Delhi’s Toxic Sky

Alan Taylor in The Atlantic:

Millions of people in Delhi, India, and neighboring states are struggling to cope with eye-watering smog that has settled on the region—creating some of the worst air quality in years. Government authorities have declared a public-health emergency, closing schools, halting construction, and restricting cars to an “odd-even” system, based on their license plates, to try to halve the number of vehicles on the roads. The toxic stew filling the air comes from a combination of vehicular and industrial emissions and smoke from the seasonal burning of rice-paddy stubble on farms in nearby states.

(COMBO) This combination of images shows tourists visiting the India Gate under heavy smog conditions (top) in New Delhi on November 3, 2019 and tourists visiting India Gate on November 4, 2019, the day after skies cleared (bottom). – Millions of people in New Delhi are suffering in what the Indian capital’s chief minister has called a “gas chamber” of poisonous smog that has prompted authorities to declare a public health emergency. 

More here.