What is the AQI? Can we go do PE?”, is a daily question in a school lives between the months of November to January. During this period daily AQI level touch 500 ppm (particles per million) – a level which is known to cause burning in the eyes, a cough and also exacerbated many lung conditions.
Due to this being the unfortunate state of our lives on a daily basis, in Delhi we celebrate if the AQI reaches 250, while other countries are declaring hazard warnings if their AQI touches 200. This shouldn’t be the case and instead of celebrating a rare day when the AQI is low, we should constantly work towards reducing the AQI level.
Such a high AQI has many harmful effects, with one being a decrease in the average life span. This claim is evidenced by a the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI), a project by the University of Chicago. Under this project the Energy Policy institute at the university of Chicago has analysed if there is a causal relationship between air quality and life span. Their research has indicated that a decrease in air quality to WHO recommended levels decreases ones life span significantly in countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. To come to such a conclusion this project has studied how to convert PM 2.5 and PM 10 levels to a decrease in the number of years one lives. It started by first analysing the impact that pollution levels in China had on peoples’ lifespans. As time progressed data was collected for other countries and generalised to a few other countries. Today, AQLI presents maps for different regions in 83 countries which show a decrease in the lifespan for different regions in those countries, for example it shows that if pollution levels in Delhi are brought down to WHO levels the life span of Delhiites would increase by close to 12 years, while the lifespan of a person living in Mumbai would increase by close to 3 years. This then provides us another reason to work towards decrease air pollution in our city Delhi – thus we need to do everything we can to breathe cleaner air!
Jai Kalra 11B
