Indian Capital Declares Emergency as Toxic Smog Thickens By the Hour (reuters.com)
New Delhi, the Indian capital declared a pollution emergency on Thursday as toxic smog hung over the city for a third day and air quality worsened by the hour. From a report: Illegal crop burning in the farm states surrounding New Delhi, vehicle exhaust emissions in a city with limited public transport and swirling construction dust have caused the crisis, which arises every year. The problem has been compounded this year by still conditions, the weather office said. A U.S. embassy measure of tiny particulate matter PM 2.5 showed a reading of 608 at 10 a.m. when the safe limit is 25. An hour before it was 591.
And the worst part is that it didn't even smell like samosas.
Wrong logic -- if India were cleaner and safer, maybe its residents wouldn't be seeking as many opportunities abroad.
Downtown Los Angeles air quality (PM2.5) is only 54 currently. 600 is practically thick enough to stand on.
Good people go to bed earlier.
India definitely needs to invest more in cleaner energy. Population densities mean that the masses owning a combustion powered vehicle like in Europe & the US will have a greater impact. China realised this (better late than never) and are at least taking steps to clean up their cities. India needs to follow. I find it amusing that JLR (owned by an Indian company) are making their first electric car an SUV. If it were me, I'd also have been making an electric mini-car and electric motorcycle targeted at developing economies.
If it were cleaner and safer, it wouldn't be as cheap. That's why it costs a lot to do business in the U.S.
Surely there is an AI-Based app that will let them escape the Smog. AI and Apps are the answer to everything now.
Ever think of lowering your population
The path to lower birthrates is well-understood. Reducing poverty, empowering women, and delivering education (particularly to girls) - Alongside sex education and birth control - All reduce birthrates. India is working hard on that, but it's a long road.
You even see it in the USA, where the birthrate in Massachusetts is lower than the birth rate in Mississippi - For exactly those reasons.
You have no sympathy for the rapists, that's fine, but what about sympathy for their victims? Not to mention the kids, who may shit in the street, but they're still kids.
What % of the new wealth gets sucked up by the corruption?
It's not zero anywhere, but I doubt it's much higher than India anywhere on Earth.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The problem isn't smog. It's that the Indian system of government + their citizens' learned behavior in such a system makes the country ungovernable, and so it's impossible to get people to follow rules.
It's a societal problem, and note I didn't say that Indian people are the problem. Take Indian people out of India and here in the US, they follow rules.
The problem is when enough people don't follow rules in a country, the otherwise-willing rest give up and say, "why should I follow the rules?"
Sometimes, democracy isn't great, and you need a little bit of authoritarianism...
This is fake news. Trump has committed to using 100% solar energy within 5 years. This will create new jobs in the US as we build massive quantities of new solar panels.
The only downside is that his proposal is to burn the new solar panels instead of burning coal.
India definitely needs to invest more in cleaner energy.
I agree, but I will point out that the pollution in question comes from burning fields, not from energy production or transportation.
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/stubble-burning-punjab-farmers-amarinder-singh-ngt-air-pollution-4897240/
http://www.dw.com/en/burning-fields-in-punjab/av-41233497
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
No, I'm serious. Replace all parking lanes on arterials with barrier-separated bicycle and transit lanes. Destroy all vehicles other than public transit and bicycles using those lanes. Problem solved.
And that will solve the problem of pollution caused by burning agricultural waste in the fields how, exactly?
see: "Farmers’ Unchecked Crop Burning Fuels India’s Air Pollution"
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Did they call tech support? Did they try turning it off and on again?
All the empty buses in Indian would be a huge problem if such a thing actually existed. Driver salaries are not high. Taxis are everywhere.
Why are you posting on a subject you clearly know absolutely nothing about?
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
According to Transparency international's Corruption Perception Index, India is fairly corrupt.
It is at 79th place with a score of 40 (equal with China). By comparison US is 18th - score 74 (just ahead of Ireland).
The least corrupt are New Zealand & Denmark with a score of 90.
Most corrupt is North Korea at 176th and a score of 8.
New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
I recently saw a documentary about India's energy issues. It turns out that in many of the major cities, the power grid is so unstable that businesses depend upon the almost daily use of backup generators. These backup generators are, of course, fossil-fueled. Imagine several thousand diesel generators running on top of the daily traffic and it is easy to see why air pollution is a significant problem.
Surprisingly, another metric is murder and other violent crime rates. There is evidence to suggest that the elimination of lead in paint and gasoline caused or contributed to a huge drop in violent crimes in the late 70's and 80's.
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj