Smog Chokes Delhi, Leaving Residents ‘Cowering by Our Air Purifiers’

[kebob]

Source: New York Times

By ELLEN BARRYNOV. 7, 2016

NEW DELHI — For days, many in Delhi have been living as if under siege, trying to keep the dirty air away from their children and older parents.

But it is not easy: Open a window or a door, and the haze enters the room within seconds. Outside, the sky is white, the sun a white circle so pale that you can barely make it out. The smog is acrid, eye-stinging and throat-burning, and so thick that it is being blamed for a 70-vehicle pileup north of the city.

If in past years, Delhi’s roughly 20 million residents shrugged off wintertime pollution as fog, over the last week they viewed it as a crisis. Schools have been ordered closed for three days — an unprecedented measure, but not a reassuring one, since experts say the concentration of pollutants inside Indian homes is typically not much lower than outside.

Levels of the most dangerous particles, called PM 2.5, reached 700 micrograms per cubic meter on Monday, and over the weekend they soared in some places to 1,000, or more than 16 times the limit India’s government considers safe. The damage from sustained exposure to such high concentrations of PM 2.5 is equivalent to smoking more than two packs of cigarettes a day, experts say.





Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/world/asia/india-delhi-smog.html?_r=0

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Nah, we don't need to GOTV tomorrow!

[MADem]

2. That happened in London many years ago--thousands died.

People forget about it, but it killed more people than 911. It also resulted in some of the first air pollution legislation in the world, AND it served as a signature issue that enabled a feeble and ailing Churchill to hang on to power for a bit longer. He went to the hospital and made a strong statement about the situation that rallied the people to his side when his own party wanted him to stand aside owing to his age.

The Great Smog of 1952, sometimes called The Big Smoke[1] was a severe air-pollution event that affected London, United Kingdom in December 1952. A period of cold weather, combined with an anticyclone and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants—mostly arising from the use of coal—to form a thick layer of smog over the city. It lasted from Friday 5 December to Tuesday 9 December 1952, and then dispersed quickly when the weather changed.

Although it caused major disruption due to the effect on visibility, and even penetrated indoor areas, it was not thought to be a significant event while it was underway, with London having experienced many smog events in the past- so-called "pea soupers". Government medical reports in the following weeks estimated that up until 8 December 4,000 people had died prematurely and 100,000 more were made ill because of the smog's effects on the human respiratory tract. More recent research suggests that the total number of fatalities was considerably greater, at about 12,000.[2]


London had been experiencing poor air quality since the 1200s,[3] which worsened in the 1600s,[4][5] but the Great Smog is known to be the worst air-pollution event in the history of the United Kingdom,[6] and the most significant in terms of its effect on environmental research, government regulation, and public awareness of the relationship between air quality and health.[2][4] It led to several changes in practices and regulations, including the Clean Air Act 1956.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog

This happened in USA before the Big Smog in London, in PA and ST Louis.

[Warpy]

3. Now it's Beijing, New Delhi, and Mexico City

The latter has cleaned up its air considerably by preventing people with jalopies from driving on alternate days. China is especially bad because nearly everybody uses compressed coal dust for cooking and heating and it is insanely filthy stuff. New Delhi is always bad this time of year as farmers burn off the stubble left over from the harvest and prepare to plant.

I remember what the air was like and what it smelled like when most people used coal for central heating. No matter how bad the smog gets in LA, it's not nearly as bad as most places were in the 40s and 50s when coal was really king.

[angrychair]

4. Don't choke...VOTE

This is the United States. This is the United States on Donald Trump.

[lonestarnot]

5. Fucking A

[yuiyoshida]

8. Wow and I thought Beijing was bad....