Blog 4 - India is Having Trouble Breathing

Imagine living in a city where your biggest fear isn’t the monsters under your bed; it’s the air you breathe in every day. Right now, India ranks number 174^th out of 178 countries on air pollution with 178^th being the worst. The World Health Organization has standards of air quality and Indian cities pollution is six times higher than normal. As for the death toll, more people die of asthma in India than anywhere else in the world and the third leading cause of death in India is air pollution. In Delhi alone, the pollution so severe that it is the cause of over 3,000 child deaths in one year. The reason for this is that developed countries are taking over and building factories that completely ignore any environmental regulations, or bribe their way around them. Not only this, but the car industry is booming here as well. In hopes to help this problem, India’s Environmental Pollution Control Authority has proposed to India’s Supreme Court meets on Monday to hopefully inflict a tax on diesel vehicles, higher automobile registration and parking fees and also by getting more buses.  
It is sad that we are using these people for cheap labor, land and resources and not care to clean up the mess that's left behind. These people now how to deal with the pollution caused by developed countries coming in and taking over. This is a prime example of how our cycle of industrialization doesn't work. The only way we are going to actually be a sustainable, global society is by first, admitting the way we have come to be a "developed" country was wrong. We tried to make it where the environment works for us when it shouldn't be like that at all. Nature is what is keeping us all alive. secondly, with these developing countries, we need to show them that we were wrong and that they need to develop sustainably. With the right knowledge, technology and hope, these developing countries could come to surpass us. If not, if these developing countries stay on the destructive path we have taken and put them, Earth won't be able to handle everything.

Link - http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/opinion/indias-air-pollution-emergency.html?_r=0