Asia's Air Pollution: Economy over Health

This blog focuses on the ever increasing importance of protecting the environment and public health by shedding some light on just how bad pollution is in currently developing countries India and China. Outlined is what is determined as "dangerous pollution", the estimated death toll from current day pollution, and the general idea that the current day situation was caused primarily by rapid economic development  at the expense of the environment. A stance of "green tech is just around the corner" is held as a counter argument.

Introduction

            The importance of Eco-friendly industrial systems is still yet underrated not only in America but in developing countries worldwide. The poor industrial waste management systems have devastated wildlife, ruined freshwater supplies, and taken millions of lives. If it weren't for rapid economic development, perhaps the major developing countries would have a bearable amount of pollution, but this simply isn't the case. What we really see today is the result of economic growth at all costs without consideration of the future.  If we don’t absolutely stress the importance of the environment around us, our children will end up with an inheritance that is essentially malignant cancer to this Earth. To reach our economic goals as nations, we need to take better effort to minimize the byproducts of our growth.

Direct Health Hazards

Most Americans can enjoy sunshine, a cool spring breeze, and generally being outside without fear any environmental dangers aside from possible sunburn. While America does have some pollution problems worth looking at (generally in the more populous southern parts), we are spared the most gruesome, life-choking, cancer causing pollution that more immensely populated countries deal with on a daily basis: China and India.

As of October, 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) has determined air pollution agents sized PM2.5 as definite cancer causing agents. PM, or μg, is the size of particles in the air measured in micrometers. Air pollution is measured in micrograms per cubic meter, and the WHO has set the general guideline of 20 μg/m³ as “acceptable”. Particulate of size PM2.5 and smaller is of primary concern due to its ability to enter the bloodstream and cause all sorts of nasty disease – the majority of this particulate matter is a mix of nitrates, carbons, and sulfates, all of which are particularly dangerous when they are capable of freely entering the bloodstream. Now, according to the WHO, pollution-linked lung cancer deaths alone killed more than 200,000 people in 2010. Of pollution related deaths, cancer composes 6%, but the overwhelming majority of deaths caused by pollution are due to cardiovascular diseases, stroke, and acute respiratory illnesses. This adds up to 3.7 million premature deaths caused by air pollution world-wide.

Asia’s Pollution Crisis

Most of us who think air pollution, think Beijing, China which more than 20 million people call home. Beijing was once the most polluted city in the world, being recently taken over by New Delhi, India in 2014.

(Photo taken in New Delhi, India on a smog-rich day, January 2014.)

(Photo taken in Beijing, China, January 2014)

From November to January, the Indian capital averaged  (size PM10 and smaller) 575 micrograms per cubic meter; while on the most polluted days hit 60 times the “acceptable” level of pollution or 1200 micro-grams per cubic meter. Delhi, at its largest extent, encapsulates 25 million people and the pollution more or less affects all.  While 20 μg/m³ is deemed acceptable it more or less economically bearable; if anything it’s what fossil fuels should aim at in terms of the consequence of emissions.

Cause? Putting Economy before Environment

            China and India are both currently heavily industrializing nations, and millions of people are currently living in situations they cannot simply abandon or ignore. VICE has a fantastic documentary portraying the difficulties of the poor – many of the poor in China have turned to black-market coal mining operations for money. Even though the majority of coal plants and coal mining operations are controlled by the Chinese government, there is an overwhelming amount of overlooked factories which are not regulated. These factories have no quality control and dump massive amounts of matter into the atmosphere to the detriment of the population. The general assumption is that because of the more populated areas, there is more carbon emissions from vehicle activity, however unregulated factories are equally as responsible.

            It wasn’t until after the massive industrial revolutions in China and India that the nations realized the cost of the sparkling new infrastructure. With both governments focusing on maximizing economic growth it would be the environment to pay for years afterwards. Very many factories were built without pollution control in mind, and many factories yet remain without new technology implemented to control the carbon byproducts.

Government’s Attempts to Control Pollution in Delhi (2014)

·         With a view to reducing vehicular pollution, there has been a ban imposed on the plying of more than 15 years old commercial/transport vehicles, taxis and autos that run on conventional fuels, including diesel driven city buses.

·         There has also been tightening of mass emission standards for new vehicles.

·         The quality of the fuel being supplied in Delhi has been significantly improved over the years by the ban of selling leaded petrol, introduction of low sulphur diesel, reduction of sulphur and benzene content in petrol.

Fortunately shown above, governments are increasingly becoming the environmental activists to put the hammer down on pollution causing agents.

First Steps to Handling Sever Pollution: Whisteblowing

A news broadcast from New Delhi Television Limited encourages measurement control units. In terms of technology to regulate pollution, India is behind China. Taking into account that pollution is inevitable, China is taking far more precautions by calling off school districts 24 hours in advance on heavily polluted days. Beijing has twice as many monitoring stations as New Delhi; without the ability to monitor the situation, India risks more health concerns and tragedy. The stations essentially act as whistleblowers on pollution and they have an obvious impact on government regulation and future plans.

Due to the unforeseen problems pollution has caused in Asia, China has already restricted economic development by banning the construction of new steel producing factories as well as coal plants since early 2014.

“The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, based in Paris, warned that “urban air pollution is set to become the top environmental cause of mortality worldwide by 2050, ahead of dirty water and lack of sanitation.” It estimated that up to 3.6 million people could end up dying prematurely from air pollution each year, mostly in China and India…”

“…Official news reports have said 74 cities are now required to release data on levels of particulate matter 2.5 micrometers in diameter or smaller, which penetrate the body’s tissues most deeply.” – Edward Wong

Statistics like these are absolutely vital to communicate to the public and are a fantastic way to show the world the dangers of pollution, and without them, many more industrial processes would go unregulated due to lack of concern. The greatest way to encourage the eco-friendly efforts are perhaps through these critical news flashes: they really allow reality to slap us in the face.

Implementation of Current and Future Technologies

           If there was a counterargument to our pollution issue today it would be summed up in one word: Technology. The world has 53.3 years of oil left. The world has about 110 years of coal left. I believe that these statistics have been underrated recently, but the world has an every stressing need for long-term energy production. More often than not, governments will make choices based on technological growth, for example we have shown great promise in solar energy. After all, “The average solar panel now costs around 75% less than it did just five years ago and continues to fall despite the total decimation of the heavily subsidized US solar manufacturing industry.” – Chip Register, Forbes. The development and implementation of current technologies is crucial for China and India, and perhaps these countries are just getting around to implementing newer technologies.

         While the pollution is certainly bad in some places of the world, we have seen major technological advances in green energy over the past few years, and a cleaner, brighter future may be just around the corner for the yet-developing Asian countries.

Closure

I believe that statistical reporting on these issues is vital to handling them, without knowing how bad a problem is, it’s difficult to redirect our energies to those areas from which we are really suffering as a whole. Even America faced pollution at pretty unbearable scales during our industrial revolution. Every other country is waiting its turn to pull through these quite literal “dark ages”. What we have today isn't sustainable and we all know it, and the best argument against our current predicament is that we have accepted a temporary solution to better our qualities of life. What we can do now to better our environment is stress technological development by shedding more light on the subject of pollution. Our next frontier isn't space or a better internet, it’s existing in our environment in a sustainable way.