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India's New Delhi Now Most Polluted City on Earth, Air Quality Well Beyond 'Hazardous' Level (cnn.com)
New Delhi residents are suffocating only to find little to no relief. The city, as well as much of Northern India, home of over 400 million people, is blanketed by a thick layer of smog. The air quality has severely depreciated, hitting alarming 1,000 AQI PM2.5 level -- over 15 times of the safe limit. The air quality index hasn't gone down 400 reading, which is considered hazardous. From a report on CNN: Measurements taken at the US Embassy in Delhi put the city's Air Quality Index at 999 on Monday, off the standard chart, which finishes at the "hazardous" level of 500. By comparison, the highest AQI level recorded Monday in Baoding -- China's most polluted city -- was 298. Beijing was a pleasant 30, while India's next most polluted city, coal and industry-heavy Chandrapur, recorded levels of 824, according to the World Air Quality Index. Research released earlier this year found that air quality levels exceed World Health Organizations guidelines for 80% of those living in urban areas around the world.Though Delhi has been one of the most polluted cities for decades, burning of tens of millions of crop stubbles in the recent months and the Hindu festival of Diwali (which sees many people set off fireworks) have been held responsible for the severe air quality.
Outsourcing is mainly to South India. In the context of the Subcontinent, that's a world away from Delhi. Indeed, you'll find that living standards in the south are higher, and pollution rather less.
This story has nothing to do with greenhouse gas emissions. It is about particulate pollution: more specifically, PM2.5: that is, particles suspended in the air with diameter of 2.5 micrometres or less.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The crackers thing is BS. Delhi has the pollution that it does due to both the number of cars/buses/trucks/... as well as the factories. The crackers are 1, maybe 2 days in a year, which would do squat in terms of pollution. Not to mention that in India, a lot of people have been moving away from fireworks under the pretext of being more eco-friendly.
And, in fact, the actual story says that the problem is not Diwali fireworks:
"images published by NASA suggest that burning of crops in the neighboring states of Punjab and Haryana could be the biggest reason why the air quality in the world’s most polluted city refuses to clear."
With a link to a NYT article discussing it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11...
and to interesting satellite images on the NASA website
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Most of India is still pretty empty (at least emptier than Europe)
Yet the population density of Europe is 112 per square km, versus 404 per square km for India.