This year, after Diwali,
Delhi was the dirtiest City on the planet!
Sabaash Dilliwalas!
Other than your love for
diesel engine cars you exercise your birth right and Fundamental Constitutional
right to free expression, your exploded crackers!
And you blame the farmers in
neighbouring states for stubble burning. That happens only about 4-6 weeks a
year. That is not the real culprit.
The culprit is you!
You won’t give up driving
your diesel engines, on top of that you go and defy the cracker ban.
“Six year jail for bursting
fire crackers in NCR”, screamed the headlines in bold print!
A few days later the
headlines read, “Ban not enforced Delhi air worst in four years!”
What happened? Nothing on
the part of the authorities. Not even a challan was issued to the offending
parties.
It was simply shameful behaviour
by the citizens. Irresponsible, uncaring, not a thought for the elderly or the children
they are the worst affected.
The government must accept
that these are desperate times. Desperate conditions as such demand that
desperate measures must be taken.
No use making statements,
they must b implemented.
A couple of years ago a
young Swedish teenager burst onto the world environmental scene.
She was Gretta Thunberg, aged
15. She shook up the establishment like no one has before her.
Gretta demanded that the
2015 Paris Climate Agreement be implemented in full.
Speaking at the Davos
Economic Forum she said, “I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic!”
So powerful was young Gretta’s
message that she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize! A single spark become
a prairie fire!
This is how the world is
responding to this catastrophe.
Mayors of twelve cities, Los
Angles, London, Paris, Cape Town, Barcelona, Vancouver, Copenhagen to mention a
few have confirmed they will buy zero emission buses only to have Fossil Fuel
Free streets.
This is how some cities are
tackling the problem.
Singapore is unique. No new
cars to be registered. If you buy a new
car, take the licence plate off the old car and affix it to the new car. Junk
the old car. The number of cars remains static.
Paris: the French capital
has ‘car- free Sundays’. Older cars are banned on weekdays.
Mexico City: 2 million cars
are taken off the streets everyday by a system that restricts road use by
licence plate numbers.
Copenhagen: A Green Capital,
is developing a 500 kilometres bicycle network. Nothing surprising! Even the
Danish PM bicycles to work!
Hamburg: is developing a
car-free ‘Green Net Work’ to cover 40 % of its urban area.
Athens: All diesel cars
could be banned from the City Centre by 2025.
Brussels: Is following the
example of Paris, car-free Sundays.
Madrid: The Spanish capital
will ban all cars from twenty four of its busiest streets.
London: Plans to ban diesel
cars. Britain will ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans from
2030, five years earlier than previously planned.
Oslo: The Norwegian capital
plans to permanently ban all cars.
New York City: Is pedestrianising
more of its main streets.
India has no such vision to
deal with this problem, in spite of some alarming statistics.
One in six deaths in India
is due to air pollution. Worse than cigarette smoking!
NCR air is the world’s
worst!
4 million children, globally,
get asthma due to noxious fumes from the Internal Combustion Engine. 3,50,000
are in India.
Only 10% Indians own cars.
This elite is responsible for the world’s largest gas chamber.
This is not a dooms day
prophesy. It is a scientific fact. If we don’t urgently control the situation,
we may face the very first human-made biodiversity calamity - a mass
extinction!
Not a word from any political party about tackling India’s pollution problems.