It happens every winter in India’s sprawling capital: the cold air arrives, trapping the dust and other pollutants emitted by its 20 million residents. The result? A filthy, choking haze that engulfs the city and halts daily life.
For the third day this week, air quality in the city passed the “severe” threshold, reaching 445 on Friday, India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences said. The figure is 10 times the target level established in the World Health Organization’s 2021 air quality guidelines, which advises a 24-hour mean of 45.
As the smog descended on Delhi and the surrounding areas, officials on Friday ordered schools, factories and construction sites closed and banned diesel trucks from bringing nonessential goods to the capital. About half of the city’s government employees were urged to work from home.
The WHO estimates that millions die annually due to air pollution, and recognizes it as the world’s largest environmental health threat. IQAir, a Swiss air quality company, ranked New Delhi as the most polluted capital in 2021.
Air pollution has been linked to heart diseases, a higher risk of stroke and lung cancer, and in 2019 was the leading cause of death in India, according to government data.
Siddharth Singh, the author of “The Great Smog of India,” tweeted that, unlike immunity developed from a virus or a vaccine, “the human body cannot get used to air pollution,” as “the particulate matter enters your lungs, your bloodstream, and then lodges itself in your organs.”
Both the state and federal governments in India have faced criticism for failing to tackle the air pollution problem. And as the crisis mounted this week, regional politicians tried to blame each other for the health hazard.
In a news conference on Friday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that Delhi and Punjab should not be held responsible for the smog, which he called “a northern India issue.”
He said that there would be no solution without joint state and federal action, adding that the six months since the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) formed a government in Punjab was “not enough” for the government to implement solutions.
India’s Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav, however, blamed the northern Punjab state for failing to stop farmers from burning crop residues, writing on Twitter that “there is no doubt over who has turned Delhi into a gas chamber.”
In a Twitter thread in October, Vimlendu Jha, environmentalist and founder of the youth organization Swechha, said the Delhi government lacks “political will and urgency.”
The central and state governments “have FAILED to find a medium to long term solution to this problem,” Jha wrote, “often stopping at just blaming the farmers and passing the buck, instead of farm reforms, crop rotation incentives, technology assistance etc.”
The crisis comes as India’s government called Friday for rich countries to deliver on their pledge of providing $100 billion in annual climate finance to developing countries — and to increase the amount at the U.N. climate conference next week.
NEW DELHI, Aug 29 (Reuters) – As India’s capital of New Delhi prepares for winter – and the accompanying season of acrid smog – the government is promoting a motorcycle helmet fitted with filters and a fan at the back that it says can remove 80% of pollutants.
State agencies have pumped thousands of dollars into Shellios Technolabs, a startup whose founder Amit Pathak began work on the helmet, which he calls the world’s first of its kind, in a basement in 2016.
That was the year of the first headlines about the filthy air that makes New Delhi nearly unbreathable from mid-December to February, as the heavy cold traps dust, vehicle emissions and smoke from burning crop waste in nearby states.
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“Inside a home or office, you could have an air purifier,” said Pathak, an electrical engineer. “But the guys on the bike, they have no protection at all.”
So his company designed a helmet with an air purification unit, fitted with a replaceable filter membrane and a fan powered by a battery that runs six hours and can be charged through a microUSB slot.
Sales of the helmet began in 2019, and tests on New Delhi’s streets by an independent laboratory confirmed it can keep more than 80% of pollutants out of users’ nostrils, Pathak added.
A 2019 test report seen by Reuters shows the helmet cut levels of lung-damaging PM 2.5 airborne particles to 8.1 micrograms per cubic metre from 43.1 micrograms outside.
An employee of Shellios Technolabs, that manufactures motorcycle helmet claimed to be fitted with filters and a fan at the back of the helmet, puts on the helmet, near their assembling factory unit in an industrial area, in New Delhi, India, August 23, 2022. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis
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India’s science and technology ministry says the helmet offers “a breath of fresh air for bikers”. That may not come a moment too soon in a country that was home to 35 of the world’s 50 worst polluted cities last year.
Pathak sees a big opportunity amid annual demand for 30 million helmets, but declined to reveal his production or sales figures.
Each helmet retails at 4,500 rupees ($56), or nearly four times the cost of a regular one, effectively putting the device beyond the reach of many riders in India.
Since the weight of 1.5 kg (3.3 lb) is heavier than existing devices, Shellios has tied up with a big manufacturer to develop a lighter version from a thermoplastic material rather than fibreglass, a step that will also cut the cost.
The new version is expected to come out within a few months.
Pathak said the company had also drawn interest from southeast Asian nations such as Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
($1=79.8210 rupees)
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Reporting by Krishna N. Das; Additional reporting by Anushree Fadnavis and Sunil Kataria; Editing by Clarence Fernandez
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
SpaceX, Blue Origin, and a host of other private companies helped to make 2021 the year with the most space launches in history, but scientists say this mad dash to space could be causing further damage to our atmosphere.
The number of launch attempts has doubled in the last decade. And after counting all of the planned launches for 2022, it seems the current year is set to blow past last year’s record. But rocket launches come with big emissions, the atmospheric impact of which isn’t fully understood.
Now, two scientists have added to the growing body of knowledge suggesting that the race to leave the Earth could be harming our planet and our health. The researchers referenced a webcast video to model a SpaceX launch in painstaking detail. Their simulation showed that exhaust from the rocket dumped a surprising amount of climate-altering carbon gases, as well as harmful nitrogen oxides, across multiple levels of the atmosphere.
“Pollution from rockets should not be underestimated as frequent future rocket launches could have a significant cumulative effect on climate,” wrote the researchers in their paper, published Tuesday in the journal Physics of Fluids. They also mentioned the possibility of rocket launches becoming a future human health hazard.
“At present, the risk is low because a small number of launches take place,” Dimitris Drikakis, a physicist and engineer at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus and co-author of the new study, explained in an email to Gizmodo. “The problem may become significant when frequent launches take place.”
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Drikakis and his University of Nicosia colleague Ioannis Kokkinakis specifically looked at the exhaust emissions from a computer model they built, one meant to closely match the 2016 Thaicom-8 launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which obtained its power from the fuel RP-1, or Rocket Propellant-1, which is similar to jet fuel. The researchers considered the role of heat, pressure, gas mixing, dispersal patterns, and other factors to estimate rocket emissions at various heights and up to a maximum 41.6 miles (67 kilometers) above the surface.
Earth’s atmosphere has multiple levels based on altitude, each exhibiting its own unique set of conditions. Drikakis and Kokkinakis followed their modeled rocket launch from the near-Earth troposphere through to the stratosphere and into the mesosphere.
Based on their models, the researchers estimated that the single Falcon 9 rocket produced around 116 metric tons of carbon dioxide in the first 165 seconds of its journey. “This amount is equivalent to that emitted by about 69 cars over an entire year [in the United Kingdom],” wrote Drikakis to Gizmodo. To repeat: 69 car years of driving versus 165 seconds of rocket flight.
Carbon dioxide accumulates in the lower atmosphere as we burn fossil fuels, and is the greenhouse gas largely responsible for human-caused climate change. But much of the emissions produced in the model study appeared in the higher altitude mesosphere, where the climate impacts of C02 are less well understood than they are closer to Earth. For each kilometer climbed by the rocket at the highest altitudes examined, the simulated Falcon 9 sent out a mass of carbon dioxide equal to 26 times the amount already present in one cubic kilometer of the mesosphere.
At the same time, the rocket also shot out similar amounts of carbon monoxide and water vapor, which are typically only present in the mesosphere in trace amounts. This now adds to the list of poorly understood atmospheric changes that rocket launches could be creating.
And then there are the dreaded nitrogen oxides (NOx) to consider. On top of being bad-to-breathe pollutants that can trigger respiratory diseases, these gases also degrade our atmosphere’s critical ozone layer. In the first 70 seconds of the studied launch, the SpaceX rocket produced an estimated one metric ton of NOx, equivalent to about 1,400-cars-worth of annual emissions, according to Drikakis. Nitrogen oxides form best under high heat, so most of that release happened in the lower atmosphere, specifically at altitudes below 6.2 miles (10 km).
“CO2 and other greenhouse gas species [types] emitted in the mesosphere can affect the climate, if emitted in enough quantity,” said Erik Larson, a geoscientist at Harvard University who was not involved in the new research, in an email to Gizmodo. But he added that this paper doesn’t actually assess the climate impacts of the rocket launch.
Instead, Larson said the study’s value is in its estimates of emission quantities. The study “fills some gaps,” he explained. In particular, Larson thought the most “important contribution” from the new research had to do with nitrogen oxide production and the potential for ozone risk, as opposed to assessments of direct air-quality impacts. “It destroys the beneficial ozone layer,” he said. “I think the important global impacts of rocket NOx emissions are likely to be destruction of stratospheric ozone as opposed to air quality.”
The ozone layer protects our planet’s surface from the most damaging of the Sun’s rays. Without it, much of life on Earth would die. And we nearly lost it once before owing to chemical emissions. After the offending, damaging compounds were banned, the ozone layer recovered, but it has remained a constant concern ever since.
A 2018 UN report concluded that rocket launches have a teeny tiny (sub 0.1%) impact on the ozone. But ozone loss due to rocket launches could be more than 10 times higher than previously assumed due to the a lack of research on the topic, according to the new study. And, again, there are many more rockets going into space now than there were even four years ago.
It’s important to restate that the new study is dependent on estimates and models, which means it has major limitations. “The atmosphere is a very complex system,” said Drikakis. He pointed out that his team had to reckon with a lot of uncertainty when obtaining these results owing to the lack of clear information about the physical and chemical processes happening across higher altitudes of the atmosphere.
In addition to chipping away at those uncertainties, the scientists plan to further explore the link between ozone depletion and space launches in future research. They also hope that more studies examine the impact of mesosphere changes on Earth’s climate.
But for now, even knowing all of the above, Drikakis and Kokkinakis are still pro-space exploration. “We are rocket enthusiasts and believe that the commercial sector has made amazing progress in the field,” Drikakis told me. “We are at the beginning of a fantastic journey” that we should continue, he added.
He hopes their research and studies like it will help the burgeoning space industry “design solutions that will improve the rockets’ design and mitigate the effects of exhaust gases.” For Earth’s sake, lets all hope that innovation comes at rocket-speeds.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is visiting corn-rich Iowa on Tuesday to announce he’ll suspend a federal rule preventing the sale of higher ethanol blend gasoline this summer, as his administration tries to tamp down prices at the pump that have spiked during Russia’s war with Ukraine.
Most gasoline sold in the U.S. is blended with 10% ethanol. The Environmental Protection Agency will issue an emergency waiver to allow widespread sale of 15% ethanol blend that is usually prohibited between June 1 and Sept. 15 because of concerns that it adds to smog in high temperatures.
Senior Biden administration officials said the move will save drivers an average of 10 cents per gallon at 2,300 gas stations. Those stations are mostly in the Midwest and the South, including Texas, according to industry groups.
The move comes as Biden is facing growing political pressure over inflation, as new data Tuesday showed prices are rising at the fastest pace in more than 40 years, driven in part by soaring energy prices during the Russia-Ukraine war. The Labor Department said Tuesday that its consumer price index jumped 8.5% in March from 12 months earlier, the biggest year-over-year increase since December 1981.
Administration officials said the EPA has begun analyzing the “emergency” step of allowing more E15 gasoline sales for the summer and determined it is not likely to have significant on-the-ground air quality impacts. That’s despite some environmentalists long arguing that more ethanol in gas increases pollution.
Biden is to announce the move at a biofuel company in Menlo, west of Des Moines. Iowa is the country’s largest producer of corn, key to producing ethanol.
The waiver is another effort to help ease global energy markets that have been rocked since Russia invaded Ukraine. Last month, the president announced the U.S. will release 1 million barrels of oil per day from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve over the next six months. His administration said that has helped to slightly reduce gas prices lately, after they climbed to an average of about $4.23 a gallon by the end of March, compared with $2.87 at the same time a year ago, according to AAA.
“Not only is this decision a major win for American drivers and our nation’s energy security, it means cleaner options at the pump and a stronger rural economy,” Emily Skor, CEO of the biofuel trade association group Growth Energy, said in a statement.
Members of Congress from both parties also had urged Biden to grant the E15 waiver.
“Homegrown Iowa biofuels provide a quick and clean solution for lowering prices at the pump and bolstering production would help us become energy independent once again,″ said Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley. He was among nine Republican and seven Democratic senators from Midwestern states who sent Biden a letter last month urging him to allow year-round E15 sales.
The trip will be Biden’s first as president to Iowa, where his 2020 presidential campaign limped to a fourth-place finish in the state’s technologically glitchy caucus.
After bouncing back to win the Democratic nomination, Biden returned for a rally at the Iowa state fairgrounds four days before Election Day 2020, only to see Donald Trump win the state by 8 percentage points.
Biden heads back to the state at a moment when he’s facing yet more political peril. He’s saddled with sagging approval ratings and inflation at a 40-year high while his party faces the prospect of big midterm election losses that could cost it control of Congress.
The president also planned to promote his economic plans to help rural families struggling with higher costs, while highlighting the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law enacted last fall. The law includes money to improve internet access, as well as for modernizing wastewater systems, reducing flooding threats and improving roads and bridges, drinking water and electric grids in sparsely populated areas.
“Part of it is showing up in communities of all sizes, regardless of the results of the last election,” said Jesse Harris, who was a senior adviser to Biden’s 2020 campaign in Iowa and directed get out the vote and early voting efforts for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008.
Harris said most presidents who visit Iowa typically go to the state’s largest cities. Hitting an area like Menlo, part of Guthrie County, which backed Trump over Biden by 35 percentage points in 2020, “does speak to the importance the administration places on infrastructure broadly but also infrastructure in rural and smaller communities.”
The Biden administration plans to spend the coming weeks pushing billions of dollars in funding for rural areas. Cabinet members and other senior officials will travel the country to help communities get access to money available as part of the infrastructure package.
“The president is not making this trip through a political prism,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. “He’s making this trip because Iowa is a rural state in the country that would benefit greatly from the president’s policies.”
Still, administration officials have long suggested that Biden travel more to promote an economy that is rebounding from the setbacks of the coronavirus pandemic. The number of Americans collecting unemployment has fallen to the lowest levels since 1970, for example.
But much of the positive jobs news nationally has been overshadowed by surging gas, food and housing prices that have offset wage gains.
“Maybe a trip back to Iowa will be just what Joe Biden needs to understand what his reckless spending, big government policies are doing to our country,” Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said in a statement.
After Iowa, Biden will visit Greensboro, North Carolina, on Thursday.
Psaki blamed Russia’s war in Ukraine for helping to drive up gas prices and said the administration expects the consumer price index for March to be “extremely elevated” in large part because of it.
The EPA has lifted seasonal restrictions on E15 in the past, including after Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The Trump administration allowed for selling E15 in the summer months two years later but had the rule struck down by a federal appeals court.
___
Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed to this report.
A thick haze of toxic smog hung over the Indian capital, exacerbated by a spike in the burning of crop waste in surrounding farmlands.
It reduced visibility and the Air Quality Index (AQI) hit 470 on a scale of 500, according to the federal pollution control board. This level of pollution means the air will affect healthy people and seriously impact those with existing diseases.
According to the pollution board’s “Graded Response Action Plan,” air quality remaining “severe” for 48 hours must prompt states and local bodies to impose emergency measures that include shutting down schools, imposing ‘odd-even’ restrictions on private cars based on their number plates, and stopping all construction.
In a circular late on Friday, the board said the government and private offices should reduce the use of private transport by 30% and advised the city’s residents to limit outdoor exposure.
“Meteorological conditions will be highly unfavorable for dispersion of pollutants till November 18, 2021 in view of low winds with calm conditions during the night,” the board said.
Earlier this week, local authorities had ordered a shutdown of brick kilns, increased the frequency of mechanized cleaning and a crackdown on garbage burning and dust.
The concentration of poisonous PM2.5 particulate matter averaged 329 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The government prescribes a “safe” PM2.5 reading at 60 micrograms per cubic meter of air over a period of 24 hours.
PM2.5 is small enough to travel deep into the lungs, enter the bloodstream and can cause severe respiratory diseases, including lung cancer.
“This is becoming a nightmare,” said Gufran Beig, founder project director of air quality and weather monitor SAFAR that falls under the Ministry of Earth Science.
“Fire counts are in the range of 3,000-5,000 and not declining,” Beig told Reuters, referring to crop stubble fires in the regions around the capital.
India’s efforts to reduce crop-waste burning, a major source of air pollution during winter, by spending billions of rupees over the past four years have done little to avert a sharp deterioration in air quality.
Delhi, often ranked the world’s most polluted capital, faces extremely bad air in winter due to the crop stubble burning, emissions from transport, coal-fired plants outside the city and other industrial emissions, open garbage burning and dust.
Her brother-in-law, Sonu Prasad, 36, who sells buttons, said he knows what contributes to the pollution of the river: “When I shower, it goes into a small canal, then a big canal, then it goes into the river,” he said.
“It’s a sewer,” Ms. Devi’s husband and Sonu’s older brother, Ravi Shankar Gupta, said. “But the sun deity says: ‘Even if you stand in a gutter and make an offering, I will protect you for the rest of the year.’”
“It would be great if they improve it, but even if they don’t, what can we do?” Mr. Gupta added, pointing to the infighting over the pollution between the states that the river flows through. “We will still live, and enjoy life.”
The Yamuna forms the boundary between Delhi and the state of Uttar Pradesh, a circumstance that has complicated the already tortured process of cleaning it up. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in recent decades, to little effect. Less than half of the roughly 16 billion gallons of daily sewage in India’s urban centers is treated, according to government figures, and much of the rest pollutes the country’s rivers.
New Delhi, overwhelmed by a growing population, treats about two-thirds of its sewage. But hundreds of millions of gallons are still dumped into the Yamuna untreated, along with untreated industrial waste, in its slog through the city.
Delhi gets a good portion of its drinking water from the Yamuna, which enters the city limits relatively clean. After that, the river is pummeled with wastes.
