Who will clean the air?

Back recently from my third trip, loved it but I swear the pollution gets worse every time. This time was no joke as my 11 yr old got a severe asthma attack (parents beware, take all your asthma meds, my son had not had an attack prior to this for 6 years!).
My concern is really for the locals - how can their health hold out when in parts (eg Kolkata) you can just about chew the air?

Back in 1998, Delhi was quickly becoming a nightmare of a city. Led by an NGO and with the intervention of the Supreme court a number of bold measures were taken that had a profound effect in checking vehicular poullution in the city. Based on this, I see three main ways in which city pollution is going to be checked:

• Cleaner fuels. Delhi has not worsened in the last few years as much as other metros thanks to the implementation of CNG fuels for govt busses, taxis and autos. Delhi has the largest fleet of CNG busses in the world. Euro 2 is already in implementation for new cars, and Euro 3 is going to be introduced soon. As other cities switch to cleaner fuels, the situation will drasticaly improve.

• Phasing out of old vehicles. Another reason Delhi checked rising pollution is because it banned vehicles over 15 years and older. Rising pollution will be checked with time as older vehicles phase out and newer vehicles following stricter norms become more common.

• Environment friendly mass transit systems such as the Metro in Delhi will reduce dependence on car. Work on Metro is going on in full swing in Delhi and is even being planned for other cities [Bangalore is next]. The govt is also considering Monorail as another alternative in Delhi. An active local govt and Commonwealth games to be held in the city in 2010 are driving Delhi's growth.

I too was stunned by my first visit to Delhi in a decade last year-Stunned at how much less pollution there is!
And yet, it is said that the current oil price spike has, as one of its primary causes, the fact that India and China are buying all the oil they can find to service their massive demand.
Something's gotta give!

Yes, I have to agree that Delhi was much better. Compared to the air in Agra and Kolkata it was really a big improvement. I hope something similar can be done in other centres. It was sad to see photos we brought back even from rural Madhya Pradesh, where you can hardly even see the horizon.I don't mean sad for us tourists but for Indians who breathe it every day of their lives.

The Girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes.

Phasing out those nasty 2 stroke autos! Next the bus system & the ancient lorries..

What is really messing things up and not even mentioned here is the burning of garbage, and not least of all, of foilage. And of course from burning wood in the villages. Often the smell of smoke is the first thing one notices when landing at an airport in India.

Kolkata air is bad because of the zillions of coal-stoves fired there several times a day. I have experienced absolutely suffocating hours each evening, when I stayed there in the 80ies. I think it has changed a little due to changing cooking facilities. But I am still astonished often to see that traditional Bengalis keep to such habits as using coal for their cooking, in places like Pondicherry, where coal isn't even the main fuel used for cooking.

So, habits die hard. I think it will take far too long for every household to change to greener habits. It is the minds and the hearts of people which have to change first, to effect a real change in the environment. People in India often don't seem to have that ability to look beyond their noses, at all. Which paints a really grim picture for the future of their country.

Do you know any bengali household in Kolkata and suburbs(lower middle class and up) which still uses coal fired cooking?

Almost everyone uses LPG nowadays and it has been so starting from the late eighties.

I have no idea about habits of bengalis in pondichary.

Coal fired "unon"s are extremely difficult to operate. Its impossible to have them in apartments.

Its not very easy to get LPG connections. Most people in the slums donot have enough documentation to get an LPG connection. But even there some do have it. Most of them use kerosine stoves. Coal ovens(or rather coal mixed with gul and ghute) is rare nowadys even in slums. The shops selling coal and gul have almost disppeared. 20 yrs earlier there would be such a shop in every locality.

Most young women(rich or poor) wouldnt even know how to start a coal fired stove.

So I donot know what you are talking about.

I do not know what is up with Kerosene here now. It used to be common, but now I hear it is hard to get. This means that those who cannot get LPG must cook with wood. The earthenware stoves for this are easily available, so I guess that quite a few people must be using them. I knew one family that did this, but now they have gas.

Garbage burning is a menace. Huge dumps can be located in suburbs, and I'm sure their pollution spreads far further than it can be smelt. Much of what is burnt is plastic: very poisonous.

A year or so ago, I was in despair due to the burning of that rubbish on our streets rather than taking it away. For once in my life, I have to say, "Thank you Mr Politician!" for, indeed, such an one has improved the situation in our local area.

Sometimes, though, people choose to burn their own rubbish. What to do?

If you do not know what i am talking about why are you writing about it? Why did you not read my text closely? I was talking about what was in the 80ies. Were you alive then? I said facilities may have changed, and I guessed they would have in the city. I don'0t know about villagers though.

By and large, you are side-tracking the whole topic. Are you a Bengali hurt in your pride by what I wrote? Come on, look around you how you Indians treat the world around you.

I see a time coming when every citizen of this world will be held responsible for each little contribution to the devastation of the environment.

You know why Indians love Switzerland so much? It's not just the landscape, but it is the cleanliness, the fact, for instance that no burning at all of any garden-stuff is allowed.

India is covered by a layer of smoke. Industrial pollution certainly plays a major role, but it is the household pollution which contributes a lot of it. Most Indians live in villages. That's a pointer. It is the financially better off, a minority in india, who use less polluting fuels, but the majority of villagers are poor.

This is what you wrote. I assume you were talking about the coal burning habit? Or some other bad habit?

You were talking about the city. I responded about the city .

Okay, nayan, so I was off with those remarks about the use of coal in Kolkatan households as of today. I am not a frequent visitor there anymore, or rather, that's what I am now, just visiting for a few days like Î do in any city in India (I am a country boy, also in India ) And today the air is a lot less dirty in Kolkata than it was decades ago.

But one thing is still accurate to my knowledge: Whenever I smell "fresh" coal-smoke (it has a particular smell that you easily recognize if you have lived at places where the stoves were fired on evenings), I conclude, ahh there is a Bengali lady cooking for her family. Occasionally, I also smell it in Delhi. In Pondy there are lots of Bengalis due to the Aurobindo Ashram, although it is now mainly in the hands of Oriyans.

So no more coal-stoves in Kolkata, eh? One would have to walk thru the suburbs to locate that smell at the proper times.

What I meant with hard dying habits, was that people burn things, trash, piles of leaves, anything. Very appalling, when I see shopkeepers who should know better, burn plastic bottles. Not to speak of whole tyres that smoulder for many hours, mostly used to give warmth to a few people around them in the winter.

India is no good for pollution and Indians can't see beyond their noses.

Better to go to Japan and get killed by nuclear radiation from ill conceived machinery. Or to Iraq to be smartbombed with nuclear depleted warheads. Or to parts of Europe and smell Chernobyl. Or even to Washington DC and be mugged to death. Or to Africa to be killed by dumping of extreme pollutants thanks to European companies like Traifigura.

At least those forms of death don't smell. Barring one or two, but wtf. Those are third world countries. We can still be sanctimonious.

So, in answer to the OPs question and to the tone of a poster or two,

Nobody. But who will stop the hypocrisy? It may be nice to pretend that Indians are unique in not caring about the environment, but that notion is hogwash. People from the West who start these conversations should realise that the only advantage they have- thanks to their colonial histories, largely, but also deals with devils and the endemic corruption in their systems (too)-is the ability to sometimes shit far away from their own doorsteps, is all. But shit is still shit, even if it doesn't smell.

This is what we need to learn!
On a serious note,that was well put cap'n

Less people/polluting, more trees, parks, biospheres. The average tree can absorb 10 pounds of air pollutants & 48 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and release enough oxygen back into the environment to support two people.

A step in the right direction ......






http://www.greenleapdelhi.org.in/