AIR POLLUTION - The Silent Killer!
Most of the doctors and scientists agree on the fact that you can survive without food for about 8 weeks and without water for about 3-4 days. But without air, you can’t even survive for even 10 minutes. So this is safe to say that air is something without which you, I and everyone in else in this world will die. The thing is that even though clean air is so important, we humans have somehow managed to pollute our very own air that we breathe and now air pollution is one of the most dangerous threats to mankind and in this article, we are going to discuss exactly that!
What is the problem exactly?
Air pollution is not any new fancy term. We all know what it is. I won’t go into boring scientific terms like PM2.5, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide etc. In simple terms, when unwanted particles are present in the air that we breathe, we call it air pollution. It has been termed as the slow, silent and invisible killer. Air pollution is a global issue but lately it has affected our country India the most.The Air Quality Index (AQI) which in simple terms is basically a measure of how clean the air is. The AQI of cities like Delhi, Greater Noida, Noida, Faridabad, Ghaziabad etc. is so high that even the instruments used to measure it have failed. The AQI of these cities is mostly above the 400 mark which puts these cities in the ‘severe’ risk category.
Some scary data
- According to a study done by leading experts from the University of Chicago, there is direct evidence that you may end up living a whopping 10 years less in Delhi and across large parts of North India because of the danger of air pollution. Morning walks which were once considered to be a productive way to start the day are no longer safe.
- Acceding to a 2015 study, 1 in every 6 people in the world die prematurely due to air pollution.
- 1.24 million deaths in India in 2017, which were 12.5% of the total deaths, were attributable to air pollution, including 0.67 million from ambient particulate matter pollution and 0.48 million from household air pollution. Of these deaths, 51.4% were in people younger than 70 years. This means air pollution kills more people than obesity, poverty, hunger, Naxalites and Pakistani terrorists! Some sources say that as many as 2.5 million people died due to air pollution in India in 2017 which is the highest in the world.
- 14 out of the 15 most polluted cities in the world are Indian.
Causes of Air Pollution
It is a problem which does not have one single direct cause. You can blame government policies, factories, vehicles, rural people who use solid fuels like coal for cooking, farmers who burn their crops for no reason, Diwali firecrackers, terrorists for blasting bombs etc. And if you are a politician, you can also blame opposition parties and your political rivals for it.Basically, what I want to say is that everyone is to blame. Everyone has done their part in order to pollute the air. This is one area where there are no political or religious boundaries. Everyone is working in unity to increase air pollution! Atleast there is one place where we are all united!
Government’s stand on this issue
Even though air pollution is such a serious issue, our government looks in no mood to tackle it. No political party mentioned about it in their 2019 election manifestos and our own Environment Minister, Dr. Harshvardhan doesn’t even consider air pollution to be a deadly threat. This is what he told to NDTV in a 2017 interview"Ultimately these studies have to be India centric. To attribute any death to a cause like pollution, that may be too much."In Delhi, Congress party blames BJP and AAP, BJP blames AAP and AAP blames everyone in India except themselves for the increasing air pollution. According to an RTI filed by an environment activist, the Aam Admi Party led government in Delhi collected a sum of 787 crore rupees in the name of Green Cess Fund. Out of those 787 crores, only 93 lacs were actually spent to tackle air pollution.
"Certainly if you have a diseased lung and if the pollution is continuously damaging your alveoli (air sacks) then one day when you die, you can attribute the cause of death, to some proportion, to maybe pollution. But I don't think we can generalize and say that millions of people are dying only due to pollution."
"There is a need for everyone to be aware about it, take precautions. But I would not like to use words like emergency. It is an emergency in terms of the actions that you have to take."
What are the solutions to this problem?
The solutions to such a big problem like air pollution are surprisingly simple, but not easy! It will take a lot of work, determination and persistence to solve it. As air pollution was not caused in a day, it is not going to go away in a day either. Just like people worked in unity to increase air pollution, they should also show the same unity to control it. The government should start considering air pollution and climate change as serious issues and should pass strict laws related to it. Keeping a check on vehicles & factories, and raising awareness among people are good starting steps.Also, I believe that more than the government, it is the people who should start doing something about it. Following are some simple yet effective steps that anyone can take to reduce air pollution:
- Using air purifiers at our homes.
- Using public transport.
- Using bicycles instead of cars or motorcycles for shorter distances.
- Car pooling to work, school, college etc.
- Repairing those vehicles which emit a lot of smoke.
- Reducing the use of cigarettes, hookas etc.
Uneako Air Purifier
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