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''' '' POVERTIES INDIA'S
POLLUTION '' '''
THE WORLD AS THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY - for every subject on the planet -, sees and understands it.
STUDENTS MONU AND AAMYA'S AVERAGE exposure to pollution in New Delhi over the course of 24 hours is - 148.9 and 36.6 respectively - in micrograms of fine particles per cubic meter.
Around 7 in the morning Monu, 13, lifts his mosquito netting and crawls out of bed onto a dirt floor. Outside, his mother cooks breakfast over an openfire.
A few miles outside New Delhi, the world's most polluted capital, 11-year-old Aamya finally gives in to her mom's coaxing. She climbs out of bed and treads down the hall, past an air purifier that shows the pollution levels in glowing numbers.
The air is relatively clean in Aamya's apartment in Greater Kailash II, one of Delhi's upper-middle-class neighborhoods. Well fitted doors and windows make make the home more airtight, and its rooms purr with the sound of three purifiers that scrub dangerous particles from the air.
Monu breathes fouler air. He lives in a hut in a slum near the Yamuna River, which itself is seriously polluted. This morning, he sits in the open entryway to his house, drinking milky tea. He is the seventh of nine children and watches as one of his brothers coughs and huddles for warmth near the family's wood-burning clay stove.
Monu and Aamya live in one of the world's most polluted cities. Only one of their families can afford air purifiers. We measure their exposure to pollution for a day, to see how much inequality makes a difference.
Air pollution killed more Indians last year than any other risk factor. But the burden is unequally shared.
Children from poor families in Delhi spend more of their lives outdoors. Their families are more likely to use wood-burning stoves, which create soot. They can't afford the air filters that have become ubiquitous in middle-class homes. And they don't even think much about air pollution, because they face more pressing threats, like running out of food.
Money can buy a family less exposure to Delhi's deadly pollution - but only to a point. Air purifiers an well sealed rooms can do only so much. Though precise estimates are impossible, even well-off children like Amaya could lose roughly a year of life because of the amount of toxic air they breathe. And Aamya has asthma, so her parents are especially concerned.
Still, over the course of one day, Monu was exposed to about four times as much pollution as Aamya. A long-term, consistent disparity like that could steal around five years more life from someone in Monu's position , compared with an upper-middle-class child like Aamya. We know Monu was exposed to more pollution, because we measured it.
Working with researchers from ILK Labs, on Dec 3 of last year, journalists with The New York Times tracked how much air pollution the two students / children were exposed during a single day.
As Monu and Aamya went about an otherwise ordinary school day, we followed them with cameras and air-quality monitors that measured how much fine particulate matter was in the air they breathed at any given moment. Known as PM2.5, these are tiny toxic particles, especially dangerous because they can infiltrate the bloodstream.
Students Monu and Aamya have never met, but their families know about each other. Their parents agreed to participate in this report after we explained what we could learn by measuring the pollution exposure of children from different backgrounds. Aaamya's mother said she hoped it would help raise awareness about the greater health risks faced by families with fewer resources.
We could see the difference in the quality of the air they breathed, just from the filters pollution monitors.
The pollution in Delhi has an almost physical presence. You can see it, a haze just up the street. You can smell it, like an acrid campfire, and you can taste it on your tongue. It can make your eyes burn, your throat itch and your head pound.
The tiny particles floating in the air increase the risk of blood clots that can cause heart attacks. They can damage your liver and brain.
Some of the particles are composed of poisonous materials like arsenic and lead. Other components may be less toxic in and of themselves, but their cumulative effect is another matter. With alarming regularity, researchers release new findings on many the many ways air pollution harms the human body.
The Honor and Serving of Latest Global Operational Research on India's hopelessly polluted capital and other polluted cities of the world, continues.
The World Students Society thanks these great authors and researcher : Jin Wu, Derek Watkins, Josh Williams, Shalini Venugopal Bhagat, Hari Kumar and Jeffrey Geetleman.
With respectful dedication to Mankind, Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011:
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