Where are the bodies?
The New York Times reports,
ndia’s has the worst air pollution in the entire world, beating China, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, according to a study released during this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos.
Of 132 countries whose environments were surveyed, India ranks dead last in the ‘Air (effects on human health)’ ranking. The annual study, the Environmental Performance Index, is conducted and written by environmental research centers at Yale and Columbia universities with assistance from dozens of outside scientists. The study uses satellite data to measure air pollution concentrations…
D. Saha, a scientist in the “Air Lab” at India’s Central Pollution Control Board said the study’s findings were not a matter of huge concern.
“We should not compare our country with others,” Dr. Saha said. “India has a different terrain.” He cited seasonal rainfall, deserts and dusty conditions as being responsible for the particulate matter. “Can we put water sprinklers across the country?,” he asked.
Particulate matter comes from boilers, thermal power plants and cars, as well, he said, but India would not have development if these activities were curbed, he said. “The diseases mentioned in the report are caused by many factors not just particulate matter, we are raising undue alarm,” Mr. Saha said.
His advice? “It is a non-issue, we have other pressing problems like poverty, focus on them.”
Read the entire NYTimes report.
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How many dead do you need? 1? 100? 10,000? Do people have to dying in the streets for you to feel the need to keep their world clean?
If dirty air kills, then India is the most sparsely populated with China a close second. It’s like a balanced misanthropic ecoystem or something. More people causes fewer people. — Or not.
By all means, wet down the deserts, cork the volcanoes and water buffaloes, stop the forests from composting, and above all, stop the economies from developing naturally.