Pollution have become an inseparable part of environment, today over-exploitation of natural resources is observed which is increasing at a tremendous rate. Whether it is in terms of land, water or air each natural resources are greatly hindered by human activities.
This blog will aim to emphasise more about air pollution and the solutions which are required in order to lower down the rate.
“Air is life… pollution is death… What if we live like dead… that is what air pollution is.”
According to the Health Effects Institute, in 2015, over 1.1 million premature deaths in India were caused by air pollution. In 2019, air pollution led to about 18 percent of all deaths in the country. In the same year, it resulted in an economic loss of approximately 1.4 percent of gdp.
Before understanding the consequences of air pollution, the reasons responsible for such causes are stated below:
1. The burning of fossil fuel.
2. Industrial emission.
3. Indoor air pollution.
4. Wild fires.
5. Microbial decaying process.
6. Transportation.
7. Open burning of garbage waste.
8. Construction and demolition.
9. Agricultural activities.
10. Use of chemical and synthetic products.
All of these make up a huge proportion of air pollution. In current situation, due to development in diversified field dependency on chemicals as well as industrial products is greatly increased. Therefore, humans mostly rely on products that influences the air pollution.
However, there are number of consequences affiliated with this change such as:
Long-term health effects from air pollution include heart disease, lung cancer, and respiratory diseases such as emphysema. Air pollution can also cause long-term damage to people’s nerves, brain, kidneys, liver, and other organs. Some scientists suspect air pollutants cause birth defects.
Rural air pollution sources were associated with greater cancer mortality rates. Rural coal mining areas had higher total, cancer, and respiratory disease mortality rates. Agricultural production was generally associated with lower mortality rates.
But on the other hand there are numerous examples found in some of the regions of rural areas of Gujarat where farmers and people living in villages utilise only cow dung and other natural substances in their day to day life. One of them is Rural region of Khambhat , where there is only use of dung in farming methods. This may sound vague but it mostly aids people to develop a healthy and safe environments. Understanding this with an example:
51% of the pollution is caused by industrial pollution, 27 % by vehicles, 17% by crop burning and 5% by fireworks. Air pollution contributes to the premature deaths of 2 million Indians every year.
Moreover, people working in agricultural fields especially those living in rural regions are mostly affected by this pollution. Research had found that deaths due to exposure to polluted air containing PM2.5 — hazardous particles finer than 2.5 microns in diameter — and ozone were three times as much in rural areas as urban areas.
The study used air pollution data measured across North India over four months. “We wished to definitively evaluate non-urban versus urban impacts of air pollution through the use of all-India data at high spatial resolution (~4.5 km) for a whole year,” says Prof Chandra Venkataraman from IIT Bombay, one of the researchers involved in the study, about the motivation behind the current work.
However one must understand the duties of how can this be prevented at certain stage. Apart from the work as an individual which people are mostly aware of, there comes a huge role of governing bodies in order to control air pollution.
These includes strict rules on car pooling, burning of waste should be made a punishable offence. Also landfills should be better managed. Apart from this as stated earlier that around 51% pollution is caused by industries, therefore, a rule should be framed for industries that are responsible of this cause and be punished if such practice is prevalent.
“Eradicate pollution, save the environment”.
