90% of world's population breathes badly polluted air: WHO
Geneva, May 2: Nine out of every 10 people on the planet breathe air that contains high levels of pollutants and kills seven million people each year, according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) study released on Wednesday.
The study is an analysis of what the WHO says is the world's most comprehensive database on ambient air pollution. The organisation collected the data from more than 4,300 cities and 108 countries, reports CNN.
People in Asia and Africa face the biggest problems, according to the study.
More than 90 per cent of air pollution-related deaths happen there, but cities in the Americas, Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean also have air pollution levels that are beyond what the WHO considers healthy.
The new WHO data show that US cities on the more polluted side of the list include Los Angeles, Bakersfield and Fresno, California; Indianapolis; and the Elkhart-Goshen area of Indiana.
Peshawar and Rawalpindi in Pakistan, have some of the highest particulate air pollution levels in the database. Varanasi and Kanpur in India; Cairo; and Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia, also show higher levels.
"I'm afraid what is dramatic is that air pollution levels still remain at dangerously high levels in many parts of the world," CNN quoted Maria Neira, director of the WHO's Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health, as saying.
"No doubt that air pollution represents today not only the biggest environmental risk for health, but I will clearly say that this is a major, major challenge for public health at the moment and probably one of the biggest ones we are contemplating."
Particle pollution, a mix of solid and liquid droplets in the air, can get sucked into and embedded deep in your lungs when you breathe. That can lead to health conditions including asthma, lung cancer, heart disease, stroke and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), according to the study.
These outdoor particulates -- including sulphate, nitrates and black carbon -- are largely created by car and truck traffic, manufacturing, power plants and farming. In total, air pollution caused about 4.2 million deaths in 2016, it added.
"Many of the world's megacities exceed WHO's guideline levels for air quality by more than five times, representing a major risk to people's health," Neira said. This is "a very dramatic problem that we are facing now".
Cleaner air accounts for in cities like like Wenden, Arizona (population 2,882), or Cheyenne, Wyoming (population 64,019).
The Eureka-Arcata-Fortuna area of California; Battlement Mesa, Colorado; Wasilla, Alaska; Gillette, Wyoming; and Kapaa, Hawaii, are all on the cleaner-air list.
One of the bigger US cities with cleaner air is Honolulu, according to the WHO data.
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Karnataka Dy CM Shivakumar meets Cong's Vokkaliga legislators on caste survey report
Bengaluru (PTI): Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar has held discussions with Congress legislators from his Vokkaliga community regarding the "caste census" and said the opinion expressed at the meeting will be shared with the Cabinet on April 17.
While he did not share details, the senior Congress leader said they discussed on what has to be told to the cabinet in one voice.
"I have tried to inform our legislators about the contents of the report to an extent. The legislators have shared their opinion. We have discussed on what has to be told to the cabinet in one voice and we will place it accordingly,” Shivakumar said.
Other than Vokkaliga Congress legislators, Ministers Ramalinga Reddy, Krishna Byre Gowda, Sudhakar, Cheluvarayaswamy, and former State Backward Classes Commission Chairperson Jayaprakash Hegde, among others attended the meeting held on Tuesday night.
The Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes' report was placed before the cabinet last Friday, and it will be discussed at a special cabinet meeting scheduled on April 17.
The findings of the survey are reportedly contrary to the "traditional perception" with regard to the numerical strength of various castes, especially the dominant Veerashaiva-Lingayats and Vokkaligas, making it a politically sticky issue. Ministers from these two communities are said to be preparing to place their objections during the next cabinet meeting, sources said.
The Vokkaligara Sangha, the apex body of the influential Vokkaliga community, earlier on Tuesday officially registered its strong protest to the survey report, calling it "unscientific”.
They have urged the state government to reject it and conduct a fresh survey while warning of strong agitation if the government proceeds with it.
The survey report, the details of which are not officially out yet, reportedly estimates the population of the Lingayat community at 66.35 lakh and the Vokkaliga community population is said to be at 61.58 lakh.
Asked whether the Vokkaliga legislators and ministers are fine with the community’s population figures mentioned in the report, Shivakumar said, "We are not worried or thinking about one community, as Congress president and ministers, protecting all communities is our duty and we will work accordingly.
"We are not ready to find mistakes in the system that has been followed while preparing the report, they have done a detailed exercise. Opposition parties are trying to create confusion through media, we will respond to it," he added.
Noting that it was the previous Congress party government that had commissioned the survey in 2015 and crores of rupees had been spent on it, he said, a section of media is reporting away from the facts regarding the contents of the survey report stating that the Muslim population was more.
Earlier, Shivakumar, who is also the state Congress president, was a signatory, along with a couple of other Vokkaliga ministers, to a memorandum submitted by the community to the chief minister, requesting that the report and the data be rejected.
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