Deaths due to accidents caused by recklessness stemming from uncontrollable speed. Deaths caused due to malnourishment. Deaths caused in jails and in captivity owing to mistreatment extended to the captive. And in other cases, deaths of the homeless: those who quite simply ran out of shelter knowing not where to go. Any other forms of wretched human experience? Can suffering be any more worse?
Why not! What about deaths due to pollution?
Each year, truth be told, there are hundreds of thousands who perish into non-existence due to all or any of the above. But that’s not all; one of the great nadirs of the developed urban world, one that runs on countless gallons of gas and fuel with the general state of breathable air enveloped by poisonous particles is the tragedy of air pollution.
And this brings us to the sullen and sad subject of just how many lost their lives due to pollution in the national capital in the recent times.
As a matter of fact, 2020 was a wretched year for the city of New Delhi. This is not only due to the fact that there was the COVID 19 pandemic that left much of the world in the throes of a deadly contagion, but the very reason that countless lives perished into the thin air here in Delhi.
Among the pieces of news that strike a ghastly blow is the statistic that paints a telling picture. The one related to the lives lost due to pollution in Delhi.
On that note, could there be anything worrisome other than nothing that there were no fewer than 54,000 deaths due to pollution in Delhi?
With demises owing to the COVID 19 pandemic on the one hand, and the lives lost due to the pernicious quality of Delhi air on the other, things reaffirm the fact that not everything about the state of affairs in India’s national capital seem right.
Perhaps there’s little surprise in the fact that the ruling government in Delhi NCR- the noted Aam Aadmi Party- announced ambitious plans about changing its current fleet of cars to ‘Electric Vehicles’ in the imminent future.
Someone’s got to lead by an example, right?
That being said, in a recent report published on news network Network 18, some telling highlights emerged on the deaths due to pollution in Delhi, as of 2020. It is, therefore, important to note the following:
Serious pollution caused around 160,000 premature deaths in the world’s five most populous cities last year, even as air quality improved in some places due to coronavirus lockdowns, an environmental group said Thursday.
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The worst-affected was New Delhi, the most polluted capital on Earth, where around 54,000 deaths are estimated to have occurred due to hazardous PM2.5 airborne particles, according to a report from Greenpeace Southeast Asia.
Furthermore, in lines with the above, it’s pertinent to note a statement from a key climate campaigner associated with Greenpeace India, “When governments choose coal, oil and gas over clean energy, it’s our health that pays the price.”
Little doubt about that, right?