Cutting Through India’s Smog. (2015, February 22). Retrieved March 2, 2015, from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/23/opinion/cutting-through-indias-smog.html?ref=topics&_r=0
Indians appear to be waking up to the dangers of the dirtiest energy sources including coal, diesel oil, and burning garbage in order to sustain economic growth and an exploding population. Due to the country’s countless population that is more than 1.2 billion and the fact that it has been named the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) report, out of the 20 most polluted cities in the world, India has 13. This explains how the country also has the highest death rate from chronic respiratory diseases. Despite all of this, however, according to Michael Bloomberg, since the country is worried about their economic issues, it won’t be fixed if they don’t focus on the environmental quality.
Bloomberg has a point of stating the fact that if the country doesn’t focus on its environmental quality, it won’t be able to survive its economy. The reason being is with people dying from chronic respiratory diseases which could be anyone, whether they have money or not, there is a possibility of them having to ask financial aid and when they do, there will be lots of them. The economy will grow even worse. Health is very important, without people working or just living and paying for their expenses, the economy will die very soon.
Although the economy is growing now if people keep dying from pollution there will be no more people to work and no one to keep the economy afloat. However it is hard for a developing country to focus on sustainability when they have so many other problems such as poverty.
Understandable yet unfortunate to see their pollution situation. What do you think should be done to reduce pollution while keeping a steady economy?
I think the pollution problem should be prioritized over the economic growth.