Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

<ul class="summary-list"><li>New York City's air is abysmal this week because of smoke from Canadian wildfires. </li><li>Hazy skies are a shock to New York and other eastern locales but poor air is common in many cities.</li></ul>As a former New York City resident, I'm always curious about what's going on there. This week I didn't expect my texts to be about air quality. Coworkers, friends, and family members in various locales up and down the East Coast texted me about the terrible smoke blanketing their neighborhoods, with a cousin saying he'd had some trouble breathing. Another family member said Manhattan looked apocalyptic.For the past few days, New York City's air has appeared dirtier than the bottom of a subway track. The foul air from massive Canadian wildfires is expected to linger through at least Saturday. As shocked as New Yorkers — and people in other big cities from Detroit to Washington, DC — might be to barely be able to make out their skylines, this is nothing new for many people who live in other parts of the world. Lahore, Pakistan; Hotan, China; and Bhiwadi, India, had the worst air quality in the world in 2022, according to <a href="https://www.iqair.com/us/world-most-polluted-cities" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data from IQ Air</a>. My colleague Spriha Srivastava wrote that New York's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-air-quality-awful-pollution-every-day-delhi-2023-6">suffocating smog reminds her of growing up in Delhi</a>. Indeed, New York City has found itself atop the rankings — and above all of the perennial offenders — for having the worst air quality and being hazardous to breathe. New York Mayor Eric Adams said that by Wednesday afternoon the <a href="https://abc7ny.com/air-quality-nyc-forecast-alert-canada-wildfire-smoke/13357814/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">air quality index hit 484</a>, out of a scale of 500. As of midday Thursday, it's around 180 — still not great.New Yorkers and others are getting a taste of what it can be like to live in Doha, Qatar, and Shanghai, where at least air pollution <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1283503/china-annual-pm25-particle-levels-shanghai/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">appears to be improving</a>.<div type="image" title="A hazy Manhattan skyline" height="2268" width="3023" msid="100858112" hostid="261"></div>In many developed economies, expectations about clean air are baked in. But that wasn't always the case, even in the US. Landmark legislation like the Clean Air Act, signed into law by President Nixon in 1970 and beefed up in 1990, acted like a giant air filter for the nation. Today, in many global cities where the air quality is poor, the focus is often on building economies to lift people out of poverty. "They're in a period of rapid economic growth," Robert Kremens, a physicist who studies wildfires, told Insider. "They sacrifice air quality over human health." He said those decisions are often understandable because the focus is on ensuring citizens aren't going hungry, for example. Yet there are consequences from the pollution as well. A study published last year found 86% of people living in the world's urban spaces encounter air pollution that's <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00350-8/fulltext" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more than seven times</a> above guidelines put out by the World Health Organization back in 2005. Cleaner air is something the US now takes for granted — even out west where smoke from wildfires is far more common. Kremens, who is with the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science at Rochester Institute of Technology, said the US made a decision decades ago to make cleaner air a priority. That meant a big drop in pollution from industrial smokestacks and tailpipes. That was quite a change from the years before the federal government had the authority to regulate what America was sending into the sky. In 1948, for example, over the course of five days in Donora, Pennsylvania, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4133758/#:~:text=The%20Clean%20Air%20Act%20of,from%20stationary%20and%20mobile%20sources." target="_blank" rel="noopener">20 people died</a> and thousands more were made sick by air pollution that spewed from a factory. It was incidents like this and seminal works like Rachel Carson's 1962 book "Silent Spring" on the effects of insecticides that propelled a nascent environmental movement.When the <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/earth-day.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first</a> Earth Day took place in April 1970, air pollution was a major problem in most US cities. In 1969, a river in Cleveland topped with industrial runoff caught fire, something that had happened at least a <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught-fire-least-dozen-times-no-one-cared-until-1969-180972444/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dozen</a> times before. Almost one in 10 Americans took part in demonstrations or activities on the first Earth Day, and those participants sought something in particular: government action. Those actions have since made such a difference that many of us are now shocked by what poor air quality looks like."I'm going out to LA tomorrow. It's not red anymore. It used to be red when we went there," Kremens said this week from his office in Rochester, New York. "This is a societal decision, where we're going to clean up the air and the water." Kremens pointed to the Clean Air Act and the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Clean Water Act</a> as examples for what can be done when enough attention is paid to an environmental challenge. These advance are likely why the recent haze choking so many eastern cities has been so jarring, even for Kremens, who has gone around the world studying — and fighting — fires for more than 20 years. "I go outside and it smells like Montana," he said. "I have so many pictures on my wall that look like here now, but they're from Utah and Montana and places I've worked out west."I'm looking forward to another batch of photos from friends and family in eastern cities — pictures showing clear skies.

New Yorkers are getting a taste of what it's like to live in the pollution of Delhi, Doha, and Shanghai

<ul><li>A recent study by Greenpeace has revealed that India ranks third on the world’s list of most polluted countries. </li><li>Seven of the world’s 10 most polluted cities are in India. </li><li>Globally, the alarming increase in air pollution is expected to cause 7 million premature deaths in the next year.</li></ul>A new study has revealed that India accounts for seven of the 10 most polluted cities in the world, with Gurugram ranking as the worst in the world with highest level of pollutants. Countrywise, India ranks third on the world ranking for <a href="https://www.airvisual.com/world-most-polluted-cities?continent=&amp;country=&amp;state=&amp;page=1&amp;perPage=50&amp;cities=">highest</a> PM 2.5 concentration, which are tiny particles believed to the most harmful for human health. Gurugram, in the National Capital Region, is the most polluted city in India and the world — with an average <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/21193/latest-air-pollution-data-ranks-worlds-cities-worst-to-best/">air quality index</a> at 135.8, recorded last year. Other Indian cities that rank in the top 10 list includes Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Bhiwadi, Noida, Patna, and Lucknow . The report published by Greenpeace, India has highlighted that the alarming increase in air pollution may cause seven million premature deaths globally next year due to unequal distribution of PM 2.5 particles contributing to air pollution. Overall, 64% of the 3,000 cities covered in the report surpassed the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines on PM2.5 exposure, which includes pollutants such as sulphate, nitrate and black carbon among others. These particles may also lead to lung and heart disorders. This comes when India already has the most number of real-time data coverage centers, monitoring the <keyword id="2071721" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Air-Quality-Index">air quality index</keyword> around the country. It’s evident that in addition to monitoring, there is a pressing need to set pollution reduction targets and consumption caps on polluting fuels such as coal, petroleum and diesel in the most polluted areas. Productivity losses from pollution covers nearly 8.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in India, as per the World Bank analysis. In fact, stubble burning contributing to pollution, has lead to economic loss of ₹ 2 trillion in India, annually. Stressing on the world economy Yeb Sano, Executive Director of Greenpeace South East Asia <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/21193/latest-air-pollution-data-ranks-worlds-cities-worst-to-best/">said</a> “Air pollution steals our livelihoods and our futures, but we can change that. In addition to human lives lost, there’s an estimated global cost of $225 billion in lost labour, and trillions in medical costs. This has enormous impacts, on our health and on our wallets.” According to another <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/most-polluted-cities-in-india-will-still-have-filthy-air-despite-ncap-says-greenpeace/articleshow/67749627.cms">report</a> by Greenpeace on pollution, even if the country reduces PM10 levels that it targets to accomplish by 2024, India will still have 139 cities with hazardous pollution levels. Here’s a list of the 10 most polluted cities across the globe: <ol><li>Gurugram, India</li><li>Ghaziabad, India</li><li>Faisalabad, Pakistan</li><li>Faridabad, India</li><li>Bhiwadi, India</li><li>Noida, India</li><li>Patna, India</li><li>Lucknow, India</li><li>Hotan,China</li><li>Lahore, Pakistan</li></ol>See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/most-polluted-cities-in-india-will-still-have-filthy-air-despite-ncap-says-greenpeace/articleshow/67749627.cms">India's plan to fight air pollution has a flaw, says Greenpeace</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/pollution-aside-stubble-burning-may-have-cost-india-a-loss-of-2-trillion-study/articleshow/68264811.cms">Pollution aside, stubble burning may have cost India a loss of ₹2 trillion: Study</a>

India accounts for 7 of the world’s 10 most polluted cities — with Gurugram ranked as the worst: Study

Nothing changed for India on Mercer’s Quality of Living rankings 2016. The survey ranked Vienna has city with best quality of living for third straight year. 
 
But, nothing much changed for Indian cities on the quality of living scale, scoring nearly the same as they did last year. 
 
Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai emerged as best options for lower crime rate, less air pollution and improved options for international and reputable English speaking schools. 
 
Hyderabad also slipped one rank from last year to 139 in the overall rankings and Pune ranked at 144. 
 
Mumbai and New Delhi were at 152 and 161, respectively. 
 
However, the rankings revealed that Indian cities were safer than most others in South Asia. 
 
Sri Lanka's capital Colombo was above Hyderabad by 6 ranks, at 132, Dhaka in Bangladesh is ranked 216 and Pakistan's Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi are ranked 193, 199 and 202 respectively. 
 
Meanwhile, Vienna was followed by Zurich (2), Auckland (3), Munich (4) and Vancouver (5). 
 
Mercer's Quality of Living surveys taken into account political and social environment, medical care and health considerations, public services, recreation facilities and natural environment amongst others. 
 
(Image: Thinkstock)

Indian cities make no progress on quality of living rankings, Hyderabad emerges as best

You Searched For "lahore air pollution" and got 3 results

New Yorkers are getting a taste of what it's like to live in the pollution of Delhi, Doha, and Shanghai

Tim Paradis

India accounts for 7 of the world’s 10 most polluted cities — with Gurugram ranked as the worst: Study

BI India Bureau

Indian cities make no progress on quality of living rankings, Hyderabad emerges as best

BI India Bureau

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides