Death in the air: on tackling
air pollution
It is time clean air is made a front-line political issue
As an environmental scourge
that killed an estimated 1.24 million people in India in 2017, air
pollution should be among the highest policy priorities. But the Centre and
State governments have tended to treat it as a chronic
malaise that
defies a solution. The deadly results of official apathy are outlined in the Global Burden
of Disease 2017 report on the impact of air pollution on deaths, disease
burden, and life expectancy across the states of India, published by The
Lancet. Millions of people are forced to lead morbid lives or face premature death due to
bad air quality. India’s national standard for ambient fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, is notoriously lax at 40 micrograms per cubic
metre, but even so, 77% of the population was exposed to higher levels on
average. No State met the annual average exposure norm for PM2.5 of 10
micrograms per cubic metre set by the World Health Organisation. If the country
paid greater attention to ambient air quality and household air pollution, the
researchers say, people living in the worst-affected States of Uttar Pradesh,
Bihar, Rajasthan and Jharkhand could add more than 1.7 years to their life
expectancy. Similar gains would accrue nationwide, but it is regions with low
social development, reflected partly in reliance on solid fuels for cooking, and
those with ambient air pollution caused by stubble-burning, construction dust and unbridled motorisation such as Delhi that
would benefit the most.
Sustainable solutions must be found for
stubble-burning and the use of solid fuels in households, the two major sources
of pollution, and State governments must be made accountable for this. The Centre should work
with Punjab and Haryana to ensure that the machinery already distributed to
farmers and cooperatives to handle agricultural waste is in place and working.
A mechanism for rapid collection of farm residues has
to be instituted. In fact, new approaches to
recovering value from biomass could be the way forward.
The proposal from a furniture-maker to convert straw into useful products will
be keenly watched
for its outcomes. A shift away from solid fuels to LPG in millions of
low-income homes has provided health benefits, The Lancet study
says, underscoring the
value of clean alternatives. The potential of domestic biogas units,
solar cookers and improved biomass cookstoves has to be explored, since they
impose no additional expenditure on rural and less affluent households. Such measures should, of
course, be complemented by strong control over urban sources of pollution.
India’s commitments under the Paris Agreement on climate change require a sharp
reduction in particulates from fossil fuel. Fuels may be relatively cleaner
today and vehicles better engineered to cut emissions, but traffic densities in
cities have led to a rise in pollution. Real-time measurement of pollution is
also lacking. There are not enough ground-level monitoring stations for PM2.5,
and studies primarily use satellite imagery and modelling to project health
impacts. Rapid progress on clean air now depends on citizens making it a front-line
political issue.
Courtesy: The Hindu
01. Front-line (noun/adjective) – most important,
greater significance, high-priority.02. Scourge (noun) – affliction, bane/curse, burden.
03. Chronic (adjective) – persistent, long-term, continuing (or happening again and again for a long time).
04. Malaise (noun) – trouble, unease, unhappiness/dejection.
05. Apathy (noun) – disregard, lack of interest, unconcern.
06. Morbid (adjective) – unhealthy, gruesome, horrible.
07. Particulate matter (PM) (noun) – a mixture of extremely small (hazardous) solid particles and liquid droplets found in the air.
06. Notoriously (adverb) – notedly, prominently, noticeably.
07. Lax (adjective) – inattentive, non-restrictive, casual.
08. Accrue (verb) – accumulate, collect, gather.
09. Reliance (noun) – dependence; trust/confidence on something.
10. Stubble (noun) – dried stalks, straw (of a grain like wheat, rice & etc)
11. Unbridled (adjective) – unrestrained, unconstrained, uncontrolled.
12. Accountable (adjective) – answerable, responsible, chargeable.
13. Residues (noun) – remains, part leftovers, remnants.
14. Instituted (verb) – set/put in motion, establish, begin/start.
15. Biomass (noun) – the plant where electricity (& other forms of energy) generated using a renewable and sustainable source of energy (organic matter/materials).
16. The way forward (phrase) – something (a plan/action) that leads to success in the future.
17. Keenly (adverb) – eagerly, enthusiastically, avidly.
18. Underscoring (verb) – emphasize, highlight, underline.
19. Biogas (noun) – a type of biofuel that is naturally produced from the decomposition of organic waste (food scraps and animal waste).
20. Affluent (adjective) – wealthy, rich, well off/well-to-do.
Note: All meanings took from Oxforddictionaries.com and Google.co.in only.
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