Now they shit in the air they breathe in, too.
Make In India needs to be relaxed to improve air quality.
Give it time.trumpy will have us at that level in no time.Relax…
What a loser you are. I’m not defending president Trump and I’m deeply against all Democ-rats and liberals like you, but I’m proud for what ALL presidents, some probably against their own “principles,” have and are doing to keep America where we are at.
What are you on Gustavo A Pomar? On drugs…America IS the worst country in the world with the billions of dollars we spend on WAR and killing innocent people, this country and other countries participating in H.A.A.R.P. = this is why we have an Arctic Freeze and it’s ONLY Nov 13, 2017, we passed legisltation to force Undocumented Workers out of this country as Americans do not like working on farms and this is why BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF FOOD ROTTED IN THE GROUND, i.e., nobody to harvest the stuff and this is why the PRICES IN THE MARKET WENT UP IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED. Trump IS running his mouth on Social Media, namely Twitter which is mostly for TWITS and saying negative shit that doesn’t need to be said, the back and forth with that fat little ignorant leader [Kim Um Pig] in North Korea, The Feds printing up billions of dollars every day to finance the War Economy, jobs not being filled as there are not enough people to go around, the government deflating unemployment ratings to make us look better than we are, NEGATIVE MEDIA that is controlled by the Fed Govt/Giant Corporations, Monsanto and other GMO Corporations forcing GMOS into the food supply, people getting upset about ‘taking a knee’ during sports games, all the negative fallout with Sex Scandals in Hollywood (like I give a shit) dominating the media, Big Pharma suppressing Natural Cures and instead shoving statin and dangerous drugs on the American Public that are killing people at alarming rates with no cures for anything except making TRILLIONS IN PROFITS off of Pain & Suffering & DEATH, etc. Trump can only do so much as he is controlled by The Shadow Government (he’s a puppet), etc. etc. Do I need to say anymore. Welcome to America…another 3rd World Nation…
“reigning pollution champion Beijing, where air-quality problems have reached Olympic proportions.”
Nonsense. Beijing has never made it into the Top Ten Most Polluted Cities, ever.
A perfect natural leader for Lunar Solar Power dot org. An active Space program, a national need big enuf to provide initial customer base. Customers spread out in villages without centralized system have the greatest need and Space Solar Power has a huge “grid” to balance and meet load without transmission lines.
Motivation for improvement, right?
Point sources seem like a problem.
Not surprising that rising middle income nations have the worst pollution. In economics pollution is known to follow a J curve with national GDP, deteriorating at first due to industrialization, then improving as enough wealth is generated to fix the problems.