[Stoves] Air pollution in cities

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Anil

I think this is a bit over the top:

“This did not allow the smog and dust to disperse into higher atmosphere, thereby creating death chamber like conditions on the ground.”

It is common hear claims that breathing air in such-and-such a place is “like smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day”. I provided here at least one calculation of what people are exposed to in a city.

First, PM is not equally toxic. The agricultural residue burning makes really ‘bad smoke’ stinging the eyes at 400 µg/m3. Coal smoke and vehicle smoke has nothing like the same effect, with the proviso that coal smoke varies a lot depending on what the source device is. Having experienced 3000 µg/m3 I can report that stubble burning is way worse than coal smoke.

Second, just because someone places a number on paper does not make people sick. People who have ‘pre-existing conditions’ are at risk from all sorts of things. One of my childhood neighbours, an adult woman, was allergic to house dust and lived in a hermetically sealed home – but smoked! There is no pleasing some people…

So…the photo in the article is taken over a long distance and zoomed, so you are looking ‘through’ perhaps a km or more of air. The BBC frequently shows pictures in Beijing taken in the same way – showing morning mist as ‘pollution’ when there really isn’t much to show.  How bad is Delhi air compared with living in an apartment in which one person smokes? Do the math. There is no city air as bad as sharing a flat with a smoker.

The smouldering garbage and wet leaves story is typical of real pollution in cities. Absolutely awful with a huge emission rate per kg. The inversion in Delhi is a good example of what happens in Ulaanbaatar in winter – daily. Sometimes there is no wind, like last winter. Living in the city was like smoking ¼ of a cigarette per day in terms of exposure. I am not recommending it, but it is completely untrue that it is like ‘smoking 2 packs a day’.

What rubbish.

Anil, what is the right balance to portray between factual alarm and alarming facts?

Thanks
Crispin




My blog which appeared as front page news in Huffington Post.

http://m.huffingtonpost.in/dr-anil-k-rajvanshi/there-are-various-ways-devised-in-india-itself-to-reduce-pollution-from-stubble-burning_a_23281512/?utm_hp_ref=in-homepage<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fm.huffingtonpost.in%2Fdr-anil-k-rajvanshi%2Fthere-are-various-ways-devised-in-india-itself-to-reduce-pollution-from-stubble-burning_a_23281512%2F%3Futm_hp_ref%3Din-homepage&data=02%7C01%7Ccrispinpigott%40outlook.com%7C48d1d810b735421177c808d52ffc58c3%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636467683224884788&sdata=zmIWiqX3Z47qDluqiBnaEc9haY7z50uaiyodY1KLu4M%3D&reserved=0>

Cheers.

Anil Rajvanshi
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