Pollution, the real thing
Over the years I have come across pollution in different cities that I have been through, I thought that the North West of China was the worst. There are even some days that I look over Table Bay where I stay in Cape Town in shock at the brown belt of haze hanging over the city. This is minor compared to what I have seen over the past month in India. Nothing can ever prepare you for the extent of the pollution that one will encounter in the south of Cashmere, Punjab and Haryana provinces, it’s beyond and verbal description that I can think of, you just can’t explain it.
I remember entering into Jammu the winter capital of Kashmir, as I ran deeper and deeper into this smoke smelling haze that just got thicker and thicker. You could taste the smoke and diesel fumes as well as other chemical smoke. It burns your eyes and back of your throat. Initially I thought it was just mist with a bit of smog. The shock was still to come.
This just continued as I ran further south into the Punjab province, so this smog got thicker and thicker, burnt my eyes and throat, more and more until I could not run in the smog anymore, I had reverted to running with a face mask just to try and breathe as my chest would close up, wheezing I would grind to a halt, scratch for my Asthma inhaler have to take a lungful, and on I would push, at least 3 times a day I would have a coughing fit so bad that I would nearly vomit. Then to top it off, I got ill and had to go to hospital in Ludhiana, the world’s most polluted city. This place is eventually going to end up as one big death zone; I don’t know how people can even be allowed to live here. I feel that the big business and the government should be held criminally accountable for what is going on here. That they can knowingly let people live and work here and do nothing about it.
I continuously hear, see and read about conferences and papers on pollution and climate change and all the other bullshit that goes with it. Why don’t the bunch of airbags doing all the great green talk do some thing constructive, come on down to India and hold your next conference in the city of Ludhiana. Taste the sweet air of success and maybe you will finally get off you philosophical high horse and do something constructive with the millions of dollars that is wasted on travelling from luxury conference venue to conference venue blowing steam up each others buts to try and convince each other what the cause is.
Do something. Here no one needs to be convinced.