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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.
Somewhat related, a fascinating set of images from a Chinese tourist trip to India.
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
I used to marvel at the brown smog that hung over Californian cities like the SF Bay and LA. You can only really see it from afar. Then I landed in New Delhi....
New Delhi is so bad you can't see down the length of a short street for the brown fog that seems to permanently hang over the place.
I got a bit of a sore throat too.
Would I go back to New Delhi?
In a heart beat. Lovely people, the Indians, food was superb and I had a few good nights out there.
The best thing about New Delhi is that it's an hour or two in a coach bus to Agra and the Taj Mahal as well as many other beautiful historical buildings.
I'd sooner spend a long weekend in New Delhi than the SF Bay or LA (you won't run into any DJT supporters in ND either)
A few years ago when people talked about air pollution, they talked about China. The AQI in Chinese cities was routinely over 400, and before the 2008 Olympics, they shut down hundreds of factories and banned half the cars from the road in an attempt to make the air temporarily cleaner. But now Chinese air seems to be much better - Beijing's AQI is said to be just 30 in this article (though it must vary substantially by day, like it does everywhere).
It seems China has passed the stage of building polluting heavy industry, and reached the stage where there is enough of a middle class to demand tolerable air. It seems India is just now reaching the first stage.
India has now hit replacement level 2.1 children per woman. Most of India is still pretty empty (at least emptier than Europe). The problem is in the megacities. Most of the jobs are being produced in only 3 cities Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore and over 1 million people migrate from smaller towns to these cities every year so its a continuous fight for infrastructure to catch up.
What needs to be done is build more newer cities and job opportunities in them (cheaper outsourcing anyone?) so the infrastructure in the bigger cities gets a chance to catch up.
BTW your quip on populating the less populated parts of the world like USA is unjustified. The Indian govt has been blasting the population control message for 2 generations now and the educated people who migrate to USA have 1 or 2 kids at most. On the other hand I have seen many white Christian or white Jewish families in the US with 3,4,5 even 6 children and these are people with Computer Engineering degrees not farmers. So if its a cultural or religious thing Hindus from India is not where you should be looking.
**Life is too short to be serious**