In New Delhi, during the autumn of 2017, poor visibility resulted in a 24-vehicle pile up on the Yamuna Expressway. Fortunately, there were no fatalities linked to this incident, but it is scary nonetheless. That is because people are entirely at fault – not nature or a freak accident. People, and the deliberate, albeit misguided, choices we have made over the last 200 years, were the sole contributors to this accident. The air pollution in New Delhi was so high that the drivers could not see well enough to operate their vehicles without crashing. This is the world we live in today.
It is a world governed by a new era of dominance over nature, now commonly referenced as the Anthropocene. Part of this epoch means that we are not only warming the atmosphere as a result of greenhouse gas emissions, but we are also damaging our most-needed lifeline – air. In the history of our species, we are yet to breathe this much carbon dioxide, pollutants, dust, ash and smoke.
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September 2019
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