Australia. There’s so much more to Australia that meets the eye. It’s not just the home to the truly Great Barrier Reef but also home to Sir Donald Bradman. Beer is as famously consumed here as water in any other part of the world. Melbourne’s more than just the great MCG but is also home to arguably some of the finest styles of coffee there is.
Steve Waugh and Shane Warne have been birthed here and there’s not a day that Footsie isn’t played in some corner of a massively wide continent. Give Australia sports and it will give back massively talented sportsmen. Give Australia mining and it will return the favour by generating tremendous bouts of employment.
Kangaroos hop around freely so does the great Ostrich, running wide on freeways where people and cars are often left star-struck.
Australia is more than just the film named after it and is way more than being the closest rival to New Zealand, both in cricketing or rugby turfs. Beautiful beaches, beautiful women, tons of beer and being the home of INXS, Hiatus Kaiyote and Tame Impala- Australia is also unfortunately among a bit of a crisis.
That said, can you figure out what that exactly is?
Among the worst problems the world is facing is pollution. Whether one agrees to it or not, there’s no hiding away from it. It is about time that some parts of the world, for instance, Asia which evidences perhaps the worst-ever form of air pollution pulled up its socks and began doing something as a remedial measure.
Surprisingly, not that far off from Asia, Australia too seems engulfed by the problem. And truth be told, it is only increasing by the drop of a second.
Believe it or not- so serious seems to be the problem of air pollution in Australia that the Down Under is evidencing premature deaths every now and then. Can that ever be a great thing to read?
According to recent research published across plenty of Aussie journals- as many as 3000 premature deaths take place in Australia every year due to worsening air quality. That’s quite a number and in fact, a scary one at that.
For a continent that hasn’t been gifted with the greatest of population counts, it warrants some serious introspection.
The problem persists in urban cities, whether it is Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Canberra or any other destination.
That said, there’s reason to believe, things may only go worse or downhill from this point in time. So what is Australia doing about it? In fact, a famous Australian researcher Jason Evans has worked closely on the current malaise gripping his country and has submitted his findings in the revered Climate Dynamics Journal.
The Straits Times published a report on the same problem and delved into the work of Jason Evans:
Evans and his team analysed two decades of weather data covering nine weather sites across southeastern Australia, including major cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Approximately, over 80 per cent of the country’s population resides in the south-eastern areas and that is where one identifies a surge in forthcoming population. In this regard, the impact of worsening air pollution could potentially lead to serious problems.
What doesn’t help, in this regard, is the constantly changing climatic conditions around the world. It, in fact, only amplifies the air pollution scenario. And here’s a reason to play on the back-foot for now. Researchers reported that there is a substantial increase in the strength of near-surface temperature inversions over south-east Australia, which suggests that future inversions may intensify poor air quality events.
World over, cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Malaysia and others are stifled with the growing concern attributed to air pollution. It’s only led to more health anomalies in the last decade than what was evidenced previously. It remains to be seen if Australia comes out with new remedial measures in a bid to tackle an existential concern?