Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
China does have a large campaign to install solar energy and move to electric cars.
https://qz.com/1072643/electri...
Recently, India’s road transport minister Nitin Gadkari quite bluntly made the government’s intentions clear. “We should move towards alternative fuelI am going to do this, whether you like it or not,” Gadkari told India’s automobile lobby group, SIAM, on Sept. 07. “And I am not going to ask you. I will bulldoze it.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Solar power in India is a fast developing industry. As of September, 2017 the country's solar grid had a cumulative capacity of 14.77 GW.[1] India quadrupled its solar-generation capacity from 2,650 MW on 26 May 2014 to 12,289 MW on 31 March 2017. The country added 3.01 GW of solar capacity in 2015-2016 and 5.525 GW in 2016-2017, the highest of any year, with the average current price of solar electricity dropping to 18% below the average price of its coal-fired counterpart.
India's initiative of 100 GW of solar energy by 2022 is an ambitious target, since the world's installed solar-power capacity in 2017 is expected to be 303 GW.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
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.
Sometimes, democracy isn't great, and you need a little bit of authoritarianism...
As a person who has been to India many times, I agree with most everything you say--but would like to comment that I don't agree democracy isn the problem, people will vote for good politicians and laws.
As you said, it's a society that turns their eyes on those who don't follow those laws that is the problem.
It's like a child that is well behaved for their friends' parents, but at home with their own parents they are disobedient... they have learned that they can get away with nearly anything and so they do, and the parents at some point become ineffective at discipline.
I believe America has the same issue in some places where there are strict laws on the books but are selectively enforced--when that happens you have a system that become corrupt because now the ones who should be enforcing the law become de facto prosecution and judgement.
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.
A great example of laws that are ignored in North America are bylaws/city ordinances. Every city has unbelievable piles of these, to the point that I can't find anyone on my street without a violation.
Since the laws are written to make things feel good/look good, they are consistently ignored except by quacks who want to start a feud with neighbours by calling the city and having the laws enforced against a particular person. For an example in my city, the books say you can't park on the street for longer than 3 hours ANYWHERE.
Of course, in residential areas, people have friends over and they will park on the street for the day. This bothers nobody as the streets are plenty wide enough for it.
If you own a home in a city, go ahead and look at the codes. I guarantee if you look hard enough you will find one you're violating. Perhaps your fence is an inch too tall, your car parked with a wheel slightly on the grass, maybe you left your bike beside the fence despite property setbacks? Or that $599 tiny shed you got from Home Depot actually needed a permit. Is your driveway wide enough or long enough? Do you have a planter on the corner to stop people cutting through your lawn? Did you make even the slightest sound outside at any time? Let your kids sleep in a tent in the backyard one night? Hung a clothesline to your house? And so on...
I know those stupid rules well because I have a quack neighbour who likes to call the city. Fun fact: You can make your home a total eyesore and pass the cities rules if you read them well enough (turns out I can put swingsets and other children's playtoys all over my front yard, only took one night to move them from the backyard, more convenient to make sure nobody gets hurt to boot!). I should know, that was my passive aggressive way of getting that neighbour to quit calling the city. :P
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