The air we breathe

The extent of air pollution has peaked like never before. To live in cities is to breath air thick with toxic gases. The construction activity always seen around us, the multiplying cars on our congested roads and the unsupervised Metro work is soon turning Hyderabad into a dreaded place for its growing population.

But then we are great adapters. We learn to accept this like many things, as inevitable to living in a city. We only realize the mess we are creating when others point it out for us.

Air pollution is killing nearly eight lakh people annually in the South East Asian Region with India alone accounting for over 75 per cent of the casualties with health hazards like allergies, asthma, cardiovascular diseases and lung cancer, according to WHO.

A study by the US-based National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) has uncovered the fact that air pollution also leads to problems for the coming generations by causing changes at the genetic level. So the air we breathe will also affect our future generations.

It will be similar to what happened in Bhopal during the cyanide gas tragedy- only not so dramatic. It will be a much slower death.

“Smog cleaning tower”in China’s capital

After years of fighting with pollution, China’s capital, Beijing now has a seven-meter tall tower made of aluminum and powered by electricity to clean up its toxic air. Daan Roosegaarde, an artist based in Netherlands has helped build a seven-meter tall tower that can suck pollutants from filthy air through a process called positive ionization. The tower, which acts like a giant vacuum cleaner, cleans the air by sending out positive ions which will attach themselves to dust particles. The device, which runs on just 1,400 watts,requires no more energy than a water boiler, according to Roosegaarde. It is capable of cleaning 30,000 cubic meters of air an hour.

Hope our leaders stop their chest- thumping and start thinking about building similar smog cleaning tower – atleast in New Delhi to begin with!