Complacency has turned a pollution problem into a high-cost public health crisis. The Indian public, so easily distracted by issues of identity politics like temple-building and rewriting history, should be demanding something far more fundamental: the ability to breathe.
NEW DELHI – A friend of mine, a diplomat returning home after less than three years’ service in India, was asked at his exit medical examination how many packs a day he smoked. When he protested that he was a staunch non-smoker, the doctor commented that X-rays of his lungs showed otherwise. But my friend had never lit up. All he had done was breathe Delhi’s air, three smoggy winters in a row.
It really is that bad. When November comes, India – and particularly its capital city – begins to choke on a thick blanket of smog that chokes lungs, corrodes throats, and impairs visibility.
It’s not just Delhi’s notorious diesel fumes from car and truck exhausts. There are also industrial factories spewing smoke, charcoal braziers on the sidewalks keeping pavement dwellers warm, coal stoves used by roadside chaiwallahs (tea-sellers), and even the agricultural stubble burned by farmers in the nearby states of Punjab and Haryana. All of these air pollutants sweep into the capital city, with vehicular emissions adding to the dust that Mother Nature has already bestowed on Delhi in abundance.
Delhi had just three “clean air days” in the whole of 2017. But the worst air quality is in winter, when polluted air meets winter fog and is trapped, giving Delhi a grayish opacity that reduces visibility, delays flights, and reduces the city’s traffic to an even more polluting crawl.
The consequences are alarming. The number of premature deaths due to air pollution is rising. Poor air quality is now costing India at least 1% of GDP every year in respiratory diseases, reduced productivity, and increased hospitalization, and may be reducing Indians’ lifespans by three years.
According to the “State of Global Air” report published by the Health Effects Institute, the absolute number of ozone-related deaths in India rose by a staggering 150% from 1990 to 2015. The economic implications of deteriorating air quality are equally ominous as well. A 2013 World Bank study estimated that welfare costs and lost labor income due to air pollution amounted to nearly 8.5% of India’s GDP. Labor losses (in terms of number of man days, for example) due to air pollution totaled more than $55 billion in 2013, and premature deaths are estimated to have cost the country an estimated $505 billion, or roughly 7.6% of GDP.
NEW DELHI – A friend of mine, a diplomat returning home after less than three years’ service in India, was asked at his exit medical examination how many packs a day he smoked. When he protested that he was a staunch non-smoker, the doctor commented that X-rays of his lungs showed otherwise. But my friend had never lit up. All he had done was breathe Delhi’s air, three smoggy winters in a row.
It really is that bad. When November comes, India – and particularly its capital city – begins to choke on a thick blanket of smog that chokes lungs, corrodes throats, and impairs visibility.
It’s not just Delhi’s notorious diesel fumes from car and truck exhausts. There are also industrial factories spewing smoke, charcoal braziers on the sidewalks keeping pavement dwellers warm, coal stoves used by roadside chaiwallahs (tea-sellers), and even the agricultural stubble burned by farmers in the nearby states of Punjab and Haryana. All of these air pollutants sweep into the capital city, with vehicular emissions adding to the dust that Mother Nature has already bestowed on Delhi in abundance.
Delhi had just three “clean air days” in the whole of 2017. But the worst air quality is in winter, when polluted air meets winter fog and is trapped, giving Delhi a grayish opacity that reduces visibility, delays flights, and reduces the city’s traffic to an even more polluting crawl.
The consequences are alarming. The number of premature deaths due to air pollution is rising. Poor air quality is now costing India at least 1% of GDP every year in respiratory diseases, reduced productivity, and increased hospitalization, and may be reducing Indians’ lifespans by three years.
According to the “State of Global Air” report published by the Health Effects Institute, the absolute number of ozone-related deaths in India rose by a staggering 150% from 1990 to 2015. The economic implications of deteriorating air quality are equally ominous as well. A 2013 World Bank study estimated that welfare costs and lost labor income due to air pollution amounted to nearly 8.5% of India’s GDP. Labor losses (in terms of number of man days, for example) due to air pollution totaled more than $55 billion in 2013, and premature deaths are estimated to have cost the country an estimated $505 billion, or roughly 7.6% of GDP.