Indian Capital Declares Emergency as Toxic Smog Thickens By the Hour (reuters.com) 129
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... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I guess it sucks to be them.....
Next topic?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:to put this into better perspective (Score:5, Informative)
And little more perspective... This incident in India is similar to the 1948 Donora Smog event in Donora, PA, where steel factory air pollution and an unusual weather event created a smog that over the town that sickened thousands and killed 20 people. It was one of the key events that triggered the clean air movement in the US and eventually led to the Clean Air Act. https://www.sites.google.com/s... [google.com]
Re: to put this into better perspective (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What about China's?
Re: (Score:2)
In Beijing - similar ; in the Himalayas far lower. Unsurprisingly. On average, it's bad but slowly decreasing.
The Chinese understand perfectly well that this is damaging to people's health, and reducing their productivity while increasing health expenditure. Which is why they're investing a lot of money in technologies to reduce their air pollution. And no matter how cheaply Trump produces American coal (by killing large numbers of Trump voters), they'll never buy the stuff.
Moar clean energy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Moar clean energy (Score:5, Interesting)
China does have a large campaign to install solar energy and move to electric cars.
https://qz.com/1072643/electri... [qz.com]
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/... [wikipedia.org]
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.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
When it comes to EVs, India has brought these problems on themselves. They insist on cars sold locally being made with at least 30% locally manufactured components, a protectionist policy that has been very successful at keeping foreign-made EVs out. But local EV manufacture in India is in its infancy.
Re: (Score:2)
That just means they have to incentivize a foreign manufacturer to build a local plant and source local materials. I don't know what kind of incentives that India is willing or able to provide but I'm sure they could come up with something.. its not like they're a small powerless country.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that decent EVs aren't just made off the shelf. They're designed from the ground-up as EVs, and involve a lot of high-tech products as a significant portion of both their part counts and value. India is the last place you would look to to try to source parts for a modern EV.
Burning fields [Re:Moar clean energy] (Score:4, Informative)
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/ [indianexpress.com]
http://www.dw.com/en/burning-fields-in-punjab/av-41233497 [dw.com]
Re: (Score:2)
India definitely needs to invest more in cleaner energy
Or maybe they can start by not setting half the country on fire every winter through illegal crop burning. This happens every year around this time.
Re: (Score:2)
Seems like it'd be easy enough to declare a state of emergency and shoot a few farmers who start fires.
Re: (Score:2)
portable generators.
Re: (Score:3)
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.
Re: (Score:1)
la la la can't hear you from inside my bubble and hand-drawn worldview
Use AI to escape from smog (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
no more ridiculous than praying.
And there's an App for that.
Ob (Score:2)
They should introduce designated smogging streets.
is it warm? (Score:2)
Easy solution: bike paths (Score:1)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
“I will stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. And we won’t be using a man like Secretary Kerry that has absolutely no concept of negotiation, who’s making a horrible and laughable deal, who’s just being tapped along as they make weapons right now, and then goes into a bicycle race at 72 years old, and falls and breaks his leg. I won’t be doing that. And I promise I will never be in a bicycle race. That I can tell you.”
So it is spoken
Re: (Score:1)
Pretty sure the capital of India doesn't care what either of these two Americans think.
Did you know that China has 10 times more emissions per capita than India? It's just that a lot of people in India use cars, cabs, and motorcycles that are very polluting.
Re: (Score:2)
Easy Solution... to the Wrong Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
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 [hindustantimes.com] how, exactly?
see: "Farmers’ Unchecked Crop Burning Fuels India’s Air Pollution" [nytimes.com]
can't follow rules if you live in India (Score:4, Insightful)
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...
Re:can't follow rules if you live in India (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:can't follow rules if you live in India (Score:4, Interesting)
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
Re: (Score:2)
From they way you write, I suspect it is you who is the quack
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...shoot it. You can call me anything you want, just don't call me late to dinner!
Re: (Score:1)
Not True
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
http://m.timesofindia.com/indi... [timesofindia.com]
http://m.timesofindia.com/indi... [timesofindia.com]
569 million Indians still poop outdoors (Score:2)
I may have to go to India this year for work. While I have worked with Indian people here as well as in India for many years, I simply do not want to go. I have no desire to see dead bodies rotting in a river, or public feces. These are things that should not happen at this scale in this day and age. It's their society, but I don't understand their caste system or why they can't solve sanitation issues that cause
569 million people poop outside. [nationalgeographic.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Math?
Did they try fixing it? (Score:2)
Did they call tech support? Did they try turning it off and on again?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure why this is a troll. All I did was point out a failure in progressing counties to learn from the past.
This is not surprising. (Score:3)
Nope (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Nope:
"Capital" == money or other liquid assets, or the the most important city in a region, typically, the city that is the seat of government and its administrative center.
"Capitol" == the building that houses the legislature.
Paris accord? Why are they receiving money? (Score:1, Interesting)
Remember the proverb (Score:2)
That which does not kill you makes you stronger.
Diversity society will fail (Score:1)
Re:Karma (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Karma (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Karma (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Your sources are wrong. What I heard is that the USA is going to start mining its own solar panels. It's a new coal-based coating to make 83% efficient solar panels.
Re: (Score:1)
All jokes aside, a photovoltaic cell with perfect thermal photon upconversion still has an efficiency limit of 73%. Realistic upconversion systems are limited to the mid 40s, with the best real panels in the lab being only a couple percent below that.
But efficiency isn't a great metric. If one panel is cheap and 20-25% efficient, and another is 40% efficient but costs significantly more than twice as much, then the cheaper pannel is economically preferable. At least, until you've exhausted all available spa
Re: (Score:2)
You mean there would be fewer externalized costs.
Re: (Score:2)
The tech jobs are in Bangalore and Mumbai, not Delhi.
Anyway, tech jobs provide national wealth, which in the long run gives you the means to fix the problem of filth.
Re: (Score:3)
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.
Re:Karma (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Most corrupt is North Korea at 176th and a score of 8.
Can it still be called corruption when that's practically the definition of their political system?
Re: (Score:2)
How much of it s squandered due to poor health, early deaths, lost productivity etc?
As the saying goes... (Score:2)
And why are there no local predators?
Homo homini lupus est.
Re:Hey India (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Mississippi is at the ass end of half the country's watershed and continually has toxic chemicals in the water [vice.com]. If chemicals were the deciding factor on birth rate, Mississippi's would be among the lowest in the country.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
There's a slightly more practical reason as well. You can simply ask the question: Are children a financial benefit or a financial burden to the family?
In most first world countries, for most of its population, rearing a child is terribly expensive, with very little financial benefit for the parents in return. In parts of the world where you can benefit from the labor of your family (subsistence farming, for example), you tend to see large families.
Re: (Score:2)
Actual numbers showed, however, that giving poor people access to birth control does result in smaller family size. It turns out that-- surprise-- not all women living in rural poverty actually wanted to have a family of eight children.
This apparently came as quite a surprise to demographers.
Correct, which is why I said "as well". I'm not discounting the effects of access to birth control and better education of women (which tends to give them more life choices, and thus control over reproduction). But I don't think it's been demonstrated that finances are not also a factor (i.e. distributing birth control doesn't lead to negative birth rates, such as in many first-world countries). The reasons are likely more complex and layered, due to a number of factors working in combination.
Re: (Score:2)
So, you agree with the Islamic Extremest Terrorists then?
Re: (Score:2)
So, you agree with the Islamic Extremest Terrorists then?
When it comes to dogma, there's often not a lot of difference between Sharia-loving Islamists and Sharia-loving southern-American Christians.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
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?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know what your poorly designed public transport system that has empty buses driving around has to do with diesel.
Also have you seen Indian public transport? Not only will the buses not be empty, but there'll likely be 10 people hanging onto the roof.
Re: (Score:2)
You really don't have a clue, do you? Perhaps you got your ideas about India from some fictional movie or TV program with an idealized view of the country?
India has lots of "ride sharing": "auto-rickshaws". You may know these as "tuk-tuks". They predominantly use two-stroke engines, which spew out large quantities of particulates.
Finally,