India Gate: one day your children may be lucky enough to see itIF A fine powder combining arsenic, black carbon, formaldehyde, nickel, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide sounds unpleasant, imagine how it would be if 200 tonnes of it were dumped on your town every day. Imagine, too, that it was proved to be cancerous, with most of it coming in the shape of particles small enough to lodge in the deepest, most tender parts of your lungs. Such is the woe of India’s capital. With a count of “respirable suspended particulate matter” that is roughly double that of China’s notoriously smoggy capital, Beijing, Delhi is ranked by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as the world’s most polluted big city. Several other Indian cities are nearly as atrocious (see table).
Perhaps 25,000-50,000 of greater Delhi’s 25m people die prematurely every year because of air pollution. The number is growing:...Continue reading
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