Image: alvpics
Air pollution in India’s capital is at such a dire level that schools have been closed, trains are running late, poor visibility is causing car crashes and life appears to be quite miserable in general.
New Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, this week described the city as a “gas chamber“. While Mr. Kejriwal pointed to burning crop stubble in neighbouring states being the primary culprit, other officials were also putting coal power in their crosshairs.
“The amount of pollution caused by a coal-based thermal power plant in Delhi in one day is equal to the amount of toxic air caused by vehicles for the entire year,” said Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
On Wednesday, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) task force advised the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control Authority) Authority (EPCA) there was a need to take actions listed in the “severe plus category”.
Particularly severe air pollution events are a recurring problem in Delhi, particularly around this time of the year when cooler air and lighter winds results in pollutants being trapped closer to ground level and taking longer to disperse.
Last month, Delhi’s Badarpur thermal power plant was shut down ahead of a major festival that sees millions of firecrackers used and air pollution levels spike, and it appears to be still offline – which is probably more than just a small mercy.
One of the oldest coal fired power stations in operation, Badarpur is also the most polluting power plant in India. While only contributing 8% of Delhi’s electricity supply, it’s responsible for 80 to 90% of the city’s particulate matter pollution from the energy sector when operating. The coal-fired clunker is scheduled to be finally closed down permanently in August next year.
It’s not just the power station using coal in Delhi though – street food vendors and restaurants also burn it for cooking, adding to the pollution load.
Electricity supply instability in and around the city also contributes to its pollution problems as residents and businesses tend to turn to generators for power.
According to the recently published Lancet Commission on pollution and health, more than 50% of global deaths due to ambient air pollution in 2015 occurred in India and China.
With regard to coal specifically, it has been reported to be responsible for an estimated 80,000 to 115,000 premature deaths in India annually.
While the greater use of renewables such as solar power form part of the solution to India’s air quality woes, solar too suffers from the effects of coal and other forms of air pollution.
In April, we reported dust and particulate matter reduces the energy yield of solar panels installed in north India by as much 25 % annually. A similar effect was observed in a separate study in parts of China.
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And this is caused by the Australian cavemen federal parliament, and, is to be deliberately aggravated by the sponsoring of even more coal smoke pollution, by the Australian cavemen federal government going to spend about a thousand million of Australian public money, on the Adani coalmine, to deliberately poison more people and deliberately cause more obstruction of photovoltaic electricity generation, through the increased presence of atmospheric particulate pollution.
It is about time that the members of the Australian cavemen federal parliament are prosecuted in the International Court Of Justice, for their crimes against humanity.
“With regard to coal specifically, it has been reported to be responsible for an estimated 80,000 to 115,000 premature deaths in India annually.”
The question needs to be asked, and, in the International Court Of Justice, in addition to needing to be asked in the international news media – how many premature deaths annually, both within, and, without, India, are deliberately caused by Australian coal being burnt?
It appears very much like the Australian federal parliament is deliberately causing much worse harm than the Bhopal disaster, on an ongoing basis.
Agreed and when challenged they give the drug dealers response “if we don’t do it someone else will”
At
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/Web+Pages/Population+Clock?opendocument
at the time of me writing this post, was
”
On 11 November 2017 at 18:40:00 (Canberra time), the resident population of Australia is projected to be:
24,737,663
”
At https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_households
at the time of me writing this post, the average household size for Australia, was shown to be 2.7
So resulting in a (rough) estimate of the number of households in Australia, as 9,162,097
Thus, the cost for each Australian household, for the feral government loan/donation/grant for the Adani coal mine, to kill and injure, yet many more people, is about $110, for this weapon of mass destruction.
It has occurred to me, today, with the news that yet another feral government MP has resigned due to the citizenship slapstick comedy, thence causing the feral government to lose its majority, that with the feral government intending to charge every Australian household the $110, so that the feral government can kill and injure many more people, Australia desperately needs a double dissolution election, to excise the cancer that is the feral government, and, to save hundreds of thousands (or more) lives, over the expected duration of the Adani coal mine, and, to excise the cancers that are the combustion based electricity generators in Australia, replacing them with clean electricity generation, including the federal parliament instead, funding interest free loans (of at least a total value of the one thousand million dollars intended for the Adani coal mine), to provide for the installation of domestic rooftop photovoltaic systems and associated battery storage, for Australian households, with the funding distributed to each state/territory, on the basis of population.
It is up to we, the people, to lobby our purported representatives, to implement the change, and, to eliminate (through elections, not termination of life), the members of parliaments, who would oppose such change.