Air Pollution and its travesties are not new to the mankind. But to make life ‘easier’ and provide ‘essentials’ various environmental norms are broken every year and 2016 was no different. Alarming levels of Air Pollution across various major cities in the world was witnessed this year. Be it Mexico City, London, New Delhi, Beijing or ironically Paris, pollution level across these mega cities were higher than ever before.
Many cities in India namely – Gwalior, Varanasi and Allahabad –all in northern plains of India did not even have a single day with clear air condition. And not only these cities, precisely 41 cities with more than a million population did not get good air day on more than 60% of the days monitored.
It seems like Africa, the entire continent is bearing a major brunt of the Air Pollution. More than 700,000 deaths in the entire continent were reported due to poor air conditions. To give you a sadistic comparison, almost 550,000 deaths in Africa is caused due to unsafe water, 400,000 deaths are caused due to unsafe sanitation and 275,000 deaths are reported due to malnutrition.
In Europe, more than 467,000 premature deaths happen mainly because more than 85% of the urban population is exposed to harmful fine PM 2.5. But it’s not bad news everywhere as China which happens to be one of the major contributors to the global air pollution did manage to curb the pollution levels in 74 of its cities.
Creative ways to tackle Air Pollution
2016 sparked a lot of creative ideas to battle Air Pollution. In London, pigeon equipped with pollution sensors were used to track pollution over the city. These ‘smart’ pigeons had a twitter account which would tweet as soon as there in any bad air quality.
Amsterdam had other ways to tackle air pollution; with bird cages installed over various places of the city that display pollution levels. These bird cages were also used as a treewifi that would emit WiFi signals.
Health Risks of Air Pollution
It was in 2016 when the report popped up wherein it suggested that when human lungs are exposed to prolonged poor air, then this is equal to being passively smoking six cigarettes. Such bad and dense smog has resulted in car accidents more than ever.
The World Bank estimates that the global economic cost of air pollution-related deaths will be $225 billion in lost labor income; and this report came out in 2013. More than $5 trillion is lost in welfare losses. OECD predicted that global air pollution-related healthcare cost will increase from $21 billion in 2015 to $176 billion in 2060.
Renaissance in the offing?
With the pledge of removing all diesel vehicles from street of the major cities of the world, this has to be the first and probably one of the most effective ways to deal with Air Pollution. In Asia, a city certification program is being piloted to encourage cities to make advances in air quality management.
All in all, 2016 showed us that the Air that we breathe in is one of the most important and probably one of the most over looked natural resource. The emphasis cannot be more on the fact that we need to buck up ourselves and pull up all our major resources to clean up our natural resources, especially Air.
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