When did you last think about air pollution in your city ?
Academically, pollution refers to the contamination of the earth’s environment with materials that interfere with human health, quality of life, or the natural functioning of ecosystems. One of the biggest health concerns of recent times, other than Covid, is ever-increasing pollution. The health effects of air pollution, the worst kind, are serious — one-third of deaths from stroke, lung cancer, and heart disease are due to air pollution. Air pollution aggravates cardiopulmonary, breathing, and respiratory systems, damage to lung tissue, cancer, chronic lung disease, COPD, influenza or asthma, and innumerable others. Most urban conglomerates or cities unless these are coastal cities, are saddled with severe magnitude of air pollution affecting almost everyone. Most talks on the subject from seasoned politicians are lip service. The population of any city can be divided into the rich, middle class, and poor people who contribute the maximum share in their vote percentage among with lower middle class. Bigger priority for the later class is food and shelter (job included) and good health including any hazard caused by abysmal air is not a primary concern. Thus, politicians can afford to do lip service to the issue.
Howsoever rich you are, you can just handle inside air but you are not always inside. Even if you have a farmhouse or second home nearby the city limit, it is more or less the same air quality.
At Delhi, many of us remember the 2015 article https://scroll.in/article/774207/pollution-migrants-meet-the-people-who-left-delhi-for-good-because-of-its-noxious-air from Gardiner Harris, the South Asia correspondent for the New York Times, posted at Delhi, who decided to pack his bags and leave for Washington. Most of us may not have that liberty. The situation might have improved a bit since then.
It is not about Delhi, this may be the same everywhere in many cities of developing or underdeveloped nations where the bulk of the world’s population is residing while some of the Indian cities will have the unenviable distinction of becoming the world’s most polluted cities. We all look to the government initiatives in terms of the smoke gun, spraying water on the road, alternate vehicles on road, enforcing green fuel, and plantation drive. However, we as citizens look to be completely ignorant of our own power despite this being one of the root causes of many life-threatening diseases or at least crippling the quality of our life, alongside the stress city life bestows upon. My observation as a layman is, we are not doing enough.
Two major reasons are:
First; the citizen movements need great leaders having larger social acceptance and with their heart and soul in it and not a political standing. We have no extraordinary movement to tackle this.
Secondly, individuals are now too self-centric to think and do anything possible on the front and expect everything from the Government on a common problem, despite affecting us individually.
My personal experience has been of mixed success, in one such attempt my friends and I tried to plant some 50 saplings on the road abutting the boundary wall of a few residential societies, but most died in absence of care and watering required. On a recent occasion, I attempted to put only 10 saplings, and 6 of the same are still giving me some hope due to the good rainy season, continuing still, and the support of some of the local security guards of the society and a plumber I am able to see some hope. The other ten plants are in my 2nd home but in proper pots, good weather and good staff support them. I know, we can never repay the debt of mother nature howsoever hard we can keep trying, but we can begin.
Still, is it not the time, we do whatever little we can do, our generations would not be kind to forgive us if we do not do. Let us not worry about the impact and the appreciation.
